So Pope Francis met in secret with Kim Davis, the controversial county clerk in Kentucky who has been denying gay couples marriage licenses , in defiance of what is now settled law.Naturally, this meeting wasn't going to remain undercover, and once it was revealed that the two of them indeed had a face-to-face, the internet exploded with bitter disappointment. Tears were shed. Crocodile tears.
Anyone
who expected Pope Francis to change theology and practices that have
formed and ossified for decades and even centuries by edict, decree or
fiat in favor of a progressive wish list is, I think, a little short of
the reality principle. The fact that there is a Pope who supports
efforts to halt climate change, condemns corporations for their inhumane
(and unchristian) pursuit of profit over human welfare, favors and
advocates major immigrant policy changes and has strongly reestablished
the Church's anti-war stance is more than significant, historically.
These are major turns for the Vatican
It's
a no win situation, being the Pope who gets this kind of request for an
audience. If he had turned it down, there would have been vocal outrage
from the Right that the Pope and the Catholic Church were advancing a
solidly leftist agenda , showing that
he is turning his back on "God's Law" . It would be a shit storm either
way, and anyone who has consumed celebrity journalism overtime , should have anticipated some kind of screech, atonal feedback making headlines when the tour was over. It is the nature of the internet that it empowers and encourages leagues of writers and citizen pundits to opine and classify without benefit of more detail.
This is reveals something sad in a culture that increasingly destroying the space need for thought, research and reflection and replacing it with a megaphone in the town square of the proverbial Global Village through which anyone is qualified to yell swear words and lazy invective; there is so much coming at the users of social media that it is impossible to digest ,inspect and make informed judgements on what one has read. It's a form of over stimulation and there s a great depression that is overcoming a generation and the one after that they feel left behind, disconnected.
The quick cure for that is to get angry and to stay angry, angry at everything and everyone that pops in one's news feed, in text messages, emails and alerts of all kinds. The only way to be centered is to be unhappy with everything with all things of this world; foul moods are one's default personality trait and an unearned cynicism is the style of expression. Sarcasm replaces wit, snark replaces smart commentary, shaming replaces considerations of ethical issues and the social contract that suggests we remain civil in our disagreements.
Why they did the meeting in private, in secret, is beyond me, but
no matter. Those who were disappointed in the Pope were looking to be
disappointed; the good he has come out in favor of no longer matters as
they find a dubious and self-serving solace in hand wringing and nurturing a wound that comes
from nothing more than having irrationally unrealistic expectations.