BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

From AOL's (of the Time-CNN family) fairly new and predictably liberal online journal called Politics Daily, here's an item I just came across which was written during the Pope's visit in the Holy Land by Elizabeth Lev who is perhaps one of the few 'conservative' voices on the journal's editorial roster.


Benedict: Where did our love go?
by Elizabeth Lev



Only a year ago, after Pope Benedict XVI's first visit as Pope to American soil, what had originally looked like a bad blind date had blossomed into love at first sight.

In New York and D.C., where one regularly sees dignitaries at Starbucks and on street corners, crowds took the day off and cheered themselves hoarse for the little German guy in the long white gown. Rating 80 percent approval among Catholics, and 70 percent among others, it looked like a love match.

In the intervening year, however, Benedict has gone from dashing suitor to inept husband, at least if the media are to be believed. The honeymoon over, he can now do no right and gets attention only when he commits some gaffe.

The last couple months have seen two noteworthy examples of this: The Williamson case -- where he lifted a sentence of excommunication on four bishops, one of whom questioned the Holocaust -- and his comment, en route to Africa, that condoms will not solve the continent's AIDS problem.

As the Pope continues his eight-day trip to the Holy Land, one can almost hear the media knives being sharpened, with journalists anxiously waiting for the next misstep. (In a recent AP piece, for instance, Steven Gutkin trots out the usual shibboleths, such as B16's erstwhile membership in Hitler Youth and retrograde attachment to the Latin Mass.)

So, where did the love go? Did Benedict betray us? Or have we perhaps become fickle lovers? Could we at least try a little marriage counseling?

By his own admission, Benedict isn't very media-savvy. As a theologian and academic, his thoughts aren't easily reduced to sound bites. When he speaks, it isn't to fill a few minutes of airtime and then be forgotten; his words become part of a 2,000-year body of teaching. He's less worried about being misquoted on the evening news than he is about misrepresenting the doctrine of the Church.

It's a bit like finding out your husband has lousy taste in clothes, but diligently saves for the future. Benedict thinks in terms of the long haul, so sometimes he may seem out of fashion.

So Benedict thinks that condoms don't solve the AIDS problem in Africa, and this is news? John Paul II said the same thing over and over during his pontificate and was never vilified the way Benedict was last month.

And Benedict lost more than face on this one: Handing the media the condom bone to gnaw on at the beginning of his trip obscured the whole motivation of his visit to Africa: a heartfelt commitment to the dignity of the suffering continent.

By focusing on the more titillating AIDS, sex and condom question, the media neatly sidestepped Benedict's challenges both to Africa's leadership and to the wealthy West.

Similarly, Benedict's attempt to heal a Church schism turned into a fiasco because of Bishop Williamson's ridiculous historical revisionism.

Benedict's response was a graceful and sincere apology, along with measures to make certain this hurtful event would never be repeated. How many have longed in vain for such sensitivity from their spouses?

It seems that the media still pines for a former love -- John Paul II -- and are unwilling to fully accept these second nuptials. This is understandable, but unfortunate.

All media outlets knew John Paul II was news. For 10 years, they rented every rooftop near the Vatican, waiting to cash in on his death. When a Turkish assassin shot John Paul at the beginning of the pontificate, his dramatic rush to the hospital, the mysterious connections of his aggressor, and his miraculous recovery provided news fodder for months.

But more than that, John Paul II was a man of images and gestures, a showman. Everyone has a favorite photo of JPII, swinging a cane Charlie Chaplin style or my personal favorite, clasping his balsa wood cross as he watches the last Good Friday procession of his life. He was trained as an actor, and in a world where actors are the new divinities, he was able to command his audience.

Pope Benedict, who from the outset had been dubbed by the media a "transitional Pope," remains strong, healthy and coherent, so there's not much news there.

And after spending millions awaiting the death of JPII, the media are not so inclined to throw the same kind of money into waiting for Pope Benedict's funeral.

It has been said that people came to see John Paul, whereas they come to listen to Benedict, and there is some truth to that. Those who take the time to absorb his message will come to realize that Benedict is also a magnificent communicator, but in words, not pictures.

[Oh yes, in pictures, too! Ask any Benaddict!]

