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Mugged by Pope Benedict XVI

Not having a photographer's birdie on hand, we used the classic kitty-treat-in-the-mug trick to prompt Tiny to give us Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment."

Our Pope Benedict XVI Teddy Bear Mugs arrived this morning. Cute as a button. We're sipping a cuppa from one of them this very minute as we await Papa Ratzi's 10:30 a.m. arrival at the White House for South Lawn activities before approximately 5,000 people. Click here to order a mug or two of your own.

Update: Take-home quotation:

Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience -- almost every town in this country has its monuments honouring those who sacrificed their lives in defence of freedom, both at home and abroad.

He quotes his predecessor:

In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in eastern Europe, [John Paul II] reminded us that history shows, time and again, that "in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation," and a democracy without values can lose its very soul.

Pax vobiscum.

Update: Miss Kelly in the comments:

What a great ceremony on the White House lawn! The crowd spontaneously singing "Happy Birthday" to the Pope . . . President Bush tapping his toe to the drum and fife corps . . . the gorgeous singing of the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Our Father. We get too little of this kind of pageantry.

I saw Archbishop Seán O'Malley in the crowd and local imam Talal Eid too.

Love the Pope's wave to the crowd, he puts his hands up and wiggles his fingers. The EWTN correspondent likened it to playing the piano in the air.

Our friend has a reporter's eye for detail and a believer's eye for the glory of the Lord.

George W. Bush, our first Catholic president?

"One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity," the Acton Institute explains. "This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization . . . [It] is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State . . . In spite of this clear warning, the United States Catholic Bishops remain staunch defenders of a statist approach to social problems." Photo series features Tiny expressing her personal freedom this evening in a rousing game of superball on the court that is the dining room's parquet floor.

"He has wedded Catholic intellectualism with evangelical political savvy to forge a powerful electoral coalition," writes Daniel Burke in what for us was an eye-opening WaPo article [via The Anchoress] that makes the case for George W. Bush as "the nation's first Catholic president":

Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election in 2005, President Bush met with a small circle of advisers in the Oval Office . . . the president remarked that he had read one of the new pontiff's books about faith and culture in Western Europe.

Save for one other soul, Bush was the only non-Catholic in the room. But his interest in the pope's writings was no surprise to those around him. As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush's inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president . . .

Yes, there was John F. Kennedy. But where Kennedy sought to divorce his religion from his office, Bush has welcomed Roman Catholic doctrine and teachings into the White House and based many important domestic policy decisions on them.

"His political base is solidly evangelical. Yet this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians" [Who knew?]:

Bush has also placed Catholics in prominent roles in the federal government and relied on Catholic tradition to make a public case for everything from his faith-based initiative to antiabortion legislation . . . Even before he got to the White House, Bush and his political guru Karl Rove invited Catholic intellectuals to Texas to instruct the candidate on the church's social teachings . . . Many Catholics close to him believe that the approximately 300 judges he has seated on the federal bench -- most notably Catholics John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court -- may yet be his greatest legacy.

"Bush also used Catholic doctrine and rhetoric to push his faith-based initiative, a movement to open federal funding to grass-roots religious groups that provide social services to their communities":

Much of that initiative is based on the Catholic principle of "subsidiarity" -- the idea that local people are in the best position to solve local problems."The president probably knows absolutely nothing about the Catholic catechism, but he's very familiar with the principle of subsidiarity," said H. James Towey, former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives . . . "It's the sense that the government is not the savior and that problems like poverty have spiritual roots."

Saint Hillary, Saint Obama and Neocon puppet-master conspiracy theorists were unavailable for comment.

Update: Mind of Mog links:

I never knew he surrounded himself with so many Catholics and was influenced by their doctrine. Her post’s a must read. And not just for the cat pics which are exquisite.

That doesn’t bode well for that border fence. But I can see where he’s coming from. One could do with far worse role models.

I admire the Pope cause he hasn’t gone around changing church doctrine to follow the whims of the people and holds to moral values.

Like St. Peter himself, Papa Ratzi is a rock.

