rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Gorbachev Has A Cold: Standing On The Sidelines, Shaken

     We interrupt this episode of punk rock blues in order to get swept up in current events. Our regularly scheduled program: “‘We Need A Bigger Piano, Phil’: How Sonny Bono Invented Feedback” will just have to wait. Cause that’s the way it is with current events.  You can get swept up in them. Like a current. That’s why they call them ‘current’ events.
    The Pope has the flu again and all hell’s breaking loose. Reports upon reports upon Op-Eds and blogs like this one. The thrust of all this typing, beyond back story/histories about the Roman Catholic Church and it’s leader Karol Wojtyla,  is towards debate. Should the Pope resign? Is he fit to serve? What does this mean to the Church in the 21st Century? What’s getting lost in all this science fiction is that an old man, a good man - possibly a great man - is gravely ill. With position personality gets lost in the rush to image. The Office supercedes the man, especially in this case where the man and the Office assume the mantle and infallibility of God.
    Well God may not be dead, but to millions he is sick.
    As a lapsed Catholic who spent his formative years being educated by nuns in an upstate NY Parochial School my psyche still resonates with near Pavlovian response to the Pope. Drilled into my head was the surety that only my people knew the one true God and that the Holy Father in Rome, for all intents and purposes, was God on Earth. From all I’ve read about Mr. Wojtyla, he seems to be a true believer with a deeply politicized heart; a man who worked for the good of the people with his hands and mind as well as his faith and soul.  A man who forgave the man who shot him and once starred in his own Marvel comic. An actor in an experimental theatre group in his native Poland. An artist/activist who stood for all that is good about God and was truly an imitation of Christ.
    But could even Christ himself stand up against Mother Church?
    Pope John Paul II, for all his promise, was running the store throughout the entire run of abuse scandals. It was on his watch that cover ups were covered up and those that hurt children were protected. I can’t imagine Karol Wojtyla standing idly by while this occurred. But Pope John II is apparently a whole ‘nother brother. The man became the Office, the World Power who was, perhaps, too busy defeating Communism to even notice the pain of his people. Maybe when one is operating on that vast a stage there is a higher purpose. But I can’t imagine what it might be. Maybe when one is operating on that vast a stage one is swept up in current events and, no matter how obviously wrong some things are, one can only  watch in wonder. Standing on the sidelines, shaken.
    Now I know that I’m a crazed conspiracy theorist, though I really don’t believe any of them in my heart. I really don’t believe anything in my heart, which is sometimes disturbing and another story entirely, but can you imagine the scampering and scavenging that must be going on right now in the corridors of Vatican power? The Vatican (aka the Catholic Church) is one of the oldest and most secretive World Power we got throwing dice in the big casino of modern life and right now Gorbachev has a cold. I’m thinking Cardinals are pushing their boys to the front, jockeying for position, doing backroom deals like little Boss Tweeds in long black dresses. Keeping the Line in line. Remember Pope John Paul I? He died suddenly, didn’t he? Wonder what HE was about to give awa… I mean, do? I have no idea how this is going to end up but I’m not hopeful. I expect no sweeping regime change that will result in a Catholic Church that takes full responsibility for the misdeeds of it’s priests, to accede itself to the rule of law or divests itself of at least some it’s obscene wealth to feed the poor in Christ’s name. Sell a couple of paintings. And open that fucking library with the books that only the Pope can read.
    A good man is ill, perhaps near death. I will mourn for Karol Wojtyla when he passes, for the world will have lost a  servant of the light and we need all of those we can get. And as for Pope John Paul II, world leader and empty suit, well maybe you should have listened to yr spider sense when it was tingling.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 19:17 | link | comments

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