Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 April 2005 21:40:52
...the way the Gloucester Echo announced the impending marriage of Charles and Camilla with the (small) headline, "Tetbury Man to Wed". I guess it just appealed to my egalitarian sensibilities. As did the film of the Pope completely ignoring President Bush as he (Bush) attempted to present the Pope with a gift of something or other. The Pope was talking with someone else and was not going to be interrupted by anyone. The look on G.W.B.'s face is just hilarious. Anyway, some of you may have noticed that the Pope has died. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure that the Pope was a pretty spiritual kind of guy and all that kind of thing and that a lot of people will be sad at his death. I'm certain. But is the world just becoming a far more sentimental place than is perhaps healthy? Aren't calls for him to be named Pope John Paul the Great just a little exagerated? OK, so he fought communist authoritarianism in Poland with courage and integrity, helped dialogue with Judaism (at least 500 years too late) and supported anti-debt campaigns. But then he became authoritarian himself about a whole load of things; Latin American Liberation Theology, sexuality (which ultimately is also very much about poverty and justice), refusal of a free debate on ethics/morality/theology/(post-)modernity, the role of women, etc, etc. Perhaps calls for his renaming are actually (already?) a grasping after the certainties which he stood for, which maybe after his death do not seem so infallible anymore. Whatever, surely the point of the Christian religion is to learn to live with uncertainties and confusion, to let the beautiful chaos of life on this planet sweep us up and carry us to....well, I guess to wherever it wants to take us.
Anyway, I finally figured how to get photos in my blog. Start another blog at blogger.com! Will get round to it sometime.