It’s nice to feel a little bit proud this time of being raised Catholic.
via Transcript: Pope Francis’s speech to Congress – The Washington Post.
Transcript: Pope Francis’s speech to Congress – The Washington Post
Posted byJames RoviraPosted inAmerican History and Culture, Politics, ReligionTags:Catholicism, Congress, Pope, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Speech
Published by James Rovira
Dr. James Rovira is higher education professional with twenty years experience in the field in teaching, administration, and advising roles. He is also an interdisciplinary scholar and writer whose works include fiction, poetry, and scholarship exploring the intersections of literature and philosophy, literature and psychology, literary theory, and music and literature.. His books include Women in Rock, Women in Romanticism (Routledge, 2023); David Bowie and Romanticism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022); Writing for College and Beyond (a first-year composition textbook (Lulu 2019)); Reading as Democracy in Crisis: Interpretation, Theory, History (Lexington Books 2019); Rock and Romanticism: Blake, Wordsworth, and Rock from Dylan to U2 (Lexington Books, 2018); Rock and Romanticism: Post-Punk, Goth, and Metal as Dark Romanticisms (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); and Blake and Kierkegaard: Creation and Anxiety (Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2010). See his website at jamesrovira.com for details. View more posts
The Philosophy of Contemporary Song 
Although I pay attention to what religious leaders and noisy followers say (from the Pope to the Dalai Lama and from Osama bin-Laden to Sarah bin-Palin), I do so mainly as an observer more interested in the sociological consequences of the remarks (who believed them and what they did as a consequence) than in the theological merit of the comments.
I have, however, no pony in races about “religious” issues as diverse as transubstantiation in the Eucharist , transmigration of souls or transfers of funds from a grimy tent in the Bible Belt into a Cayman Islands account. I do, however, become a little more interested in authoritative speeches which deal with important “political” events.
I note with satisfaction, for example, the apparent papal commitment to the abolition of capital punishment and essential dignity of human labor and I recoil from the continual sanction of the repression of women and the odious decision to carry on with the impending elevation to sainthood of Junipero Serra.
Standing somewhere in between is a recent column by Matt Taibbi in The Rolling Stone [http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32575-focus-why-do-we-care-whose-side-the-pope-is-on].
Taibbi has some clever and caustic things to say about right-wingers from George Will to Rush Limbaugh. He has some clever things to say about some pious and preachy “leftists” as well. Not (nor intended to be) profound, it is a serviceable “op-ed” and might amuse you and some of your readers.
His closing lines are particularly apt: “People have such impassioned political fights over the pope because everyone wants the endorsement of the guy closest to God. But what if he’s not closer to God, and is just a guy in a funny hat? Doesn’t that make all this fuss and controversy ridiculous? It seems strange that it’s the year 2015, and we still can’t say that out loud.” Except, of course, that he just did …
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Thanks for responding, Howard. Of course, even within Christianity, people will have different views of the Pope. He’s the head of the church for Catholics only. For me, he’s just a rare religious leader who seems to operate on principle rather than wealth and power.
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