View from the Foothills

In the interim between my earlier and most recent posts, the Roman Catholic Church managed to bid farewell to the only pope I've known and elect a new one. With the usual caveat that I am not Catholic, I found the process interesting on a number of levels.

First, whatever your thoughts on John Paul's theology, he was unquestionably on the right side of history on the biggest issue of his day, namely the defeat of communism. It is amazing how quickly we forget how different the world was before the wall fell in 1989. As a budding political science major in college at the time, I was well-versed in the unshakeable stability of the bipolar world , which of course was the unchanging reality right up until the moment when it suddenly wasn't. The wall simply fell, and the days of communism were numbered. For that, we in large part have to thank John Paul II (along with Reagan and Thatcher). John Paul definitively answered Stalin's question about how many divisions the Pope had, and the resounding answer was many more that Uncle Joe.

Second, it was interesting watching the media try to cover the papal election. Like a hammer for whom the whole world appears to be a nail, the media galloped off to cover the event as a European redux of an American presidential election. The problem is that you simply can't fit the round peg into the square hole of your storyline. The Pope and the papal election date back nearly 2,000 years. They simply don't work or think in modern day media time. Watching the media's befuddlement over a secret election behind closed doors with ballots burned and inspiration from the Holy Spirit was entertaining to say the least.

And finally, when Pope Benedict emerged, there was a ceremonial gnashing of teeth because the conclave failed to appoint a pope with the appropriate liberal sensibilities. Why this was at all a surprise is beyond me. This is the Catholic Church. Their entire reason for being is to espouse and preach certain immutable and unchanging truths. As the leader of the church, you would expect someone who actually believes in these truths that define what it means to be Catholic. Being the head of the Catholic Church means things like no female priests and opposition to abortion. The last pope was a Catholic, and surprise, surprise, the new pope happens to be a Catholic too.