The angel has landed

As Tuck and ourselves leaned forward in our seats, focussing our gaze at the TV screen, suddenly, there Papa Ratzi was in fluttering white cape and red shoes. It happened so fast that we missed the shoes, caught by professional EPA photographer Matthew Cavanaugh.

"A writer once said that angels can fly because they don't take themselves too seriously. Maybe we could also fly a bit if we didn't think we were so important," we recently quoted Pope Benedict XVI, who flew in to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland this afternoon, right on schedule.

Screen shot as we watched, rapt, the pope who loves cats and Mozart welcomed by President Bush at Andrews Air Force Base this afternoon.

Some make history. Others make a mockery of it.

Screen shot as the Holy Father, the Leader of the Free World and Jenna and Barbara Bush strode joyously towards the terminal building. From there the pope would travel by limousine to the Vatican Embassy near the Vice President's residence.

"It was a thrilling moment, and I was deeply honored to be the first American face for him to see," US Chief of Protocol Nancy Brinker told a Fox News anchor:

We've been planning this in meticulous detail since early 2007.

Everyone is not only excited about this visit . . . but has deep emotional feelings about it.

He has a peaceful strength about him. I'm not a Catholic, but I really felt very, very touched when I met him. 

Shall we dance? (EPA/Matthew Cavanaugh photo)

"Both hold the same principles, I think," writes our imail correspondent, adding "Trust me, history will vindicate GW . . . if the world lasts that long."

Before the big lie has a chance to put its pants on

"The blogosphere may be turning the Twain/Churchill formula* on its head," we blogged way back in July of 2004. "In that instance, it was the Sandy Berger Trousergate scandal, where bloggers took early AP reports and ran with them, while the New York Times hadn't had time -- indeed had no inclination -- to put its pants on." (Yousuff Karsh photo December 1941)

"Doesn't the fact that Bush is literally 'picking Benedict up' at the airport say something unusual?" emails The Anchoress:

It's never been done before. I get the sense that Bush wants to be in his presence for as long as he possibly can.  And I really am starting to believe he will convert when he leaves office.

"I have a similar feeling," we replied:

Not only to be in his presence -- who can blame GW? -- but also to make it known to the world that the Leader of the Free World is humble before the Vicar of Christ . . .

"Yes, exactly, A great point!" says she:

A GREAT point - you should write that!

The culture war is a war of ideas and images. The imminent images -- touchdown about a half hour away! -- of President and Mrs. Bush welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the land of the free and the home of the brave will travel all the way around the world before the big lie has a chance to put its pants on.* You're da man, Mr. President.

*Truthiness ain't nothin' new:

Mark Twain: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

Winston Churchill: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

Update: Miss Kelly links.

Update II: The Anchoress links, teasing out the meaning of our use of the word "humble" for the President's deference to the Vicar of Christ:

Sissy Willis and I exchanged emails and wondered -- and we are not the first to do so, obviously -- if President Bush, who is inarguably the most “Catholic” president we’ve ever had, will pull a Tony Blair and enter into full communion with the Catholic church after he leaves office . . . Some might argue the use of the word “humble,” but I do think it demonstrates the leader of the free world “making way” for the Vicar of Christ. And it is very dramatic. It’s a little earthquake, really, but not everyone will feel it.

As we said in her comments, we "thought twice before using the word 'humble' but decided it was the proper choice in the dictionary sense of 'not proud or arrogant; offered in a spirit of deference'":

God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. (James 4:6, King James Version)

That sounds SO George Dubya, something he would have learned at Barbara Bush's knee:

“My mother taught us fundamental things: ‘Don’t brag.’ ‘Think of the other guy.’ ‘Be kind to people.’"

It's an old-money thing, and class will out.

"The answer they have secretly always been asking for"

The pale green, heart-shaped leaves of Phytoterrorist garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) insinuate themselves among the grass-like leaves of star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) in the patchy urban forest at the edge of the upper forty of Chelsea-by-the-Sea. Googling Star of Bethlehem, a member of the lily family, we were delighted to learn that its "flower essence" is a major ingredient of Bach's Rescue Remedy®, "an all natural form of healing that can reduce everyday stress" and is "effective in virtually any situation that causes stress or anxiety."

