A Secular World Pauses for a Papal Moment

The Boston Herald

For a secular world with a short attention span, we've been surprisingly consumed for a solid month with God and, for believers anyway, his representative here on Earth.

First there was Pope John Paul II's illness, which absorbed us. Then his death, which saddened us. Then his funeral, which was the most attended in history. Then there was the endless speculation about who would succeed him. In every corner of the world, reporters and columnists talked to clergy and religious historians about the process of electing a pope, about the candidates, about their strengths and weaknesses and who would do what and who would be best. The ancient election process itself was explored in detail.

And then yesterday came the climax, the moment the world was waiting for.

But why was the world waiting if religion is meaningless and the church is an anachronism? Why does the world care about a new Roman Catholic pope in this era of indifference? Everything we read and hear tells us that the Vatican has little influence on how most Catholics behave, and that the young, especially, have little use for the dictates of Rome.

Even yesterday, while cameras and microphones were recording every detail of a faith-filled tradition, The New York Times was reporting that ``among Catholics, only 10 percent in the Netherlands, 12 percent in France, 15 percent in Germany and Austria, 18 percent in Spain and 25 percent in Italy attend Mass weekly'' and that the ``trend away from organized Catholicism is sharpest among European youth.''

And yet there they were in St. Peter's Square, belying these statistics, tens of thousands of young people in the throng, misty eyed, watching and waiting for the red drapes to open.

So what is true? What you read in the papers: ``Vatican City is 109 acres of faith in a European sea of disbelief''? Or what you see on TV?

What propelled all those people to Rome? What propelled all of us to watch and read and learn? Hope that this new leader will indeed be Christ on Earth? The Christ who said, ``Love thy neighbor as thyself.'' The Christ who dispersed a crowd with the words, ``Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'' The Christ who counted women - Mary and Martha and Mary Magdalene - among those closest to him? The Christ who so revered the sharing of love in marriage that he performed his first miracle at a wedding?

Christianity is complex with its sets and subsets. But Roman Catholicism is simple. Its rules don't change. Maybe they should. The church is bleeding parishioners and priests, old men with their old rules out of step with the values of today.

But then maybe that's why the world paused to watch. Because so little remains the same. But this does: The Swiss Guards, the red robes, the church bells, the news still delivered in Latin, habemus papam, the roaring crowd, the papal blessing. And the hope that an old tradition and a new pope bring - that one Christ-like man can change the world.