Posted on 08/06/2002 5:10:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
One picture told it all: At Toronto's airport, the world's eye caught little ten-year-old Georgia Rae Giddings as she emotionally burst into tears after Pope John Paul II embraced her. For the next hour, she recalled the moment repeatedly before crowds of journalists. "When I stood in front of the Pope, I just got dizzier and dizzier," she said.
"Out of Step" with the Contemporary World
She's not the only one. Many of the million or so attending the World Youth Day celebrations reported the same phenomenon.
Most people would be astonished to hear that the Holy Father might be the most beloved person in the world among young people. After all, we're always told the Catholic Church's message is irrelevant, outmoded and - worst of all - square. Cynics charge it has nothing meaningful to say to today's fun-loving, hedonistic youth.
According to the press, polls repeatedly show the Pope's relentless opposition to contraception, abortion, homosexuality, pornography, pre-marital sex, easy divorce and other fruits of the sexual revolution is anathema to the modern and fashionable. (It goes without saying that no one knows the mind of the modern and fashionable like the media.) The Holy Father, they conclude, is out of step with the contemporary world.
A Rebuke to the Modern Age
Okay, then how do you explain nearly a million kids at the Pope's World Youth Day? And where else would the gathering of that many youngsters be termed a "disappointing" turnout?
Perhaps it's because young people's love for the Holy Father is a direct rebuke to the modern age, and thus to its primary megaphone, the modern journalist. No institution has been a more powerful force for secularism, materialism or sexual freedom than the media.
Most reporters today are alienated from religion, looking at faith as little more than an ancient superstition. They don't understand it, so they don't cover it - unless a "religious" story involving scandal or human weakness pops up. That they comprehend.
In listening to World Youth Day participants speak, their deep affection for the Holy Father is clear. The same words keep popping up over and over to describe him - "radiance," "hero" "world's role model," "leader of youth," "our rock," "following in St. Peter's footsteps," and "the person closest to Jesus."
Thus, reasons for the Pope's youthful legions are quite simple: When young people see the weary, lined, rugged, leathern visage of the Holy Father, they see the face of love. Not love the way Hollywood loves them - as walking wallets, rear ends in movie theaters, pairs of ears to listen to the latest CDs - but real affection, from someone who sees them rightfully as precious individuals with eternal souls. And when the Vicar of Christ's deep, aged, honeyed voice is intoned, it seems they're hearing the very Words of God.
An Inexhaustible Treasure of Grace
This, then, is the Papal appeal to the young: faith, as the steadfast leader of the Church, the eternal Bride of Christ; hope, offering refuge for the restless heart; and love, from a elderly man walking in persona Christi. Of these, as St. Paul says, the greatest is love.
This is what Georgia Rae Giddings reacted to. After telling the Pope she loved him, he tenderly stroked her head and whispered gently that he loved her too, the perfect personification of Cardinal Newman's great motto of "Heart Speaketh to Heart." It's hard to imagine any other world leader reacting this way to the presence of an unexpected young stranger - so fearless, so compassionate, so Christlike.
No wonder kids love him.
Catholicism may be known as the Old Faith, it's the Young Faith too, with a remarkable, time-tested ability to outlive every fad that mocks it as passe. Each Catholic generation discovers anew the richness and power of their ancient religion, finding within it an inexhaustible treasure of grace and beauty, boundless as the sea. Once that discovery is made, as a million young pilgrims recently learned, no worldly interest can ever again quite satisfy.
Well, based on their erroneous remarks about Fr. Abbott, as provided to us by ultima ratio, it's hard for me to get excited about their level of scholarship.
I'm glad to hear that they weren't so dishonest as to manufacture a quote. But their interpretation of Fr. Abbott's footnote was so wide of the mark that it is small consolation.
sitetest
They are NUTZ. Both of them. They are unreliable. I ahve read their distortions for years. What is worse though, is that they are saints compared to Atila Guimares (SP?). This guy is the Mother of all nuts...man oh man.He and his sidekick Marian Horvath make Vlad the Impaler seem like Donahue
You're a kook. You have heard so many alarm bells that your reasoning abilities have been severely damaged. Ultima ratio? No.Ultima retro,yes. Since you don't know what goes on in the Catholic Church except for what your extremist, biggoted sources tell you, you will have to take my word for it that the Koran is not being used in Sunday masses. What harm do you think the pope's goodwill gesture has done to the faithful? Only the the self appointed elite think that the average Catholic can't discern what is legitimate or not. What arrogance you have!
You ascribe infallibilty to this Pope's every statement and gesture, no matter how out of line with past magisteria they are.
Because I'm not in a state of perpetual panic and paranoia, you accuse me of pope worship. All I've said is that I am not qualified to make judgements about his motives and actions. Perhaps if I were a seminary drop out I would be qualified. But I'm not. Who the pope prays beside, what gestures he makes are pretty darn inconsequential to me and my faith. If you are so impressed by the minutiae of the pope maybe it is you who has the worship problem. But I know better. It is your abiding animus that allows you to freak out over such trivia.
Finally, your veiled reference to books on the subject of the supposed anti-semitism regarding of another pope is clearly a reference to the slanders charged against Pius XII, outrageous tissues of lies totally without merit. It shows you to be unknowledgeable regarding scholarship every Catholic should become acquainted with about one of the greatest popes in history, a man hailed as a hero after the war by the Jews themselves. These books by Catholic-bashers which have sprung up ever since his death are deliberate hit-jobs, designed first by the KGB, then by ex-Catholics or Jewish axe-grinders, to sully Pius' pristine reputation and were not based on anything factual. The irony is that no single individual during WWII did more to speak out against the dangers of Nazism or to rescue the Jews themselves than Pius XII.
My point was that John Paul II's reign has been so benevolent and open and he is so well respected by the entire world that criticism of him will be near impposible (I'm excluding your crowd of course). I did't mean to give creedence to the charges that have been leveled against Pius XII. JPII has put a good face on his church, despite the scandals of his inferiors. It's incredible ( not to me )how defensive you become when it is a pre-conciliar pope that is misunderstood. Keep typing. All your inconsistencies, hypocrisies, biases,and inaccuracies (purposeful?) will soon be known to all.
That is your interpretation. Your interpretation has no merit.
Why do you care? Doesn't the SSPX satisfy your religious aspirations? Don't you get the mass the way you want it? What difference does it make to you what the pope does or doesn't do?
No, I'm not, and I don't think you have discussions; just a relentless attack on the catholic church. A discussion would entail listening to others, but the "alarms" have hampered your hearing.
As for the Pope's actions please reread todays epistle.
Stop it. You are embarrassing yourself.
Whatever errors Thomas Woods has made, there is no justification for blaming them on his being a Protestant convert.
Whatever errors Thomas Woods has made, there is no justification for blaming them on his being a Protestant convert. The point made was that a convert thinks he knows more about Catholicsm than the Pope does.
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