Having my computer nearby I looked up the incident online. Sure enough, Captian Frailty himself was downed by a red-hooded villain—a "mentally unstable" woman as it was uncommunicatively reported.
With renewed interest, I tuned back to the service on CTV.
The Pope did indeed appear shaken (as the news had stated) but he continued to look deeply despondent as the procession wore on. This solemnness was hard not to notice. It hung like a dark cloud over the ceremony leading up to and into his pope-ly address, which consisted of a predictably luddite and regretful appraisal of modernity and the impediments it poses on the path to righteousness. Basically, the speech was an appeal to the people of the world to open their minds and their hearts to God, or as he put it "Lord, open the eyes of our hearts."
Now, I don't have much experience observing Popes—I know them as slow-moving and decrepit creatures, with special transportation needs. But it would seem that if a Pope should be one thing, it's joyful. Joyful in the knowledge that they have truth, love and God on their side and everlasting life to look forward to. Benedict looked anything but. If there was passion in him, it was completely unavailable this Christmas Eve.
So where's the joy, Bene-boy? You're supposed to be a model of the endowment of religious faith, filled with Christ-love. People should look to you and think, what's his secret? how does he get along so well? But you looked like the embodiment of doubt and regret, cast of compressed resin from the bottom of Mother Teresa's guilt-stricken subconscious. I must say it didn't bode well. My advice to you would be to be a lot more like a really likable Grandpa-like figure. Draw people in with your radiance and make them feel that they too could achieve such a glow.
To avoid being any meaner to an old man who has just been accosted, allow me to continue in a different direction.
It occurred to me somewhere in my watching that if there's one thing uniting all religions at present, it's ensuring the stop-loss of wavering faithfuls and the corresponding rise of secularism. All Abrahamic religions, for example, despair at the ebbing away of the shared memes that keep their institutions vital (and subsidized!—god knows it costs a lot of money to clean the high-vaulted ceilings of the Vatican!)
In this sense, religion is engaged in an era of maintenance—stuck in a bid to convince a new generation of followers that faith is desirable to begin with. In this disparaging battle, even warring sects find common ground. Of course, if they do succeed in reversing the trend toward secularization, the fight over which doctrine should be adopted and which God worshiped will surely resume in earnest.
As it stands though—and this is evidenced by the defeated tone of Pope Benedictus' Christmas sermon (maybe too by the tackling incident)—these are hostile times for religion; we live in a markedly secular age, despite the supposed billion-odd Catholics bespeckling the earth.
Tackling incident:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8430406.stm
Midnight Mass in full:
http://vod.vatican.va/messa24122009.mov
6 comments:
Extremely well written as usual, Matt. I find I agree with a lot of what you say despite my theism. I wonder if you could provide any data to back up your insinuation that religions are currently fighting a losing battle to secularism? This does feel like the case to me at times in Oregon and certainly that's the impression I get from Europe. Buy that's not the whole show. Anyway, can you find me some statistics or something? As a Quaker I am about as far away from Catholocism as it gets. But I do think there is something to be said about the holy wonderment the Catholics can put on. Personally I find that stuff in the woods much like John Muir. At times I'm brimming with joy and others I'm just a bit solemn in my astonishment.
Hey Bret, thanks for responding. I think you make a good point about wonderment and how one's reaction to it might be that of calm, even solemn, reflection. I'm perfectly alright with that. I think I was just taken aback at how depressed the Pope seemed. Even granting him some latitude for having just been assaulted, he seemed deeply disturbed and contemplative and I guess I just figured that a faith as pure and as strong as the one he supposedly possesses would offer some prescription for that. That's just something that occurred to me, though. Obviously, he's only human, and as you pointed out, it's possible that he was just "a bit solemn in his astonishment."
Regarding the data you have so judiciously requested, thanks for giving me the opportunity to reflect. I feel like a few studies have informed certain opinions expressed on this blog. One is the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey published in 2008 by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life which showed (among many other things) that the fastest growing category in the study was that of the religiously "Unaffiliated"—or, those who do not identify themselves "with any particular faith today." This does not necessarily imply that religious ideas or spirituality do not in any way inform the daily lives of these individuals, but I take the growth in this category to be an indication of a general trend. Of course, this only pertains to attitudes in the US, and, as you suggested, European studies have shown weaker religious ties:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#Distribution
(Also, here's a telling graph based on the British Social Attitudes Survey [1983-2007])
At the root of my sentiment that religions are fighting a losing battle to secularism is a belief that while the religions of the world may indeed claim many followers, their institutions are being increasingly marginalized by overarching powers. These powers, while maybe representing a minority, nonetheless exert a greater influence in world decision making. The values and methods of the scientific community are clearly the primary gears that constitute the mechanics of the modern world, and governments and institutions of the world continue to align themselves with the interests and pursuits of science, as opposed to those of the religious community.
With this in mind, two studies are of considerable interest: One is a commonly sited study published in Nature magazine which showed that 93% of the National Academy of Sciences do not believe in a personal God. NAS consists of elite American scientists and was established in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. Its purpose according to the NAS website has been to "'investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art' whenever called upon to do so by any department of the [US] government."
The other study is based on raw data from the 2004 General Social Survey, which revealed that those with graduate degrees were least likely to believe in the afterlife or the Bible as the word of God. Numerous other studies, some more controversial than others, have indicated a correlation between religiosity and intelligence.
This is all to say that I think the religious institutions of the world are well aware that while sheer numbers are encouraging (Church-sponsored relief efforts in Africa are, I'm sure, resulting in many conversions), there is something to be said for the waning influence that these constituencies wield in the global community.
(Wow, I actually ran out of characters... apparently there is a limit on characters for a blog response. Who knew!)
...
And while the religious may outnumber the non-religious the world over, any shift toward secularization (which I've argued has occurred in the Western world [not to mention the implications of a largely un-religious, densely populated and hugely powerful China]) is bound to be an upsetting trend to heads of church.
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=474
I went to the NAS website and it does seem like that organization does have a bit of a vibe. The 93% Statistic really surprised me! Well, I went to the other link that you listed, the PEW surveys, and found this page which was much more in line with what I thought was to be the case. The article is about Francis Collins but the stats say that scientists belief in some sort of god is more 50/50. Thanks for the wikipedia article! That was interesting.
Perhaps the Pope's solemnity was rooted in humility.
Or humiliation over the fact he was knocked down by a girl.
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