Light On Dark Water

Amy Welborn On the Papal Transition

I think this is pretty funny, even though I probably don't get all the visual jokes–I don't recognize most of those people.

While I'm at it, I've been meaning to clarify or explain the mild misgiving I've had about our new pope. It's really not about him in the sense of thinking that he won't be a good pope, because I think he will be, and I'm really very impressed with him. It's pretty much the same thing Amy says: a concern that he might be inattentive to or uninterested in certain things in which the Church has made great progress in recent years.

The Church in the twenty or so years following Vatican II was in tremendous confusion, and there were even vandals at work inside it. Much of the confusion has been cleared, and the vandalism has mostly been stopped. My concern has been that Francis might be less attentive to these things, or that he would make mistakes in his appointments, and leave an opening for the trouble to start up again.

But so far I've been pretty reassured on that score. And anyway, as I think I said early on, we are in a different time. I think there aren't as many of the truly heterodox as there were, and they aren't in as many positions of power.

Maclin Horton

36 responses to “Amy Welborn On the Papal Transition”

  1. Grumpy

    I don’t think you have to recognize those people to get the jokes. I think the joke is purely the correlation or lack of it between the picture and the statement. The postgrads put these things on facebook all the time, ie ‘I’ve got to give in an essay’ and then some moving image of someone screaming or throwing their hands in the air. I think unless I totally misunderstand the humour that the main joke is simply the fact of using that image to illustrate that thought.
    I have had the same fears. I don’t want a return of the extreme clericlism which gave clerics permission to disregard the rubrics for liturgical ceremonies in favour of doing whatever they feel like doing. But for that to happen, it takes the whole mood of an ecclesial subculture, not just the pope doing or not doing something.

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  2. Mac

    Exactly–well put. And although I admit I haven’t been paying close attention–not a Vatican-watcher, as you know–I haven’t seen any signs that Francis is doing anything to actively encourage that mood.

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  3. Grumpy

    It’s all a ‘narrative’ constructed by the media. B16 visited prisons too, but they were not part of the narrative. I don’t think it was deliberate – it just never caught the media’s imagination. With Francis calling himself Francis, it’s immediately part of the image and the narrative.

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  4. Mac

    That “narrative” business drives me crazy. In some cases it’s very deliberate, where there’s a political program at work. I remember a comment on a post at National Review during the last presidential campaign by a liberal who was pushing the Republicans-hate-everybody idea, and saying it was futile for them to resist “the emerging narrative.” As if “the narrative” were a thing that just happened, a natural phenomenon, not an active propaganda campaign. Not that I think they’re doing this with Francis, except to the extent that some of them are trying to use him as a stick to beat the church with.

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  5. Janet

    It is funny.
    My youngest daughter is quite adept with Tumblr. They also make little videos like this with their phones and send them to each other. Sometimes, when they are sitting next to each other.
    AMDG

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  6. Mac

    This younger generation…. I know you’ve all had the experience of seeing several of them sitting together in a restaurant or something, all looking at their phones.

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  7. Louise

    That “narrative” business drives me crazy.
    Me too. I’m wondering if this will be posted, or get caught in the over-zealous spam filter.

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  8. Louise

    ooh it worked! I’m enjoying my US Adventure, but there are moments which I wish I were just ordinarily living my ordinary life so I could spend more time reading commentaries like Amy’s. At times, I feel as though a Papal transition is more than enough excitement for me!

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  9. Mac

    It just hit me that you’re going to be on U.S. time now. Since the departure of antiaphrodite, that leaves Marianne as the only commenter from the future.

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  10. Janet

    But there’s still Paul–he’s just not so far in the future.
    AMDG

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  11. Mac

    Right, I didn’t forget him–I thought I had type “distant future,” but I see I didn’t.

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  12. janet

    I lost another comment.
    AMDG

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  13. Robert Gotcher

    Does that mean that I’m commenting from one hour in the past?

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  14. Mac

    Are you in Eastern time? If so, yes, but then so am I. The futureness is only weird if it’s more than 12 hours or so, so that it seems to be from the next day.

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  15. Mac

    There’s not one from you in the spam catcher, Janet. Unless you changed your name to Vionsrinc, Rakshooka, or Levitra Cheap.

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  16. Grumpy

    what happened to antiaphrodite?

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  17. Mac

    She just sort of stopped visiting. I don’t know exactly why. I hear from her by email once in a while.

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  18. Janet

    Weird. Because I saw it on the blog. I made it right before the one about Paul, and I saw it when I was writing the Paul one.
    What I said was that it was weirder for Louise to be on our time than for her to be in tomorrow.
    AMDG

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  19. Janet

    I’m going to be thinking about which one of those names I should start using.
    AMDG

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  20. Robert Gotcher

    Central time zone.
    So it is you who are in the future.

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  21. janet

    No, Maclin is Central. Me too.
    AMDG

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  22. Marianne

    that leaves Marianne as the only commenter from the future
    Definitely an eerie vibe about that. But not as unsettling to me, really, as being in the opposite season than you all are in up there in the Northern Hemisphere. Everything just feels upside down to me.

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  23. Mac

    I’m not much unsettled by that because my mind doesn’t really accept it.
    Surely everyone can agree that Central Time is the best: so nicely balanced, not too early and not too late, so that, as the name indicates, other measures are to be thought of as offsets from it, regardless of the pretensions of Greenwich.

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  24. Janet

    That’s so true, McLin.
    AMDG

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  25. Louise

    It’s real weird being now in the past when I used to be in the future! Can’t get my head around it. It’s 4.08pm thursday here but my Aussie friends are all getting up on Friday morning at 7.08. Crazy. Then there’s my NZ friend who is already well into the day at 9.08am!!!

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  26. Louise

    But my most pressing problem right now is to find a local supply of Vegemite. Any idea how I could go about that, Maclin?

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  27. Mac

    There’s a supermarket chain called Publix where I buy Marmite (yes, it has become a staple for me), and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Vegemite there. I don’t know whether there’s one in that area or not. Let’s see…no, they don’t seem to have spread west of Alabama or north of Tennessee. Ask around if there’s a supermarket chain that’s more upscale and therefore more likely to stock unusual stuff. Or some kind of import store. Or maybe another chain, World Market, though food is not their main thing. Anyway, surely if I can get it here you should be able to find it in a city the size of Houston.

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  28. Marianne

    There’s always Amazon — http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=vegemite

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  29. Mac

    Of course!

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  30. Grumpy

    I bought British and some European foods from amazon when I first arrived but I found over a couple of years that there is usually a local source which is much cheaper, and which you will discover by accident, and there is no point in searching for it ….

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  31. janet

    I got it at Kroger and there are 4 in Houston. It would have to be a big Kroger. though, in a nice neighborhood. I’d call first.
    AMDG

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  32. Robert Gotcher

    Oh. I didn’t realize the Best Time Zone went that far east. Alabama seems east to me.

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  33. Robert Gotcher

    I think it is because I’m originally from Oklahoma. I’m living a lot further east than when I grew up.

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  34. Art Deco

    But my most pressing problem right now is to find a local supply of Vegemite. Any idea how I could go about that, Maclin?
    It’s a ‘pressing problem’ that you cannot find a ghastly foodstuff?

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  35. Louise

    Yes, Art. Go away!
    Vegemite – it’s solid beer with salt. What’s not to like?
    Thanks, Janet, I’ll find a big Kroger. They do have some of those here, but not sure of the size. Otherwise I’ll just take Grumpy’s advice.

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  36. Marianne

    You’re in The Woodlands, right? Have you tried the Cost Plus World Market there? It’s available on the chain’s website, so they might stock it.

    Reply

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