Friday, April 08, 2005

Is the pope still dead?

[Thursday's post delayed for technical reasons, inserted here...]




I haven't seen a TV in over two weeks, and I have barely listened to the news lately - since so little real "news" is being reported.

Seems people are pretty bored hearing about armed skirmishes and suicide bombers and helicopter crashes. And it seems Reagan's week-long ride into that California sunset was just a small potatoes warm up for this week of world wide fare thee wells.

I realize that the pope did some good for people, but this sort of overwhelming unity for the Catholic church just can't be a good thing.

Since when do the flags of U.S. government buildings (and somehow perversely "pc" businesses) go to half mast for a Polish religious leader?

The beauty of the irony, it seems to me, is that the pope was adamently opposed to many of this nation's policies and actions - especially abroad - and rightly so. He was not lenient about the death penalty or imperialist wars such as ours, and he warned against the abusive tendencies of our arrogant brand of capitalism - as potentially (and potently) harmful as authoritarian communism, he professed. So those flags are bowing down to one of our most renowned, bravely spoken and powerful critics. So are we sort of thanking him for leaving the world stage, the bully pulpit in Rome?

Or is it that now that he's dead, it seems if we just fall all over ourselves wishing him farewell enough, we'll win him over? He'll look down on us approvingly from behind the pearly gates?

Such ad nauseum falderall, through rose-colored glasses (sacramental wine glasses, sideways), discounts and perhaps even disrespects the pope's carefully aimed criticism of us.

We weren't worthy, and it seems we feel we still aren't.

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