Right until death Ebert dodged the most fundamental question

He spent a life chronicling show business, so why not a show at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago for the funeral of Roger Ebert? Chicago’s great clerical showmen were on hand for the premiere. Jesse Jackson sent a message that Ebert “sought to explain America to itself,” which may well be apt if you consider America to be a vast, leisured people busy about entertaining themselves.

Fr. Michael Pfleger, a burr under the saddle of Cardinal Francis George, concluded the show with a rather banal vision of eternal beatitude: “The balconies of heaven are filled with angels singing ‘thumbs up.’ ” Angels don’t have thumbs, but in the movies anything is possible...