"Like so many others on the left, Obama rejects 'stereotypes' when they are stereotypes he doesn't like but blithely throws around his own stereotypes about 'a typical white person' or 'bitter' gun-toting, religious and racist working class people," writes Thomas Sowell. Not to mention stereotypes about a spiritual and "racist" middleclass person like ourselves, as we blogged back in December of 2006. Sowell continues:

Like so much that Obama has said and done over the years, this is standard stuff on the far left, where guns and religion are regarded as signs of psychological dysfunction -- and where opinions different from those of the left are ascribed to emotions ("bitter" in this case), rather than to arguments that need to be answered.

In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification," when people react adversely to what was plainly said.

When the delicate-looking flowers of garlic mustard first bloomed in our garden, "we mistook this Lucrezia Borgia of the plant world for 'a lovely intruder,'" we wrote a couple of years back in our post "Phytoterrorism in our own backyard," noting that "scientists have discovered the devious methods used by the weedy garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata, AKA Alliaria officinalis) to invade and destroy our native hardwood forests."

Ironically, something similar can be said of Pope Benedict XVI's statements among those who would willfully misunderstand the Holy Father for their own political purposes. Benedetto is known for the intellectual rigor and precision of his thought and speech, yet, to borrow Sowell's phraseology, the clearer a papal statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by demands for an "apology" when people react hysterically to what was plainly said. Muslim street riots in response to perceived slights in Papa Ratzi's Regensberg speech are the most obvious example, but the will to misunderstanding runs deep and dark in the human psyche, as The Anchoress explicates in her tour de force "The Reality of Pope Benedict" at Pajamas Media this morning:

Then, preaching to his fellow cardinals just before the conclave, Ratzinger further annoyed many of the chatterers by warning against “building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."

Not much liking that, Notre Dame’s Fr. Richard McBrien sniffed: “If Cardinal Ratzinger were really campaigning for pope, he would have given a far more conciliatory homily . . . He’s too much of a polarizing figure.”

In fact, Benedict is less “polarizing” than simply consistent in his faith and his philosophy; having experienced a life with which few of his critics could ever identify, he dares to stand for more than “whatever . . .”

Now back to you, Thomas Sowell:

It is understandable that young people are so strongly attracted to Obama. Youth is another name for inexperience -- and experience is what is most needed when dealing with skillful and charismatic demagogues.

Those of us old enough to have seen the type again and again over the years can no longer find them exciting. Instead, they are as tedious as they are dangerous.

But even as throngs of dazzled wet-behind-the-ears Americans succumb to the razzle-dazzle display of Dr. Obama's Magical Mystery Tour, others are drawn to a brighter light in the Eastern sky -- The pope will have been in the air four out of a total of about 10 hours of the flight from Rome to DC as we blog -- as "Young Catholics from across the country are flocking to Washington and New York to see Pope Benedict XVI on his first U.S. visit as pope," reports PBS:

Many of those tickets will go to young people, as Pope Benedict XVI is using this visit to reach out to young Catholics, according to Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl.

"One of the things he said early on was the church is always young. It's always there for young people. I think young people see that in this pope. They hear in his message words of hope, words of challenge," Wuerl told the Pittsburgh newspaper.

Back to The Anchoress for the final word:

In the current age, which would prefer God to fit into its plans rather than the reverse, Benedict is preaching a radical message that he knows many -- blessed with free will and beholden to the age -- will reject. Far from displaying an “enforcer” mentality, the pope accepts that rejection with pragmatism and ultimately with trust. “The Church,” he said as Joseph Ratzinger, “will become small, and will to a great extent have to start over again. But after a time of testing, an internalized and simplified Church will radiate great power and influence; for the population of an entirely planned and controlled world are going to be inexpressibly lonely … and they will then discover the little community of believers as something quite new. As a hope that is there for them, as the answer they have secretly always been asking for.”

Be sure to read the whole thing. Do it for the children.

Update: The Anchoress links with proof of the pudding:

As if making my point for me, Newsweek has two pieces on Benedict . . . The first piece, by George Weigel, I recommend to you because although it glows for Benedict, it also gives you an excellent sense of how deeply this pope may affect our age. The second, by Lisa Miller, is your basic predictable condescension about how Benedict does not “connect” with Catholics.

