They Don't Get It, Do They?

Pope John Paul is apparently resting this evening following a tracheotomy to relieve complications from his bout with the flu. Reuters filed a story on the Pope's procedure, replete with the following idiotic quotation:

"'He's not really with it any more. We need someone who's a bit more in tune with the modern world, someone who's physically and mentally fit,' said Tina Koch, a 25-year-old German Catholic visiting Rome."

Applied to an aging rock star, the quote would make perfect sense; applied to this Pope, it makes absolutely no sense.

Say what you will about the policies of the Church under Pope John Paul II, he has been the model of consistency. The central theme to his Papacy has been the dignity of human life and its relationship to the Creator. There was no doubt about where the Pope stood in that regard in 1978 upon his ascension to the Throne of Peter and there is no doubt about it today. Thus, the statement that he is not "with it anymore" is simple gratuitousness on the part of people, Catholics and non-Catholics, who disagree with the Pope -- for if he is not with it now and in tune with the modern world, he never was.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, for precisely the reason that the Pope is now frail and weak (in body, but not in spirit), it is quite unlikely that he will abdicate. He will certainly never abdicate in favor of someone who will give the secular humanists what they crave.

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