The Monday Rounds

Any day that someone's rampant anger inspires them to call me, "you disgusting attention-craving moron," is a good day. You've gotta love that wholesome Trad spirituality.

The amazing thing is, I never did a single thing to promote this blog. For the first six months, I worked from the assumption I was being read by five people. And then the comments and e.mails started pouring in.... I'm more astonished by the outpouring than anyone else. But I digress.

In her Cologne wrap, Amy returns to a very noteworthy point:

The coverage of yesterday's homily, for example, focused primarily on the last part, in which the Pope spoke of DIY religion, going to Mass on Sunday, etc. But nary a word about the wonderfully powerful first two-thirds, in which the Pop spoke on transformation - on letting the bread and wine transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ then transform us, and finally, transform the world, as we work, in Communion with the Lord, into turning death into life.

Can't put that into a headline, I guess.

In a sound-byte culture, we now have a Pope who refuses to by sound-byted -- and, seriously, since when can the Christian message be delivered in 15 seconds?

As I've noted on several occasions with B16's speeches, the only way to do them justice would be to closely read the fulltext. (The speeches are very hard to excerpt -- JP's paragraphs were three or four sentences each. Ratzinger's are, um, about 12 or 13 sentences each. And, ever the teacher, he does write them all himself.)

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