Let "Dem Bells" ring!

"There is an element of awe and mystery behind the Pope and the Vatican that is attractive to people who are naturally spiritual"

"Detail of a tulip in our garden," we captioned this image from our post "The new dictatorial impulse" three years back, where we quoted Michael Novak at National Review  explaining "what lies behind Pope Benedict XVIs concept of a looming 'dictatorship of relativism,'" citing Song of Solomon 2:12, King James Version: "The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

"Positive messages do not often make headlines. Controversies -- real or imagined -- do," Catholic University of America president Vincentian Fr David O'Connell wrote a month back in the Washington Post, as rock-star Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia reminds us on this eve of the Holy Father's touchdown on these shores:

In the face of intense speculation that the PopeTalk before an audience of US Catholic university presidents, diocesan superintendents of education and the university's Board of Trustees would be notably stringent, the Father-President wrote in the Washington Post that he "could not disagree more with those who predict a 'stern message' and a 'rebuke'" coming from the former Prof. Ratzinger.

"The fact that the pope, as teacher of the faith, takes on the compromises advanced within contemporary culture, pushes hard against moral relativism, and seeks to present the intelligibility of the alliance between faith and reason in the quest for truth does not constitute an attack on the Catholic academy," he added. "They are the very things that Catholic universities and colleges, too, should be considering, precisely because they are Catholic.

We were enchanted with Fox News Religion Contributor Father Jonathan's response in the comments to his latest blogpost -- where he promises to "go against the facile approach you will see in many media outlets that will fixate on fabricated and stale controversy" -- regarding non-catholic reader Stephen Nalley's fascination with Papa Ratzi. Said Father Jonathan:

Stephen, from what I am hearing, you are one among many non-Catholics who will be following this event closely. It’s interesting that you say you’re not sure why you are so interested. I think there is an element of awe and mystery behind the Pope and the Vatican that is attractive to people who are naturally spiritual. I hope we here at Fox can help unpack some of the mystery so people can decide for themselves what they think about the message this Pope brings to America.

People who are naturally spiritual. Maybe that's why we've loved this pope who loves cats and Mozart from day one.

"For many long years they had never been heard"

"It was the custom on Christmas Eve for all the people to bring to the church their offerings to the Christ-child; and when the greatest and best offering was laid on the altar, there used to come sounding through the music of the choir the Christmas chimes far up in the tower. Some said that the wind rang them, and others that they were so high that the angels could set them swinging. But for many long years they had never been heard." From Raymond MacDonald Alden's Why the Chimes Rang. "A beautiful tale that conveys the very spirit of giving," it was "described as 'the one perfect book for children' when it was first published in 1909." The story was adapted for the stage in 1915 and performed by us gradeschoolers as part of the Christmas Pageant at the Exeter Day School in the early Fifties. Nowadays it would be called a Winter Holiday Program, and you probably wouldn't be allowed to perform a play that had anything to do with what used to be called "the true meaning of Christmas." Mavo Bunker lllustrations from Why The Chimes Rang available online at The Rosetta Project. Color illustrations of selected pages available at Google Book Search.

"In reality, our sacred church bells are the forerunner to instant messaging and texting," writes PewSitter.com's Hugh McNichol, who has "a modest proposition to put forward" when Pope Benedict XVIs Shepherd I touches down at Andrews Air Force Base at 4 p.m. on Tuesday:

The simultaneous ringing of all Catholic Church bells across the entire country.

"Instead of sending an instant message," writes McNichol, "Every Catholic parish in the country should ring their church bells for ten minutes to joyfully welcome the Bishop of Rome":

The tradition of ringing bells not only will show prayerful support and warm welcomes to the Holy Father, it will also provide an opportunity for American Catholics to illustrate their support of our great American exercise of religious freedom. From a historical perspective as well, it allows American Catholics as citizens to recall foundational events in our American history that permitted this free exercise of our Catholic identity, recalling the great announcement of independence proclaimed by the Liberty Bell in 1776.

Much thanks for the heads up from Miss Kelly, who notes:

I agree with Whispers in the Loggia, ten minutes is a bit much.  Three or four minutes is plenty and would still be a wonderful way to mark this significant visit.

