Media Event 2005

I refused to bite when it came to commenting on she who is no longer with us but around whom the eyes of every media outlet in the country made sure we were aware. I was a little astonished however when the sporadic media reports out of Italy, of the failing health, of one Pope John Paul II, completely refocused the eyes of the world. All the big networks were ready to make at least another good weeks worth of play time out of she who will not be named here (I wouldn't want search engine traffic to falsely lure people here) when a much bigger personality dropped in their laps.

So it's local and national coverage with doctors discussing the Popes condition. Not the popes doctors or any official press releases from the Vatican because when all is said and done they are very much an old boy network and secretive at heart. No we get hours upon hours of conjecture and speculation while all the leg work journalists are running around trying to get a quote from any cardinal bishop or priest they can find.

Then today with the passing of Pope John Paul II (have to be specific because while one man dies and a period passes with a vacancy in the office the papacy itself endures) there are any number of talking heads bouncing the screen back and forth like a hot potato, not knowing exactly what to say and at the same time feeling that it would some how be inherently wrong to go back to regularly scheduled programming.

During the course of the daylong talking head bonanza it occasionally gets bumped back to the staff researchers who read stuff at uthe vieweres and it is quite obvious that they are completely fascinated and baffled by what they are reading. We have had the same pope for so long they don't really understand that there are rituals and processes in place that are set in stone if you will. With a regular celebrity passing one does a news story on the day of the death and maybe another on the day of a service or memorial. Here however is a long drawn out mourning / burial process followed by an election that they wont be able to observe or predict in any way they are used to.

So now we have media event 2005. Camera crews will follow and badger every catholic celebrity they can find. Researchers will start putting together dossiers on all the cardinals who are eligible for the papacy. Somebody in Vegas will start taking bets about who will be the next pope and that will kick start another round of media hoopla and interviews about how sacrilegious it is. (Yet it wont stop people from betting). Every major archdiocese will do a "Will our cardinal be the next pope?" story. Flight to and from Rome will be booked solid for the next month and airlines may actually have to start adding flights. The same holds true for hotels. Ever hotel is probably already sold out. Will Jesse Jackson be able to make it in time?

I wish I had cable so I could see how Jon Stewart is handling this.

Being an agnostic and lapsed Roman Catholic I have no real stake in this. If there is a god and an afterlife then I guess I hope the big guy forgives the John Paul for the entire anti - gay thing. (I can't see the god of love thing working with the entire anti - gay thing) If there isn't a god then I suppose then it doesn't really matter. I'd say what a surprise for John Paul, but it wouldn't be. He would then be beyond all possible surprises.

I would also hope that the next pope would be more progressive but the last guy created more cardinals than any other in the history of the church and pretty much packed the college of cardinals so I don't expect much change from the next papacy. Ordination of women would be a nice step. By excluding have the populace from the leadership roles they realy hurt everyone and further the archaic belief that women should be subsvient to men. What a step forward that might be. If I were a praying man thats what I would be praying for.

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