Let Us Return to Prayer

[Geee]

American Spectator:

When I first heard that Pope Benedict XVI had announced his plans to resign, I made a pledge to avoid all media for the duration. I knew all too well what to expect: juvenile headlines, inaccurate reporting and most dreadful of all, the interviews with what I call “ethnic” Catholics: those who do not follow the precepts of the Church and rarely go to Mass, yet feel eminently qualified to be interviewed by the New York Times merely because they were born into the Faith.

But I also knew that as a faithful Catholic and a writer, it was my regrettable duty to open the newspapers and turn on the TV to see if anything had changed since the last Papal Interregnum. And predictably, nothing had, although there seems to be a different mood among those once again tasked to cover an entity they know little or nothing about and whose mission and methods they so truly despise.

After the death of John Paul II, they seemed gleeful, hoping that the next pope would be one with whom they would “agree.” After all, he started out as a great story for them; he was a novelty; a young Pole on the throne of St. Peter after so many years of aged Italians. Maybe he would be the one who would bring the Church more in line with modern ways.