The Year of Magical Thinking

Or perhaps I should say, the " Year of Magical Religious Commentary".

 When Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meet at the Vatican next Sunday (June 8), it will be another sign of how Pope Francis has returned the Vatican to the global stage to a degree not seen since the 1980s....

“Francis is not resigned to a passive vision of world affairs,” Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Rome-based Community of Sant’Egidio, a Catholic organization active in conflict resolution and peace brokering, said last summer. “We must prepare for a new age of political audacity for the Holy See.” ...

[in the 1980s] the stakes were clear, as were the major players — and the way forward....

Dealing with [present] dynamics is a daunting prospect — and one for Francis that is complicated by the legacy of John Paul’s success in the Cold War. The end of Soviet communism was almost miraculous in its suddenness, and it left the impression that a charismatic pope could change (or at least shape) the course of human events.

So now we're all to be shocked that the First Pope To Have Smiled in Public didn't walk across the Mediterranean to bring rainbows and unicorns to all warring factions?
My word, that's as startling as to have learned that he's actually, when you get down to brass tacks, CATHOLIC in his beliefs.

It must be noted, it seems that many religion column writers, (many of whom seem to think their attitude toward their subject ought to parallel that of, say... crime writers toward theirs,) seem to have created a straw pope man in order to decorate him like a pinata before they knock him down.

But of course, the media are not a monolith, and it is possible that all those covering the Holy Father still believe and say about him exactly what they first chose to believe and say about him -- it's very difficult, once a particular reporter or outlet has chosen a narrative to write coherently, and honestly without at least tweaking that narrative, and who wants to do that?

Like crooked researchers, or law enforcement, or yeah, bloggers, if you've already determined what you want to claim to have learned before the new drug trials, before the forensics, before the interviews, before the investigation, well.....

(I suppose I could have included, "before the papacy.")