Please pass the word to your own priests, pastors, nuns, deacons, everybody!

Get Cardinal Seán on the phone! and* let the "tintinnabulation that so musically wells from the bells, bells, bells, bells" give the lie to the clueless chatter of effete elites like Barack Obama, who revealed what he really thinks about small-town America the other day at a fundraiser where he apparently figured no one but fellow travelers would be listening:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Allahpundit at Hot Air has a brilliant rave about it:

What’s most offensive? The condescension displayed here by the intelligentsia’s candidate of choice? The sheer breadth of the stereotype, which would send Team Obama screaming from the rooftops if a white politician drew a similarly sweeping caricature of blacks? The crude quasi-Marxist reductionism of his analysis, which he first introduced in his speech on race vis-a-vis the root causes of whites’ “resentment” -- namely, exploitation by the bourgeoisie in the form of corporations and D.C. lobbyists? Or is it the shocking inclusion of religion, of all things, in the litany of sins he recites? What on earth is that doing there, given His Holiness’s repeated invocations of the virtues of faith on the trail? Note the choice of verb, too. Why not just go the whole nine yards and call it the opiate of the masses?

Fox News Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers puts her finger on what's wrong with this picture:

"They are things that I think in a liberal world sound totally normal, and outside of that world I don’t know that he appreciates how it sounds. And it just sounds very elitist, and it sounds like he’s looking down on people.”

We've had Obama's number from way back in December of 2006, of course, when -- in effect -- he called us a racist, but when a person of the left like Kirsten Powers gets it, let the chimes ring!

*They don't call us "Queen of the Segueway" for nothing.

"A glimpse of the clearing"

"I haven't had illuminations in the classical sense, if by that you mean something half-mystical," then Cardinal Ratzinger told secular journalist Peter Seewald in the 1977 book-length interview Salt of the Earth. "I am a perfectly ordinary Christian. But in a broader sense faith certainly gives one might. As one reflects on that faith, one certainly seems, to say it with Heidegger, to get a glimpse of the clearing from the various paths through the woods. (Kendrive photo)

"Pope Benedict is a first-class, bona fide genius, and most people have no idea about how smart he is [Eat your heart out, Hillary!]," says historian Brennan Pursell -- the author of Benedict of Bavaria: An Intimate Portrait of the Pope and His Homeland, blogged here the other day -- in a spirited Spero News interview. Excerpts:

He is a world-class intellectual, and one who can talk to anybody and make himself understood. Too often we hear people saying that he seems cold or distant. He’s the opposite of that, actually.

He wants to strengthen [the faith's] backbone against a prevailing culture that denigrates it as backward, stupid, and fundamentally suspect [Yes, you, Christopher Hitchens].

As far as I know, [my book] is the only biography written in English that relies predominantly on German sources, from the people who know him the best . . . It is written for the general reader; there is little or no theological jargon.

The whole process of research and writing was both an education and an inspiration. It was like taking a private tutorial in Catholic theology, philosophy and world history with one of the greatest minds of the last half-century. At the same time, although Ratzinger once described himself as “a perfectly ordinary Christian,” he is still, in my mind, a great spiritual guide.

He speaks in finished paragraphs, thinks in chapters, and writes his books out by hand, usually in one, finished draft. That’s what many people have testified, and it is truly stunning.

The author -- a DeSales University history professor of Bavarian descent who has never met Papa Ratzi but appears to have read everything he's ever written, as well as everything written about him by those he "grew up with, studied and worked with," in the original German -- comes by his reverence for the earthly representative of Christ honestly, as his website explains:

Born in San Francisco, Brennan grew up in the Bay Area suburbs, exuberantly pagan, and went to college at Stanford University, obtaining his BA in history in 1990. After graduation, he devoted two years to work and travel in Africa, India, Europe the Middle East, and Southern Asia.  In 1992 he began graduate studies in European history at Harvard University, and it was ironically through study of the Protestant Reformation that he first learned about Catholicism.

He began attending Mass at St. Paul's Church in Cambridge, MA, and, in the summer of 1994, while staying at the Benedictine monastery of Metten in Bavaria, he was received into the Church.

German is the language spoken of their home, and the family returns to Bavaria every summer.

