If you live in NYC, one thing you could not escape no matter how hard you might try was the visit of Pope Francis.
The coverage reminded me of old newsreels I have seen of them welcoming Charles Lindbergh with a big Parade down Park Avenue and then down Broadway, with endless cheering throngs and almost hysterical adulation.
They showed over and over again footage of two women , trapped (apparently forever) in wheelchairs ,who had been touched by the Pope and now were convinced they would–maybe soon– walk again.
“I believe, I believe” said this one tearful young woman.
Politicians could not get close enough to the Papal Father. They seemed to be jostling each other out of the way trying to be the closest to him on some occasions.
Another note was struck on Late Night Television by the talk show comedian, Stephen Colbert, who among other things had a comic-toned panel discussion of the Pope and their own Fath with Maria Shriver, comedian Jim Gaffigan (?) and some man whose name I forget= I just remember he is famous in some circles and is openly gay and gave a rather eloquent defense of how he could be a “good Catholic’ and still be gay when subjected to Colbert’s comic needling.
Colbert covered the whole topic with a weird mixture of slapstick, satire and classic show biz one-liners.
Dubbed “The Pope’s Funniest Fan” by Time magazine, Colbert has said that he attends church, observes Lent and teaches Sunday school. “I love my church, and I’m a Catholic who was raised by intellectuals, who were very devout,” he once told Time Out magazine. “I was raised to believe that you could question the church and still be a Catholic.”
There were dissenting voices but they were shrugged off by the media ..
Closer to home, my cousin’s wife whom I will call Siobhan– she comes from a traditional Catholic mileu ( her husband is a retired cop; her father was an immigrant from Ireland who became what she says was like a stereotype of a big city Irish cop ( with two sons who who were firefighters and belonged to an Irish County association, etc. etc.)
Siobhan was visited last week by two female cousins who may represent the “underground anti-Pope sentiment” in America. They are devout Catholics who despise Francis as ” a Socialist from Argentina,” and have a lot to say on the topic. (You will NOT hear any of these people given much time in the media coverage, as I said). 
Siobhan herself is in the difficult position of having “lost her faith” and not daring to reveal this to her blood relations ( although she has confided in me). She doesn’t care much about the Pope or his visit — in fact, she really doesn’t want to hear about it.
Well, if she lived in NYC, this would be impossible to do and still Live in the Real World..
I have nothing against Pope Francis, in fact, I feel his remarks about “Mercy” as an important human capability were actually pretty moving. But amidst the weird Oceanic onslaught of the media coverage, I found myself confused about things such as if he was against gay marriage ( there was a hint of this in the coverage, but nothing strident),; his repetitive remarks about “Family Values” were somehow a little ambiguous, and for instance his speech at Ground Zero to commemorate Sept 11 seemed very dry and lacking in much depth of feeling. But maybe that was just because I had become a little exhausted with not being able to escape Pope news in the local media and had to go to the internet to learn about the Haj disaster and religious conflict in Nigeria , and, to my delighted surprise, a long film review on the Prague Post internet website on a movie called ” Hitchcock/Truffaut.”
Well, the Pope’s visit left Boehner in tears and Colbert in stitches and who knows how most non-Catholics felt ( now that I think of it, that was a topic that was avoided altogether, maybe not unsurprisingly)
It seems to be the big winner in all this was Colbert, who seemed to be having the Time of His Life and, and really , as the saying goes, being able to “have his cake and eat it too.” And you know, for all his insouciance, i doubt he really offended anybody ( or anybody we will hear about),
Hats off, Stephen Colbert.
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