Papal musings
Mar. 13th, 2013 11:26 pmYeah, I shouldn't care anymore, but I will admit to keeping an eye on CNN this afternoon (while working on a short freelance assignment) to see who the new pope would be.
It's part of my secular as well as my religious DNA. During the first semester of my sophomore year at college, the board of my college newspaper decided to get an Associated Press machine (I guess we would become an associate member or something like that; I don't remember the exact details). The machine didn't get installed in the basement of our building until mid-October. Well, virtually as soon as we plugged the thing in, it went "ding! ding!" and started typing out bulletins that white smoke had been seen at the Sistine Chapel. The election of Pope John Paul II was so exciting at first, because of the huge break with tradition in that he wasn't Italian (he was Polish! With maternal Lithuanian ancestry, even!). But a year or so later, he forced Father Drinan to step down from Congress, and that was my first big disappointment....
Many years later and many steps along the road from Catholicism to Unitarian Universalism ... I certainly do NOT expect any pope in my lifetime to change his (because it's not gonna be "her") tune on birth control, abortion, same-sex marriage, etc. Nope, ain't gonna happen. But I do have a slightly more positive view of Jesuits because I lived in Father Drinan's district for a decade of my life, and the name Francis connotes a strong sense of social justice. If this new Pope Francis can clean house from the scandals and shift the public emphasis from the "social conservative hot button" stuff to caring for the poor and downtrodden, I'll be reasonably OK with that. And he's 76 years old, so chances are we'll have him around for only a decade or so, anyway.
I *would* write about "Father Frank" from my college days, but it's getting awfully late and I'm tired.
I just want to conclude by saying: Happy Birthday,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pasticcio!!!!!
It's part of my secular as well as my religious DNA. During the first semester of my sophomore year at college, the board of my college newspaper decided to get an Associated Press machine (I guess we would become an associate member or something like that; I don't remember the exact details). The machine didn't get installed in the basement of our building until mid-October. Well, virtually as soon as we plugged the thing in, it went "ding! ding!" and started typing out bulletins that white smoke had been seen at the Sistine Chapel. The election of Pope John Paul II was so exciting at first, because of the huge break with tradition in that he wasn't Italian (he was Polish! With maternal Lithuanian ancestry, even!). But a year or so later, he forced Father Drinan to step down from Congress, and that was my first big disappointment....
Many years later and many steps along the road from Catholicism to Unitarian Universalism ... I certainly do NOT expect any pope in my lifetime to change his (because it's not gonna be "her") tune on birth control, abortion, same-sex marriage, etc. Nope, ain't gonna happen. But I do have a slightly more positive view of Jesuits because I lived in Father Drinan's district for a decade of my life, and the name Francis connotes a strong sense of social justice. If this new Pope Francis can clean house from the scandals and shift the public emphasis from the "social conservative hot button" stuff to caring for the poor and downtrodden, I'll be reasonably OK with that. And he's 76 years old, so chances are we'll have him around for only a decade or so, anyway.
I *would* write about "Father Frank" from my college days, but it's getting awfully late and I'm tired.
I just want to conclude by saying: Happy Birthday,
pasticcio!!!!!