Since 2001 Brennan has served as a professor of history at DeSales University, a Catholic liberal arts college in eastern Pennsylvania, where he teaches a wide range of courses in European history and leads summer tours of Bavaria for students and community members.

"His words somehow deepened my faith, enriched my prayer life and increased my understanding all at the same time," Pursell told Spero News:

I can’t really explain it. And writing the book was a real pleasure. Even if not a single copy is sold, it was still more than worth it. Don’t smirk, I really mean it.

We're not smirking. We're buyin'. Amazon is temporarily out of stock, but Circle Press has 'em. We just ordered our copy by phone this morning.

Update: Peggy Noonan, rhetorically tearing up with nostalgia for Pope Benedict XVIs predecessor, regains her composure and bravely declares "Nothing is ended, something beautiful has begun, we just won't understand it for a while":

John Paul made you burst into tears. Benedict makes you think. It is more pleasurable to weep, but at the moment, perhaps it is more important to think.

A Vatican reporter last week said John Paul was the perfect pope for the television age, "a man of images" . . .

Benedict, the reporter noted, is the perfect pope for the Internet age. He is a man of the word. You download the text of what he said, print it, ponder it.

Perhaps if we download the text, print it and ponder it, we may get "a glimpse of the clearing from the various paths through the woods."

Update II: Miss Kelly links:

Papal correspondents Sissie and The Anchoress provide many links and thoughtful commentary.

Papal correspondents. We like it!

Update III: The Anchoress links with a poetic appreciation -- and one caveat we agree with -- of the Peggy Noonan piece:

Yes, this is what I was writing about yesterday. You saw John Paul -- the “mighty organ” and you were stirred and inspired. Benedict -- the tinkling piano in the other room - makes you wonder “what is it,” and you seek him out in his writings, and then fall in love . . .

To me the only burr in today’s otherwise excellent article was her rather gratuitous-seeming snark at the expense of President Bush, which seemed both uncharitable and out of place, like a pothole (on an otherwise smooth road) that needn’t have been hit.

Noonan's inclusion of the gratuitous anti-Bush snark was probably meant as a species-recognition signal to her liberal friends.

Update IV: Jill of The Business of Life links here and to the following post in a long, link-rich post about the buzz surrounding Benedetto's visit. A few soundbites:

Of course, the Catholic media is pulling out all the stops with EWTN carrying live full coverage of every moment.  Peter Steinfels wrote in the New York Times to expect a cliched coverage by the mainstream media as they discover once again that the Pope is indeed Catholic [LOVE it!].

His call to develop a mature adult faith and his powerful intellect and ability to make the vast deposit of the magisterium clear and fresh has made me a fan and deepened my faith.

Sissy, a self-confessed agnostic, is getting A glimpse of the clearing and will be ringing her bells that for many long years have never been heard.

As Jill says in the comments, "Most of us will never get more than a glimpse in the clearing."

"When you meet the pope, you cry"

"Cuddly Benedict," writes The Anchoress -- referring to our own comparison of the Holy Father to that limited edition Hermann Spielweren Pope Benedict XVI teddy bear the other day -- "Whenever I see the man I want to make him a cup of hot tea and ask him what he's been reading, lately." If Papa Ratzi isn't available, she could always cuddle up to one of our Pope Benedict XVI mugs, now on sale at our Cafe Press Shop. Oriana Fallaci's provocative "If an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true" (left) $11.99 and that Speilweren teddy bear (right) $10.99 plus delivery. (Photoshopped images of plain white Design & People mugs)

"The tragedy of our time, your friend's confession that she "believed the media at first," we wrote in The Anchoress's comments, referring to her story of a woman who finally realized what she was missing:

My friend mentioned that she’d only recently come to liking Benedict. “I believed the media at first,” she said, “I thought he’d be a disaster. But I’ve been reading his Jesus of Nazareth, and I love him; he’s so down-to-earth.”

"If only more of our fellow Americans would trust their eyes instead of 'journalists' with anti-Western [not to mention anti-Judeo-Christian] agendas," we continued, "they would, like your friend, see the light." Having been on the MSMs case since our snail-blogging days of yore, we were favorably biased towards Cardinal Ratzinger from the start, of course. As we wrote on April 22, 2005, just three days after his election to the papacy:

He loves cats, he plays Mozart on the piano before he goes to bed at night and the dictatorial relativist Left is apoplectic. Halleluijah!

