How easy is the job of being a right-wing pundit? Well, you come up with a hook for your column like the one Michael Goodwin of the New York Post dreamed up, and you can just write it, knowing full well that the members of your intended audience are so consumed with hate for your intended target that they'll never grasp the ridiculousness of your premise:
Millions of people around the world watched two global powerhouses conduct their most important business in public last week. One did it with dignity and respect. The other was the government of the United States.Yes, Goodwin actually wrote this. Yes, he thinks the Vatican is doing a swell job when one of the most prominent cardinals who'd been expected to travel to Rome to vote on Benedict's successor had to resign after confessing to sexual misconduct, and another one was urged not to attend the conclave because of his role in covering up pedophilia (he, of course, ignored the entreaties). Ultimately, as The New York Times notes," "at least a dozen other cardinals tarnished with accusations that they had failed to remove priests accused of sexually abusing minors were among those gathering in Rome" -- and please note that the problem is so widespread the Times can't even provide an accurate count.
The solemn transition marking the end of Pope Benedict's reign stood in dramatic contrast to the seedy events in Washington.
It was the difference between something done right, with pride, and the undignified, embarrassing way our government does things these days....
A convocation of these guys together is "something done right, with pride"? Well, Michael, you're right about the "pride" part.
And, um, isn't this an apples-and-oranges comparison? Aren't the ceremonies in Rome a lot less contentious because there isn't an Anti-Pope Party angrily contesting and trying to block everything the Vatican does?
Well, Goodwin briefly breaks a sweat trying to anticipate that objection:
It's no answer, or even an acceptable excuse, to defend the bitter sequester fight by saying the decisions are hard and the differences are real. Benedict made an excruciatingly hard decision, one that left him open to ridicule and could have rattled the Church and a billion followers worldwide.What could have happened? Was there ever a possibility that angry mobs of Catholics were going to descend on Rome and force Benedict to serve for life?
Instead, Church leaders quickly mapped an exit process that was a model of grace. Despite the Vatican’s many problems and internal divisions, large crowds sent a pope off into retirement with extraordinary displays of love and gratitude.
But this is all aimed at the Post reader's reptile brain, which has been carefully conditioned: Catholic Church: good. Liberals: evil. No one will actually think about this column. The rubes won't regard it as logically strained. It reinforces all the right preconceived notions.
4 comments:
What happened to our right-wingers?
At on time, they were pissed that Nixon had to leave before his 2nd term was over.
"He shouldn't have left, unless armed troops forced him out!", I remember some relative saying.
And now, after Sister Sarah, the Great Simpleton of Sitka, stepped down as Governor of Alaska, the righties LOOOOOOOVES them some quitters!!!
Uhm no, Mr. (not so) Goodwin, there's no way that the activites around the first Pope to be stepping down in nearly half a millenium, can be described as "dignified."
Especially not after the world-wide child-sex scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church to its very core.
And especially not when that churches hierarchy spent decades (centuries?) covering up child-sex crimes, and as if moving child-molesting Priests and Bishops to another area was the cure, instead of notifying secular authorities to deal with the deviant sex-freaks like the deviant sex-freaks that they are, were, and always will be, without some punishment, and some significant psychiatric help.
And now, the world awaits the next Pontiff.
A Pope who hopefully wasn't involved in child sex-crimes - but in reality, will probably be among those who did the covering-up of child sex-crimes the best.
After all, you can't have an open child sex-criminal, or one who was involved in the covering-up of child sex-crimes, as head of a billion person international corporation, now can you?
Or, can you?
It seems to me, that I'd have to say that we just did.
More rape, pillage and genocide has been commited by the Catholic Church than than all other single entities in the generally accepted history of man combined. It is The Beast. Look it up sometime, the history of The Church can be quite illuminating.
No fear...
Disgusting and, of course, bizarre. Just because the Cardinals are going to "vote" on the New Pope doesn't make what they are doing comperable in any way to the functioning of a democracy of 350 million people making decisions about budgeting.
1) Its a god damned Autocracy.
2) Financial decisions have been made so poorly that the Vatican itself suffered a major meltdown just this year and many people in the know suspect that the Pope is resigning partially because they can't keep running the Vatican as a money laundering outfit now that other countries won't play along.
3) Despite the billions in membership the actual leadership is very, very, small--smaller than the house of representatives, for example. Smaller number of stakeholders = smaller number of conflicts and negotiations.
Oh, hell, its so dumb it makes dumb look smart.
Whoops:
CBS NEWS
Cardinals said Monday they wanted to be briefed about the true state of Vatican dysfunction before they elect the next pope, evidence that the scandal over leaked papal documents is casting a shadow over the conclave and setting up one of the most unpredictable papal elections in recent times.
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