While Ms. Lev does make many excellent points, I do not quite agree with the metaphor of Benedict as the second spouse, as it were, after John Paul II, with reference in particular to the 'affection' of Americans.

First of all, the observations apply more to American media rather than the American public. Recent US polls show the Pope with as much as 80% favorable rating with them - despite the fact that the media have returned to being decidedly disapproving and derisive since the US visit.

Then, it's not that the media has turned fickle on Benedict. They never professed any love for him, to begin with, and in fact have always been downright hostile, even down and dirty.

There was a respite during his visit to the United States only because the person he truly is - as well as the reaction of the people present at his events - was so obvious from the virtually 24/7 TV coverage of his visit that the MSM had no choice but to report things as they were. There was no way they could carry on with their usual distortions and misrepresentations during that time!

Then the US trip was followed by a similar triumph in Sydney, and then in France, where no one expected it. That only made his detractors in MSM even more anxious to spring on him at the first opportunity with all the pent-up hostility of months - and all their poisoned knifeblades and fangs unsheathed. They had been salivating too long for another Regensburg.

The first chance they got was a remark he made in his Christmas message to the Roman Curia, which they widely misrepresented in this way: "Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction." (The lead from Reuters).

That canard didn't have enough legs, but almost exactly a month later came the Willlamson case. It was the perfect pretext for a firestorm against Benedict - motivated by a bigotry that was as virulent as the very anti-Semitism the critics purported to condemn in Williamson, and, by barely disguised and completely unfounded innuendo, in a Pope who happens to be German.

That pretext was seized, not just by the media, but worst of all, by dissenting liberals within the Church itself, including ranking prelates, who saw it as a failsafe club with which to beat the Pope over the head and somehow assert their self-proclaimed 'superiority' to him - in a pastoral sense, PR-wise, and even, God forbid!, morally. After all, what could be more politically correct, i.e., holier-than-thou hypocritical, than to render sanctimonious even if sincere obeisance to something as sacrosanct as the Holocaust?

Now, that story had outsize seven-league boots, because aggrieved Jews kept it going and still do. For all the diplomatic words that many of them have said since then, establishment Jews have decided that they can target two birds with one stone by pounding on this issue - one, continually cast public doubt on Benedict's goodwill towards Jews (even the Rabbi Laus and David Rosens who could not have been more glowing in their praise of Joseph Ratzinger's excellent positions on Judaism at the time he was elected Pope), and 2) bounce this off to somehow strengthen their case against Pius XII.

And then, much to the sadistic gloating of Benedict's detractors, along came the statement about condoms and AIDS barely two months later. In the near-unanimous media scenario that followed, the most intellectual and intelligent leader alive today was derided and denounced right and left as though he were some ignorant, unread and uninformed clod who habitually bumbles and stumbles about worse than Inspector Clouseau.

It doesn't get more outrageous than when someone in the Catholic media like John Allen joins in the general fun at Benedict's expense by labelling him 'Benedict the bungler' even if he does so with a CYA question mark!

And so, the trip to the Holy Land was open season on Benedict. In which once again, the general MSM attitude was typified by smart-alecky John Allen's patronizing words, 'This trip will be considered successful if he can just manage not to start a war." You would think the Holy Father goes around just spoiling for a fight and looking to start one.

Much to their chagrin, however, there was nothing they could hold against him during that trip. [Except for a feeble attempt to make an issue of the shoes not taken off inside the mosque in Jordan - once again, our friend Allen among those taking the lead on a matter the Jordanians themselves had taken thoughtful precautions not to make an issue!]

Still, the Western media gladly served as the echochamber for the carping by Israeli and rightwing Jewish circles - for whom, in any case, nothing Benedict says and does will ever be good enough. (Their animus is twofold - because Benedict is German, and because they have an inbred anti-Catholicism just as bad as the anti-Jewish tradition among European Catholics in past centuries.)

In a lifetime through six Popes so far, I don't recall ever having read ad hominem attacks on a Pope before, as the ones now routinely and reflexively launched by the media at Benedict XVI at any pretext. St. Sebastian could not have received more slings and arrows than Benedict draws daily from his detractors. Lucky for us he is in God's hands.

BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT IN NOMINE DOMINI.