TORONTO, April 22, 2008 -- His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has come and gone from North America in 6 days and is no doubt happy to have the seventh day to rest up. Pope Benedict turned 81 on this trip, about 6 months older than my Mama although in much more vigorous health from what I noted.
I watched almost every one of his public events on EWTN for the most part, so as to avoid the leftie blabber on CNN and the Networks and the relentless chattering on the more reverent otherwise Fox News Channel. I think even EWTN was surprised at the enthusiasm and welcome afforded the Holy Father (called with typical American irreverence Shepherd One) at every venue where he might be expected to show a glimpse of his face. True, he was surrounded by more Muscle than the average rock star, and usually rode from here to there in his customized Mercedes *Popemobile* which looked like the cab of a tractor and made him visible without making him vulnerable. A good many Catholic prayers were raised for his safety during those 6 days. One would have hated to have some American or Muslim on a Mission From God (so called) get close enough to do him a mischief. Still, it also made him rather hard to experience for the average Joe and Joanne in the street.
There was very little carping and whining among the press, once he had arrived, which surprised me. Before he landed in DC, to be met personally by President and Mrs.Bush -- both very reverent and respectful, and thank God he was spared the awkwardness of a President Kerry -- a putative Catholic in a state of mortal sin that he knowingly,willingly and defiantly hangs onto -- the Press wittered on and on and on about the Sex Abuse Scandal (lefties discovered their wee-wees in 1964 and have never managed to drop the subject since then) and such irrelevancies as homosexuality and the ordination of women and how the Church *had* to Get With The Modern Program or the Left would boo him off the stage. Once he had arrived and it was manifestly clear, as it would have been in the Sixties id we had been possessed of the Internet and Digital Cable, that the kickers and screamers were a very tiny minority of fringe folk made conspicuous by their lung power and the loving attention they got from the Press. As anyone who was not trapped in a bubble of people exactly like themselves was aware, 85% of America is still Christian and 95% of those are still devoted to the power and authority of true faith -- and openly or secretly of an authority figure who Stands Firm. Those of us who were brought up by parents who WERE parents and not would-be Best Friends, and who in turn were able to say BECAUSE I AM YOUR MOTHER AND I SAID SO in what has come to be known as The Mom Voice, learned as children and from experience that most kicking and screaming is only a test of the boundaries, to see how far the rope will stretch before it snaps back in our face. I was fortunate to have a Mama who could look me in the eye and emphasize *I. Said. NO.* without raising her voice, and in my wisdom to replicate that voice so that when I said STOP in the Mom Voice, both kids would halt in mid-stride, mid-breath, mid-protest and drop the subject. His Holiness has that voice down pat. Although his words were kindly and filled with the love of God, the tone said that there was no flexibility, no *dialogue*,no compromise and no nonsense. There will be no women priests, there will be no accommodation to homosexuality (and after the famous Sex Abuse Scandal, which was almost totally due to the Sixties idiocy of insisting that homosexuals viewed sex in the same way as heterosexuals do, despite AIDS and bath-houses and gay bars and 20 years of *free love*) and above all else there will never be accomodation to abortion.
I was converted to Catholicism fairly recently, after a lifetime of Protestant churches founded on shifting sands and the winds of Whats Happening Now. Most recently I reluctantly but disgustedly left the Anglican church, which had deposed Christ from the altar and put in His place the male sex organ about which they obsessed and chattered day and night to the exclusion of everything else (save perhaps socialism, anti-American political rants, and guitars.) I studied the Catechism and asked a lot of questions and queried my teachers and priests, with the view that before I boarded the train I wanted to make sure the destination was where I wanted to go. And I decided that it was.
To my mind the people shouting at His Holiness that the Church *needs to change* are like people who get on the train in full knowledge that it is headed for New York, and then spend the journey shouting that old chant: WHADDAWEWANT? TO GO TO CHICAGO! WENDAWEWANNIT? NOOOWWWWWWW!
His Holiness spent six days in America reiterating that this train was going to New York, and anybody who wanted to go to Chicago had only two choices: go to New York or get off the train.
In a world that changes, shifts and dissolves every few days, and where people wake in dread every day of what may happen to shake their very being before nightfall, a man like Pope Benedict XVI who knows where the train is going and refuses to be turned aside is exactly what North America had in mind. As the old Baptist Bible School song said, we will *cling to the Old Rugged Cross* as a refuge against the stormy blast (or Presidential Primaries) and this week that personification of the Cross was a reminder that some things are still eternal.
In a world where we are frequently told that all we have is the moment and what we can grab and hold, it was wonderful to have a man come among us to remind us that this is not true. The change may not be apparent right away, but hearts were strengthened and minds were opened and we will look some day and say this week past was where the tide finally turned.