"Sissy, that Bavarian Bear -- it’s too adorable for words. I want it," The Anchoress writes in her own comments re the Steiff teddy (above) from our previous post. 

The Anchoress:

[Benedict] is warm, pastoral, approachable, quite paternal, and as easy to glean as a dear old uncle sharing fellowship over a cup of tea.

John Paul was a mighty pipe organ, dramatic, transcendent, soul-rattling -- almost overwhelming. He brought you to your knees, before God in hushed awe. Benedict is a piano being played by a musician who plays for love of the music, and he draws you into his sphere, to sing along in praise.

Speaking of playing the piano, we were quite taken with the story of Italian-American pianist-composer Pierluigi Sampietro, who played Mozart and Bach for Pope Benedict XVI in Rome last year. "When you meet the pope, you cry," he told a LoHud reporter:

He is so simple, the most humble priest I have met in my entire life. When he takes your hand, he puts it in his two hands. As Catholics, we know that he is the living representative of Christ on Earth. Can you imagine then sitting next to him? When I went to the piano, I was filled with so much emotion that my hands started to tremble. I never got that trembling before. For the first piece, I knew it was not me playing. People don't understand this. It's ecstasy, that's all . . .

"His music is by no means just entertainment," the pope once said of Mozart. "It contains the whole tragedy of human existence." In Benedict XVI, then, Sampietro has a musical soulmate.

 "Mozart is the angel of music"[says Sampietro]. His music brings you to the innermost part of the soul."

A final note from our comments at The Anchoress:

The contrast between Papa Ratzi as a "dear old uncle sharing fellowship over a cup of tea" vs Barack Obama's lame protestations that HIS minister, the venomous Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is "like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with" speaks volumes.

Obama's snake oil of "hope and change" is thin gruel beside the deep, dark and delicious soul food of Pope Benedict's "Christ our hope."

Papa Ratzi: A "luminous star" and a way out of the "dark night of history"

"This rustic mohair, jointed bear embodies everything that makes Bavaria lovable," says The Toy Shop website of Steiff's Mohair Bavarian Teddy Bear Max. We stumbled onto him while googling the identification of that limited edition Hermann Spielweren Pope Benedict XVI teddy bear the other day, the one whose warmth, humanity and cuddliness reminded us of the Holy Father himself. This winsome -- theologian George Weigel's word for Papa Ratzi's public personality -- little fellow has something of Benedetto about him too (see photo below).

"The real Ratzinger, not the myth, is among the most kindhearted, understanding, cordial, even timid men that I have known," Italian journalist Vittorio Messori wrote of the Bavarian Pope shortly after Papa Ratzi ascended the Throne of Peter April 19, 2005. "The pope I have seen for the past three years is the Joseph Ratzinger I have known for 20 -- a holy and brilliant priest who knows who he is, a master teacher with remarkable skill in explaining complex Christian doctrines and a quite winsome public personality," says theologian George Weigel, quoted among many quotable quotes in USA Today. "In a word, the pope is a paradox," adds historian Brennan Pursell, author of Benedict of Bavaria: An Intimate Portrait of the Pope and His Homeland, whose "exhaustively researched book discusses how the Holy See's Bavarian background has influenced and motivated him throughout his life," writes Richard Liebson of LoHud.com:

A professor at DeSales University, a Catholic liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, and a frequent visitor to Bavaria, Pursell agrees that Benedict "toes the traditional Catholic line," but bristles at media descriptions of the pontiff as "God's Rottweiler," or "the Panzer Kardinal," that began when he served as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope John Paul II. Pursell argues that those labels had more to do with the duties of the "protector of the faith" than the man who performed them . . .

"The job doesn't define the human being," Pursell said. "He has a different role now than he did then, and I think the world is seeing a different side of him now . . .

"He is a bona fide genius, a world-class intellectual, who throughout his life has persistently identified himself with the culture and communities of small-town, rural Bavaria. His piety, his religious views and his humanity are very much those of a simple small town Bavarian kid."

