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{"id":2841,"date":"2015-09-23T21:38:47","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T03:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2015-09-23T21:38:47","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T03:38:47","slug":"in-case-you-havent-noticed-that-i-havent-been-writing-about-the-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/09\/in-case-you-havent-noticed-that-i-havent-been-writing-about-the-pope.html","title":{"rendered":"In case you haven’t noticed that I haven’t been writing about the Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Eh.<\/p>\n

I dunno.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just not all that excited about it.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to be a George Will<\/a>-type or the others that pass through my twitter feed saying that the Pope is a Peronist and if he had his way, the entire world would have as cruddy an economy as Peron brought Argentina. \u00a0I think that read in a favorable light, the Pope is simply pointing out the other half of the story: \u00a0it is true that greed, a.k.a., the profit motive behind the desire to build a better mousetrap has led to, well, lots of better mousetraps; on the other hand, as Christians, we are called to share with others. \u00a0Tom Monaghan, the Domino\u2019s founder, struggled with this tension, for instance.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve been told that if I read Laudate Si<\/em>, I\u2019d find that it\u2019s not at all the irrational environmentalist screed that opponents characterize it as.<\/p>\n

So fine.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s like this. \u00a0We\u2019ve got a new archbishop in Chicago. \u00a0He\u2019s fine, I suppose, doing his archbishopy things. \u00a0But from day one, he announced that his priority was politics, specifically promoting amnesty for illegal immigrants<\/a> and opened borders for future arrivals, which made me skeptical of his interest in solving the problems that the Archdiocese of Chicago faces, such as perennial school closings, and the broader challenge of the loss of faith of so many American Catholics, and the need to evangelize. \u00a0It feels as if welcoming in Mexicans and other Latin Americans, then advocating for them politically, is an easy way out, and much the same as Democrats aiming at boosting the numbers of Hispanics as sure-fire boosts to their constituency. \u00a0Never mind the native-born Catholics leaving the church; it\u2019s too hard to try to re-convert them or to improve catechesis and parish life so the next generation stays, at least, so let\u2019s bring in some replacements.<\/p>\n

And now the media is full of \u201cnever mind that the Pope is mostly speaking Spanish; a large and ever-growing portion of his flock is Spanish-speaking, anyway,\u201d and predictions that \u201cthe Pope will use his time here to promote \u2018immigration reform.'\u201d \u00a0And there are so many reports gleeful in anticipation that the Pope is going to give Republicans their comeuppance at his speech in Congress. \u00a0Not to mention all the times the media reports one outlandish thing he says after the next, even if, considering the full context, they\u2019re not that outlandish after all, and besides that, all the times that people are convinced that the Pope is going to up and change Catholic doctrine into, well, Episcopalianism.<\/p>\n

Now, I know that the Pope\u2019s message is more complex than the media portrays. \u00a0I know it\u2019s unfair. \u00a0But I\u2019m not a part of the Francis Fan Club. \u00a0As much as others swoon over him, I just can\u2019t get excited. \u00a0It takes a lot of work to get past the media narrative, and even then, there\u2019s just not an emotional draw, as with John Paul II, whom we saw when we had \u201cnewlywed\u201d seating at a Papal Audience (the only ones closer were the disabled and the newlyweds in wedding gowns), and whose funeral generated wall-to-wall coverage in Germany. \u00a0Heck, Benedict XVI even visited Munich when we were living there, and I could have asked for tickets to the open-air mass, as they were being made available through all the parishes, but I chickened out as it seemed too chaotic an event, and watched it on TV instead.<\/p>\n

So there it is. \u00a0To those of you overflowing with Popemania, sorry to be such a wet blanket. \u00a0But: \u00a0meh.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"