Stepping Back Into Action

Just coming back from a devastating weekend. I understand that it may be difficult for many, even many Catholics, to understand; but the passing of His Holiness was very far from an emotionally neutral event for me—I feel like I’ve lost someone very close. I cannot do his legacy justice, and I’m not qualified to try, so I will simply have to leave it at that.

That said, I think I can only offer some bits of “blitz” commentary today:

• Most of the news networks carried pope-related coverage today as His Holiness’s body was moved to St. Peter’s for viewing. Accompanying this was a series of Latin chants (though one section requiring response seemed to be in Italian). Most channels left this alone, but CNN for some odd reason chose to have an interpreter do a voice-over into English of the Latin-to-Italian translation being broadcast on Italian TV. For those confused, CNN basically aired a video feed with Latin chant overlaid with Italian speech overlaid with English speech. It was very disturbing, as if the direct translation was necessary to understand the majesty of the spectacle.
  
• And on a purely ranting note, I am sick to death of the various networks using terms like “conservative” and “liberal” to refer to a man whose mission was to oversee traditions laid down centuries before these terms had any meaning. The Church is not a creation of the modern age, and viewing it through such a lens can only distort the image.
  
• On a more political topic, I came across this article in the Washington Times relating to a “civil war” between the Democrat’s centrist Leadership Council and the leftist “Democratic Wing” led by Howard Dean over at the DNC. Now, I happen to be of the opinion that the Democrats will only achieve national electoral success if they begin to address their message to moderate America; but on the other hand, how seriously should a voter take a party that is attempting to fine-tune itself for the stated goal of achieving that success? I suspect any “rebranding” efforts will only be successful if they are very careful, informing the electorate about why Democratic policies are correct for them…wholesale changes to the platform run the risk of undermining credibility.