Europe, the Pope, and Sour Grapes

Karl Keating emailed yesterday, just back from vacation.

1. April 19 found us in Vienna. In the late afternoon church bells began to peal. It wasn't the top of the hour, so we suspected that white smoke had come from the Sistine Chapel.

We turned on the television in our hotel room. Sure enough, the camera was focused on the stovepipe.

Once the new pope was announced, bells all over town started to ring, and some of them rang for a good half hour--a nice touch that probably wasn't replicated in any American city.

Maybe he's a touch sour, too. I happened to be downtown when Pope Benedict was elected and our Cathedral's bells and those of other churches could be heard ringing.

Keating later says

13. When I got home I found in the diocesan newspaper the latest syndicated column by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser. I never have thought much of his writings, and my opinion was strengthened by this column.

He said, "Cardinal Ratzinger wasn't my first choice and may have been in fact my last choice [why be coy? of course he was your last choice; he was the last choice of every liberal commentator], but, after some initial disappointment, I've made my peace with his selection."

That column was also in last week's Catholic Herald. With Fr. Richard McBrien, that means two out of three of the paper's regular op-ed columnists were opposed to our Pope's election.

When I heard the bells ringing, I went to our Cathedral. I doubt anyone could find fault with the workmanship of the renovation of a few years ago. The problems are with the new design; Karen Marie Knapp unintentionally describes its incoherence. That incoherence shouldn't surprise; if he could have, Archbishop Weakland would have torn it down and built an enormous replacement.