In class once, I made a disrespectful comment about the pope at the time, John Paul II. I was the only Jewish boy in a Catholic school, and I was sure I\u2019d be given an exemplary punishment.<\/p>\n
I was wrong. We were in Rome, the most tolerant place in the world for irreverence toward popes.<\/p>\n
Catholics in New York, waiting for Benedict XVI to arrive today in their city, may find this attitude puzzling. But there\u2019s a sonnet by Gioacchino Belli, on the death of Pope Leo XII, that nicely illustrates the Roman\u2019s ambiguous feelings toward His Holiness:<\/p>\n
You see the pope\u2019s funeral carriage, he says, weighed down by the magnificence of papal pomp, pass through the city\u2019s narrow streets for the last time. You look at it with a mixture of affection and hostility. You make fun of that grandiose way of dressing, even in death, but at the same time you feel a surge of emotion for that part of you that is vanishing. You then console yourself with the most Roman of sayings: \u201cOne pope dies, another is made\u201d\u009d \u201d\u201d sanctioning the eternity of an institution despite the transience of a single individual, the immortality of a city despite the impermanence of its citizens.<\/p>\n