Do not be taken in by the deceptive title! This is an article I find completely gratuitous and insulting to the Pope and the Church, for all its feigned ‘gratitude’ which hardly masks its obvious sarcasm.
Because what the writer is really saying is “Thank whatever-it-is that the Pope and the Vatican did not over-react to the Christmas Eve attack on the Pope, and that they exercised common sense! ” Which is saying that one does not normally expect common sense from the Pope and the Vatican!
It comes from La Repubblica, so it figures…. But once again, all logic is thrown to the winds when it is the Church and the Pope at issue – a Benedict derangement syndrome, if one must borrow from the American political lexicon.
I took the effort to translate it because it is indicative of the irrational mentality that pervades those who oppose the Church and the Pope, even in - or perhaps, especially in - persons who consider themselves to be 'intellectual'. It is a prime example of utterly distorted thinking.
From the Pope who was attacked -
a lesson in style
by Curzio Maltese
Translated from
January 8, 2009
It has never happened before and perhaps it won’t again. So I must take the occasion to publicly thank, albeit late, the Holy Father because after having been assailed by a deranged woman on Christmas Eve, he behaved as a dignified and responsible adult.
[How else did he expect the Holy Father to behave? Like a child who would use the occasion to call attention to himself by wailing as hard as he can? As though Joseph Ratzinger had ever deliberately called attention to himself in his long career, much less as Pope! Others took and take attention of him, for good or bad, but that’s an entirely different matter.]
He did not blame the mad act on
Repubblica, or on leftists who are far too secular, or on those who accepted the European court ruling on the display of the Crucifix in schools as something obvious, or on those who have recently investigated the relationship between Church and State.
[He means in Italy, of course, where his newspaper has been crusading against the 0.008% share of Italian tax revenues that goes to the Catholic Church, which is a legitimate arrangement set up by the Lateran Pact amendments, and which the Italian government extended to benefit other religions as well. Except they get much less because they are far outnumbered by Italian Catholics, and every taxpayer must indicate which church he wants to benefit….
And as for all those entities the Pope did not blame, he’s neither senile nor out of his mind to ever think of assigning blame to anyone for what was clearly an act of individual insanity.]
I wish to thank everyone in the Vatican for not having sent squads of cardinals, bishops, opinionated priests, or priest-leaning opinionists to the TV talk shows to explain that the aggression was the result of all the criticisms against the Church in recent years by all those who do not think like them – and who are therefore armed with a profound and violent hate against the Pope, the Church and even of the Baby Jesus.
[When did the Vatican ever do anything as ridiculous as that? On the contrary, Curial prelates must be faulted continually for hardly ever rising to the defense – rational and devoid of blame-mongering - of Benedict XVI all these years when he is buffeted by unfair and vicious blows from all sides!]
One must thank the Church for not having written editors and TV news directors that they must underscore how the attack should not be considered an isolated event but rather the fruit of a poisoned atmosphere. Obviously a demented idea, but one that the media would have gladly disseminated, thus truly poisoning the air.
[If anyone has been spewing poison at all, it has been Repubblica and its like-minded pathological haters of the Church and anyone connected with it – at the slightest pretext, or needing no pretext at all. The fact is that Repubblica and its writers cannot abide the thought that the Pope and the Vatican have failed to take their multiform and various baits over the past five years in any way.
Even Repubblica’s series of alleged exposes accusing the Vatican – which their writers cannot seem to distinguish from the Church in Italy, represented by the Italian bishops conference – of misusing and failing to disclose how the 0.008% tax share is used every year, became a big embarrassment when the CEI showed that for the past several years, it has been paying Repubblica itself advertising costs to carry its annual financial statement doing exactly that!]
And one must thank the Church for not offering as proof of this poison the messages of rejoicing over the Christmas Even attack by imbeciles on the Internet, who were there all right. Though few have bothered with them.
I wish to thank Joseph Ratzinger for not having used the episode in order to promptly demand of the government new laws favorable to Church entities and accusing opponents of the Church of being accomplices to violence.
[But what a mean and malicious mind! When did the Vatican or the Pope – this or other Popes - ever do this ?]
And finally, for not having transformed a sad and painful event – fortunately without grave consequences
[Do not forget the hapless Cardinal Etchegaray!] - into the nth colossal clown show, Italian-style!
I am grateful to the Pope and the Vatican for not having led us into temptation – the temptation of further lowering the level of civility in the public discourse. At the price of making Italy look ridiculous to the rest of the world.
[But when has the Vatican or the Church engaged in less than civil discourse, even against the most vicious and unfounded attacks?]
All that huffing and puffing just to indirectly portray the real attitude of the Church- and Pope-bashers in the feeble rhetorical guise of caustic sarcasm that does not even have a trace of wit – that is, in fact, all nonsense.
And through all that, ignoring the most obvious fact about all this – Benedict XVI has never once referred to the incident in public, relegating it to the occupational hazard that it is, and not calling more attention to himself or to his aggressor. That shows both common sense and class – neither of which the writer of the above article appears to have.
And it was entirely in keeping with the Pope’s December 8 homily, when he spoke about the city’s usually nameless people, whom the media pluck out of anonymity when they can be exploited for having committed a crime or other deed that can be sensationalized into circulation-boosting headlines.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/01/2011 00:58]