Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Newsweek's Nasty Take on Pope Benedict

(Hat tip: Christopher Blosser)

Newsweek's hateful senior editor Lisa Miller writes:
It's not just his unfortunate visage that puts people off [ED.: Not only is Pope Benedict extremely ugly, ...], or his predilection for the more outré aspects of papal fashion (antique chapeaux and ermine-trimmed capes) [ED.: ... and not only does the Pope wear all that weird Catholic stuff, ...], or his decades employed as John Paul's theological enforcer [ED.: ... and not only did he really piss all us liberals off during his years as Grand Inquisitor when he didn't let us use Vatican II as an excuse to do whatever the hell we wanted with Catholic doctrine, ...]. It's that Benedict is a Christian believer first and an intellectual second [ED.: ... but what really gets us is that the Pope really does take all that faith stuff and his role as the leader of the Church seriously, ...], a man who shows little comfort on the global stage with the messiness of human life and politics [ED.: ... and he isn't secular enough when it comes to seeing the world and how it should work in the same way all us enlightened people do.].

Labels: , , , , , , ,

1 Comments:

At 4/16/2008 10:51 AM, Blogger Literacy-chic said...

Nice glosses! Now, if I were to take ANY of this in a sympathetic way, it would be the first statement, about Pope Benedict's visage. I would not necessarily think "ugliness" was a necessary interpretation (though I chuckled when I read it, because that is really the implication). What I might say is "striking" or "intimidating" visage. While Pope Benedict is very gentle in his speech, he has a kind of dramatic appearance--deep-set eyes, an intensity in his serenity (if that makes sense)--that might be taken as forbidding. Nobility (in the non-aristocratic sense) is in the eye of the beholder, though, and I believe his visage betrays his intellectualism and suggests constant contemplation of all of "the messiness of human life and politics"--but on a different plane.

And as for "his predilection for the more outré aspects of papal fashion," some of us like the "trappings" of Catholicism! For some, the aesthetics and rituals of the Church may be the "way in"!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home

hit counter for blogger