"A writer  once said that angels can fly because they don't take themselves too seriously. [ G.K. Chesterton's original: "Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly."] Maybe we could also fly a bit if we didn't think we were so important," the Vicar of Christ told a Deutsch Welle radio interviewer a couple of years back. (Gregorio Borgia/The Associated Press)

"While he is known throughout the world as 'the German pope,' Benedict is actually a son of Bavaria, which most Germans and virtually every Bavarian will tell you are two different things," continues LoHud.com, giving a "Breezing through Bavaria" guided tour of Joseph Ratzinger's homeland:

Located in southeast Germany, the "free state of Bavaria," as it calls itself, is a tradition-bound land of fairy tale castles and sweeping Alpine scenery, where church steeples dot the countryside and elaborate crucifixes are found in most farm fields. The largest producer of hops in the world, Bavaria is home to the original Oktoberfest in Munich . . .

The largest state in Germany, today's Bavaria boasts one of the country's strongest economies and highest education levels, but is still best known for its music and art festivals, museums, folklore, and beer . . .

Unlike those of any other German state, Bavaria's constitution provides for Bavarian citizenship, and its government spends millions of Euros to preserve its culture. In a country that has been mostly Protestant since German Martin Luther's challenge of papal authority in 1517 led to the Reformation, Bavaria has remained staunchly Catholic.

The current pope's low-key, scholarly persona is often contrasted -- not always favorably -- with his predecessor's dramatic flair. "If John Paul weren't a pope, he would have been a movie star. If Benedict weren't a pope, he would have been a university professor," said the National Catholic Reporter's John Allen in that Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life blogged here the other day, as reported by Scripps:

Nevertheless, it would "be a mistake to believe that Benedict is simply incapable of talking in pictures when he has a point he wants to make or that kind of flair for the just-right dramatic gesture," said Allen, speaking at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The question, of course, is whether Benedict will make any dramatic gestures during his upcoming visit to Washington and New York City. While politicos will insist on sifting his texts for any sound bites that might affect the White House race, Allen and another Vatican expert said it would be wiser to focus on Benedict's April 18 speech at the United Nations.

Any defense of human rights, stressed Weigel, requires the use of a "word that Benedict XVI has brought into the Vatican's inter-religious dialogue in a powerful way -- reciprocity. If there is a great mosque in Rome welcomed by the leadership of the Catholic Church, why not a church in Saudi Arabia? If we recognize the freedom of others to change their religious location as conscience dictates, that needs to be recognized by dialogue partners as well."

Fordham University professor of communication and media studies Lance Strate, quoted in that USA Today article, caught our eye -- and our imagination -- with this thought:

But, Strate says, if cameras catch the pontiff when his brown eyes are intently engaged and "if people listen to his words," Benedict could become his own kind of papal star.

The words of the Holy Father in his Wednesday Audience today [via James H of Opinionated Catholic] resonate. He spoke of the life and times of a man whose "biographer" -- St. Gregory the Great -- had called him a "luminous star" and a way out of the "dark night of history," St. Benedict, founder of Western monasticism and Patron of Benedict XVIs pontificate:

Writing in a time of turmoil and moral decadence following the fall of the Roman Empire, Pope Gregory believed that the life and Rule of Benedict could be a light leading the people of Europe out of darkness . . .

Europe today -- just emerging from a century profoundly wounded by two world wars and the collapse of major ideologies that proved to be tragic utopias -- is in search of its identity. To create a new and lasting unity, political, economic and juridical instruments are certainly important, but an ethical and spiritual renewal drawing from the Christian roots of the continent must also be inspired, otherwise Europe cannot be reconstructed.

Let there be light.

Update: "This sums it up," writes our imail correspondent: 

Like Jesus, himself, the Pope is "a holy and brilliant priest who knows who he is, a master teacher."

AND he loves cats and Mozart.

Update II: Garbo talks! (Video Message of Pope Benedict to the US)

Update III: The gist of the text of that video message.

Update IV: The Anchoress links:

Cuddly Benedict . . . whenever I see the man I want to make him a cup of hot tea and ask him what he’s been reading, lately.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Full of her usual meaty one-liners with links.