Watching Pope Benedict talk is, in some ways, more helpful than reading the text. He reminds me of the Eastern icons that fill our Byzantine parish, only he is a living icon, someone to watch and emulate in his obvious peacefulness and "what me worry? Christ is our hope!" radiance. Very Julian of Norwichy ("but all will be well"). Just as he insisted on the inclusion of art in the Compendium to the Catechism, so we benefit by seeing him talk and not just reading the words on paper.
If, as Amy Welborn opines, he really enjoys the papacy, perhaps it's because this job is more natural to his personality in that it's less confrontational than his old job. Less need to knock heads. On the other hand, it's got to be a tough job for a rather introverted scholar! I wonder sometimes though whether he gets more joy from being able to write and speak constantly about known issues, those basic "block and tackle" issues like the hope and love and mercy of Christ - than on the unknown, that is the knotty theological issues that consumed much of his earlier life.
I was amused by the Holy Father's exchange with the "liberal" Archbishop Pilarczyk, giving him that "Hey, I know you!" grin when the Archbishop rose to ask a question. Before answering Benedict mentioned having an "interesting discussion" with him. Interesting is often a euphemism for 'difficult'. Boy I'd have liked to have been a fly on that wall. One could see that the Archbishop made quite an impression on the Pope. It may be too bold of me to surmise this but one gets the sense Pilarczyk is not easily impressed or cowed and that thus he may have engaged Benedict in a more forthright fashion that many of his brother bishops. Just speculation.
On the priest abuse scandal, I was unburdened by hopes that the Holy Father was going to do anything more than he has already said. There was a time for the woodshed and that's pretty much past. I'm interested now in wondering what message to take from this. Is this Benedict's way of asking all of us to be more merciful? Am I unmerciful? I likely have too much thirst for justice when it comes to some of these bishops, especially Cdl Law. Should I even be opining on any of this? Is it presumptive of me to casually speculate about Pilarczyk, a successor to the apostles? To label him as 'liberal'?
For whatever the known flaws, such as those exhibited by Cardinal Law, maybe the parable of the wheat and the chaff is operative here such that the Pope has to let the wheat and chaff grow together lest in pulling up the roots we lose both, but if so, I wish he'd said so. The root problem, pun unintended, is a lack of faith (as Benedict has said), and you can't force people to have faith.
I was glad he made the point about marriage losing its status as a sacrament in so many eyes since I think that's a huge problem:
"To some young Catholics, the sacramental bond of marriage seems scarcely distinguishable from a civil bond, or even a purely informal and open-ended arrangement to live with another person."
I also thought it interesting that he quoted Mark 10:30 in attempting to get us to see our affluence not as the result of our own efforts but as a result of a promise from God:
"For an affluent society, a further obstacle to an encounter with the living God lies in the subtle influence of materialism, which can all too easily focus the attention on the hundredfold, which God promises now in this time, at the expense of the eternal life which he promises in the age to come (cf. Mk 10:30)."
Is it dangerous to quote that verse in a culture susceptible to the health/wealth gospel? Although this was directed at the bishops of course and in the same sentence eternal life is mentioned.
Update: Don't you think a fine birthday present the Pope might've been a reverent Mass at Nationals stadium? I haven't seen it yet, but I heard it was bombastic and full of the sort of Broadway musical stagecraft that we've come to know and cringe at. I just wonder what the organizers were thinking, assuming they know Benedict's opinion about the Mass and that he's a guest in this country. Do you give the guest what he prefers or do you give the guest a flavoring of your country? In other words, if I go to Germany and it's well known that I don't like sauerkraut, do I get served sauerkraut because it's 'authentic German cooking'? Or does my German host attempt to serve me somehing German but something that he knows I might like? I don't know, again it's unfair of me to opine on this subject since I haven't watched the Mass yet (it's on tape) but then this is a blog...
Update II: A blog friend who was actually there reports that "the musical accompaniment (though not the vocal melody) for the Responsorial Psalm at the Mass at Nationals Stadium was straight out of the Stephen Sondheim Songbook, but other than that I didn't notice any bombast."
Blogs are sort of like that game of telephone where someone tells somebody something and they tell something else and eventually the original word becomes distorted...So it's nice to have this correction.
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