Does the Pope live in a bubble?
Seated at his desk in his huge high-ceilinged penthouse study at the top of the Apostolic Palace, looking out over the bell towers, cupolas, monuments and rooftops of Rome, Pope Benedict may well reflect with satisfaction that nowadays the head of the Catholic Church is neither a “Prisoner in the Vatican” nor the “Pope-King,” as some of his predecessors were called.
But he had to admit during a closed meeting with Rome’s parish priests the other day that, cloistered in his frescoed palace, he does feel a bit remote, a bit distant from their lives and the daily challenges they face as they minister to a rapidly changing and an increasingly multicultural and multi-faith society in the Eternal City.
The correspondent could have mentioned the letter just issued by the Pope – who is an octogenarian, remember. In it the Pope says that when the controversy over the Holocaust-denying bishop broke, he learned that most of the information about the man’s views had been available on the internet all along. Then, in an endearing note, the Pope added (in effect): ‘We really must learn how to Google.’
Whoops I was reading the stories scrolling down and then found that the point I had made had already been made in an earlier story posted on this site. Sincere apologies.