The Vatican Speaks The World Reacts

Back in the days when the Soviet Union existed, and the machinations of the Politburo were at times perplexing, the media and the world turned to a group known as Kremlinologists. It was their job to interpret every little shift in nuance. The Soviet Union’s gone but for most of the media, The Vatican is as perplexing, if not more so. So whenever something emerges from the Holy See, ‘experts’ often called Vatican Watchers, are called upon to interpret what’s going on. This week the Vatican Watchers were doing double duty….

Next to last weekend’s flurry of canonisations, the story that had Catholics riveted was the news that flowed from Wednesday’s announcement of the appointment of 24 new Cardinals. The key lesson that some drew was that Italian Cardinals had returned to their prominence after declining in influence under John Paul II. The Irish Times referred to it as the ‘re-italianization’ of the College of Cardinals and The Australian, describing the appointments as ‘the largest crop of new Italian Cardinals since the 1960s’, speculated that this means that the next Pope would be Italian. John Allen Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter, often described as the most astute of Vatican Watchers, brings his own take on the appointments suggesting that it is a mix which indicates little is about to change. Thomas Reese, the Jesuit Scholar at the Woodstock Theological Center went deeper, as one might expect, in his take on the story in The Washington Post. It’s a decent analysis that also explains why one of the rumoured appointments, that of Archbishop Collins, couldn’t happen this time, it’s all about math, proportions and time. But of course perhaps the final word needs to go to the On-Line Bookies who are running odds on where the next Pope will come from: the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power is offering odds 7-4 that he will be Italian.

By a strict news story count, the appointment of new Cardinals was outdone by another story that flowed from the Vatican. The suggestion that Homer Simpson and his family were Catholics caught everyone by surprise. Now of course the Vatican didn’t declare such, the reference is to a piece in L'Osservatore Romano, which has made news in the past with its forays into Pop Culture, most noticeably with the Beatles. Everybody from the New York Times to Lifesite News felt compelled to jump into the discussion. Joe Carter at First Things probably brings the best mixture of humour and being slightly perplexed to the whole issue, especially his sense from afar of what’s behind all this: “Their editorial staff reminds me of the stereotypical youth pastor: really nice, solidly Christian, but trying way too hard to be hip.” To be fair, the funniest take of all comes from one of the producers of the Simpsons. It’s nice video with some very funny ‘Catholic’ scenes from various episodes of the show.