Saturday, April 2, 2005

MH - Goodbye, Good Friend

You don't need me to tell you that the Holy Father has died; I'm sure you can come up with better news sources than me. I'll have more to write on this later, when I've had more time to compose my thoughts. Even though we've been, in a sense, waiting for this for the last couple of days, it is not something you take lightly.

But it has been a dramatic couple of days. Commentators seem struck by the fact that so many young people were in St. Peter's Square. I'm not surprised; so many "latch-key" kids feel deserted by their parents, for money or material goods or jobs; young adults feel betrayed by their superiors at work; many more feel their political leaders speak out of both sides of the mouth at the same time. It would be no surprise that in the Pope they would see someone who was honest with them, spoke to them, cared about them, loved them. In him they saw a mirror of Christ, which is what they were supposed to see.

One man said he felt as if his father had died a second time. Walter Rogers on CNN said that the Pope's death leaves the world a much diminished place. We have all been privileged to live in an era of such greatness, and to have been able to appreciate that at the time. Perhaps we didn't appreciate it enough; that's our loss.

The president spoke well, as have so many. I imagine there's been some excellent commentary from the blogosphere; I haven't had time to look much, but I'll try to find some for you in the days ahead. We'll be back on Monday unless events dictate additional commentary, but Jonah Goldberg at NRO has what I think is an appropriate way to leave it for now: "What a glorious man. We won't see another like him and let us hope we won't need another like him as much as we needed him."

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