Black Pope Gives me Hope

I grew up catholic, raised by parents who are relatively religious, who would go to church as often as they felt the need to repent (which is the way those buildings should work: only when you feel guilty should you need a venue to which you can turn) and who sent me to a catholic highschool for the last few years of my secondary education.

I had a lot of problems with catholocism when I left Father Leo J. Austin in Whitby, whereas those problems led me to want to reject my faith and turn to a more personally driven approach to religion and a very open minded acceptance of what I believe to be true and faithful. My major problems with the sect of christianity to which I was baptized was first the hypocrisy in the text and fundamentals to which catholocism preaches, as well as the money driven politics events like World Youth day; all in all these things soured my concept of organized religion as a whole. I can understand that the largest mass in history requires money, but charging $130 a head to get a weekend pass to Toronto's world youth day when Vatican City has a combined wealth worth more than 90% of the worlds national economies is simply not faithful and ignores community in my books.

Needless to say for the past four years I have restructured my beliefs and feel as though I have started a new religion simply called "faith" whereas I believe there is a god, I pray to him, I live by a moral code, and believe that regardless of skin colour, ethinicity, or sexuality you can believe in whatever the hell you want, wherever the hell you want, and you don't need an organization to tell you whats right or wrong and then ask for a donation and say that your soul as been cleansed simply by showing up to mass.

However, the pope has recently died (for those of you living under a rock) and after soaking equivalent hours to my 24 with Keifer consumption habits I now find myself drawn into the catholic world once again with hopes that the passing of John Paul II can lead to a fresh start for catholocism and a possible turn in the near future for those things that itch me most about my former faith.

Before I tell you how my faith towards catholics might change let me first vent about the recent spectacle that the pope's death has brought to our media consumption. I don't know why but for some reason I feel as though this experience has been cheapened for me because of the oversaturation of coverage this religious icon has received in the media for the past week. I understand his value to the world and what he has done, and my negatives towards John Paul II death's coverage has nothing to do with the value of work he has done for the human race for the past twenty five years or the value the pope has as an icon to a good chunk of the faithful world. There is just something about globally viewing the touring of his body and the creation of a Mark Burnett styled competition for the new job that just really sours the whole experience for me.

Granted I have never witness a papal transition but I just feel as though there should be something more organic, less televised, less mediated in the consumption of this man's death. Television is such a cool medium (thank you mcluhan) and this is such a hot topic, that I feel as though the way in which individuals should deal with this event is away from the screen whereas the pope's programming is mixed in between episodes of queer eye for the straight guy and desperate housewives. I may be wrong, this programming may be necessary, but it just itches, and in my opinion everything that itches deserves a whine, a cry or two.

How, pretell, do I see a shining light at the end of my sectual tunnel. Well, my hope for catholocism lies in the fact that a strong majority of media coverage is leaning towards the election of Cardinal Francis Arinze as the potential pope to follow good ole JPII. If the Catholic church decides to elect a black pope I openly here and now admit that I will restore my faith in catholocism and preach that as the sect to which I belong. Why? Well, because my biggest problem with catholocism is the cemented way in which the fundamentals of the church have not changed for as long as I have known. I believe if Arinze is chosen you will see great change in the mentality of one 6th of the world's population and that those who anger me most with catholics will have to realize that the world is changing and that norms and mores of the past may be changing for good. My analysis in this post is shallow I know, but nevertheless it is my reasoning and please to know more about what Arinze has done and could potentially do for the church, continue reading different sites on the internet about this Cardinal and the work he has already done in Africa up until this point.

posted by mr. tomas ubik @ Tuesday, April 05, 2005