I don\u2019t know when I have read a snottier, snobbier, more relentlessly superficial, arrogant and bigoted piece of dreck than Tina Brown\u2019s latest column in the Washington Post, Reverence Gone Up In Smoke<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sigh\u2026what a disappointment for Tina and her pals \u2013 amid all of that glorious color and pomp of a papal funeral and a conclave, the solemn beauty of the chant, the whole mystical and mysterious sense of Other \u2013 they\u2019d become attracted<\/em>, mildly so, but attracted,<\/em> nevertheless, to the whole \u201creligion thing\u201d. They\u2019d admired the surface of the Lake of Faith, but, sniff<\/em>, they\u2019re much, much too smart to actually partake of the water<\/em> without the right sort of lifeguard<\/em>, darling, you know, one who looks good and tells us we are all holy and lovely and fine and let\u2019s us go on our merry way<\/em>. A lifeguard who will perhaps even join us at all those luncheons and dinner parties, darling, all those too-too tony gatherings, all the witty repartee, all the sweet and haughty laughter we may indulge in as we ridicule those who do not understand or appreciate our lovely educations, our lovely clothing, our lovely hairstyles, our lovely \u2013 so very lovely \u2013 things<\/em>.<\/p>\n There is a lot going on in Brown\u2019s column \u2013 an admission that for the folks on the left the papal election meant nothing more than yet another political defeat. Just as they had deluded themselves on election day (a day on which Kerry\u2019s own pollster predicted a loss by 3% points) to believe that a man who had never actually led the presidential race, who had offered neither real ideas or real military documentation, was definitely going to win the White House back for them, they had decided to believe that somehow the \u201cwinner\u201d of the papal elections would be<\/p>\n \u201csome youthful cardinal we hadn\u2019t even heard of yet, some charismatic dark horse whom the joyful crowds, so many of them young, would immediately recognize as their own.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well\u2026actually\u2026NEWSFLASH, TINA<\/em>\u2026the man who emerged from the balcony was <\/em>recognised, quite joyously, by the very youthful crowd in St. Peter\u2019s Square, as \u201cone of their own.\u201d Those young adults, after boisterous cheering, began their first elated chant: Ben-e-dict-o, Ben-e-dict-o<\/em>.<\/p>\n They get it, the young Catholics. And you and your friends, who seem not to understand what was truly taking place in the Sistine Chapel, or what the papacy means, or what \u2013 for that matter \u2013 Christianity means, do not. To you, it\u2019s all a great big Church of NO <\/em>that won\u2019t let you just do what you want and pet you and say, \u201cwhy, how clever and wonderful you are, dear, here, have a cookie! But not two! Mustn\u2019t get fat now, because otherwise no one will ever love you or think you are a good person\u2026be like the Italians! They<\/em> are not fat!\u201d<\/p>\n I am a little puzzled as to why, exactly, you and your friends feel this poisonous need to go rather overboard in your bigoted nose-wrinkling. I mean, yes, I DO understand to a point. You and your whole generation have had a difficult time moving from childhood of \u201cgimmee what I want\u2026\u201d to the adulthood of \u201ctake what you need\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n How you must have truly hated to hear Cardinal Ratzinger, a day before he became Benedict XVI utter those terribly divisive <\/em>words:<\/p>\n We should not remain infants in faith, in a state of minority. And what does it mean to be an infant in faith? Saint Paul answers: it means \u201ctossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery\u201d (Eph 4, 14)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n No. You could not have liked hearing that, beholden as you are to the age in all of its furious fashion and conformity. So, I DO understand, to a point, why you need to do the \u201csniff and giggle, mock those unsophisticated Christians\u201d thing. It\u2019s hard to break those habits from high school.<\/p>\n But, you know, you do have your own church, so I don\u2019t really know why you have to be so concerned about anyone else\u2019s. You have what Flip Wilson used to call \u201cThe Church of What\u2019s Happening NOW.\u201d The Church of Me First. The Church of Cackling Condescension, The Church of Blithe Nobility: I wrote a check, darling, to each of the \u201cright\u201d causes. You don\u2019t expect me to actually go down into that smelly soup kitchen and dish out hash to those people, do you? <\/em><\/p>\n Not all of your friends are like that of course. Some of them do fund raising for charities and the arts, and hospitals and museums, which is very nice \u2013 although very often the fund-raisers net very little after expenses, still it\u2019s something. And some of your friends do make a point of only flying in private jets which are already heading their way, to \u2013 you know \u2013 conserve energy<\/em>. And some of them step into limos only after they\u2019ve pressed a buck into someone\u2019s hand and congratulated them for keeping it real<\/em>. Sometimes, they even make a \u201cblack power\u201d fist after they do it, even if the bum they\u2019ve treated to coffee is not black.<\/p>\n It\u2019s part of the liturgy of your church, I believe. All those gestures. All that pretty ritual.<\/p>\n What I do think is so funny is that you spend so much time huffing and puffing about how the Christians are trying so hard to suppress, and to close down. And you do not see for a second that you, and all of your co-religionists are the leading proponents of silencing others (I don\u2019t remember it being the religious folk who came after Larry Summers or Jada Pinkett Smith<\/a> because they dared to speak at Harvard Temple in the vernacular<\/em> of plain speech, rather than in the exalted language of political correctness. I don\u2019t recall the religious folk attempting to get the medical records of actors or artists who dealt with addiction to pain killers, or more.)<\/p>\n Your church shouts down, throws pies, mocks, scorches the earth and openly wishes for the violent deaths of others.<\/p>\n It is not a church that walks into leper colonies, or soup kitchens to try to help (that\u2019s what taxes and government are for!) It is not a church that prays for the good of others, unless they are the \u201cright sort\u201d of others, meaning, church-members, only.<\/p>\n There IS a church out there, that is cause for serious concerns about personal and spiritual liberty. But it is not the Christian one.<\/p>\n I read your column and I remember a prophecy I had read long ago. I don\u2019t remember if it was a Fatima prophecy or Lourdes, or some other. Maybe it\u2019s some silliness that I am confusing with personal revelation; it\u2019s late and I am tired. But I remember what the prophecy said. It said that an event would take place \u201cwhich will be seen by the entire world,\u201d and that the event would have the effect of making everyone look into their own hearts, examine their consciences, so to speak, and that there would be many who return to the faith, and others who resist or simply choose to turn away.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps the funeral of John Paul II (whom you did not love any more than you love Benedict, but who was so beloved by others he could not be forcefully opposed) was that event. Over a million people at prayer, on their knees on cobblestone, in Communion with the Lord Jesus. The attraction \u2013 the admittedly superficial attraction \u2013 of the beauty and pomp, and the deep mystery at its core. It was an event seen all over the world, as was the naming of the new pope.<\/p>\n People are choosing. Choose wisely, Tina. If you found yourself \u201cattracted\u201d to the Lake of Faith, no matter how superficially, consider dipping in a toe. Don\u2019t be afraid of the water. It doesn\u2019t burn.<\/p>\n