Saturday 16 March 2013

Measuring the Pope

The Media is confused. How can this Pope be quickly categorised and then minimized? Who is telling the truth? Here is a blog post with details of two contradictory reports about the Pope's "meeting" with Cardinal Law. Which one is correct? Even if he did have a discreet chat with Cardinal Law (he did not, by the way) what would he have been doing? Speaking with a sinner? Isn't there a precedent for that?

Others want to brand the Pope with something sinister in his past, in Argentina. Remember what the Media tried to do with Papa Ratzinger and the Hitler youth? The liberal Media (meaning liberal non-Catholics, liberal lapsed Catholics, liberal practising (or "devout") Catholics and those, liberal or not, who do not like religion in any form will try to minimize the Pope's moral authority. Watch for it. Guilt will find an expression one way or another - if not in repentance and confession then in some form of projection. When the Media cannot find any really substantiated bad press against the Pope, it will satisfy itself with half-truths and even base lies (although cleverly constructed). Much of this has to do with that awful nagging small voice at the back of some people's minds. Conscience is not completely silenced; it is like one of those weeds that appears, annoyingly, poking its way through tarmac and even concrete. The roots are never completely pulled out because in order to do that you would have to dig up half the road. Conscience is like that. Uisng another image, you cannot simply force a hand across its mouth; its mutterings can still be heard. Someone like Pope Francis could be a liberator of consciences. Perhaps this is really why the Media is already nervous.

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