Well, since everyone else has weighed in on the food fight du jour, I figure I'd add my two cents, now that the initial firestorm seems to have died down at least a little bit.
So who am I and what perspective do I bring to the table? More below the fold...
I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools for 16 years, left the church for a couple of years, came back to get married, have kids, teach the required prenuptial classes, work for "Catholics for Justice," etc. Six years ago I had a crisis of faith lasting a couple of years where I ate, drank, and slept theology while I wrestled with my demons of doubt, and in the end I left the Church.
So, white it's certainly presumptuous of me, I think I can shed a little light on todays outpouring of emotion, to hopefully pour a little oil on the waters as it were.
Why did so many jump all over the Hitler Youth piece of the new pope's biography, when there are plenty of opinions and actions in the last 20 years or so by Cardinal Ratzinger to be upset over from a liberal perspective? There are folks that aren't familiar with the ins and outs of Catholic theology, but are extremely suspicious of, and sensitive to, anything that smacks of fascism. And this was an easy piece to latch onto, one that appeared to confirm the worst fears of feminists, gays, etc.
No, it wasn't smart. Those who commented that this will certainly be fodder for the folks at LGF to caricature us are correct. But those who reacted this way were reacting from the heart, not the brain. If they were reacting from the brain, they certainly would have said, as others did, that this is no way to bring the Catholic vote back into the Democratic party.
It also was said by some that this was prejudice against the Roman Catholic Church. I do not agree. The posts did not say that Catholics as a whole are idiots, supporters of child molestation, minions of Satan, etc. This was outrage at today's specific act of the college of cardinals in the selection of this particular individual to be pope.
So why the storm and fury over this one individual? Well, let me put it to you this way. In the case of my wife and myself, no other single individual had more to do with why I am no longer a Catholic. I suspect that this is true for the vast majority of ex-Catholics that posted, even if they aren't fully aware of the ongoing detailed role of Cardinal Ratzinger in his official capacities that made them feel unwelcome in the only religious home many of them had ever known.
It. Was. A. Cry. Of. Pain.
Of deep pain. Of anguish. Of the kind of pain we all felt on the day after the election. The kind of pain you might feel if you left an abusive, cheating husband, and he was then elected to public office, even though his abusiveness and cheating were well documented in the local press.
It ripped open all the old wounds. It felt as if the Church were saying "good riddance to you!"
I was going to go on at length about the death of faith by a thousand cuts, but this isn't really the place for a theological rant, and that's not what I want to accomplish here.
I'm not talking about theological details of his positions. I'm explaining to those that are approaching this as a "head issue," those that might be neither Catholics nor ex-Catholics, that what you got was a "heart" reaction from a certain segment of the community.
We (the upset Catholics and upset ex-Catholics both) all know that we have to be reality-based, and tomorrow (or someday soon) we'll have licked off yet another wound and will be back here all cool and logical and ready to do war against the administration and all the other evils in the world.
But tonight there's just a lot of deep disappointment at what might have been, at hopes for a brighter, freer, more open world delayed to a future election. As Democrats I think we all know what that feels like.
I was a sophomore in college when the brief hope that was the papacy of John Paul I was so tragically cut short. Now I have a son who is a sophomore in college. Some of us are not only feeling disappointed, we are feeling that leaden feeling that comes with the realization that the world is so fucked up that it's still going to be fucked up when we die. Hopefully a little less, but still a real mess. And we want better than that for our kids. That was part of the inchoate scream of rage this afternoon as well.
I come from an Italian family, so rants are not something unknown to me. My mother had a saying whenever someone would go on a rant: "He'll get happy again." And I will, and I expect the rest of us will settle down to deal with the new reality the world has been dealt. Maybe not like it, but hey, the world is still as beautiful and amazing as ever, and love is still as precious.
Life goes on, despite the foibles of the naked apes on this third rock from the sun. So to those considering a "goodbye cruel world" diary over all of this, just hang in there. We'll all take a deep breath and get back to business really soon. But some of us feel like taking a shower just now.