HughHewitt.com
No editorialist has yet compared Benedict's succession from John Paul II to the Andropov/Chernenko interregnum between Brezhnev and Gorbachev, but given the overwhelming hostility of the American media elite to the announcement of Benedict XVI's election, it will only be a matter of time. Already there is more projection of liberal hopes onto the theologically-rooted papacy. "Benedict XVI will hold to the late pope's theologically conservative line," wheezed the Los Angeles Times, "but he won't do it all that long, giving the church a breather in which to plan its future."
As I noted yesterday, even if Benedict XVI doesn't live to be 95 --which he could-- it will take only one round of his appointments to the College of Cardinals to protect the next conclave from the retreat from truth that the editorialists in America want so deeply. As I noted yesterday, 48 of the cardinal-electors are 74 or older, meaning they will not vote on the next pope if the new one reigns for a half dozen years. I will watch for the first set of cardinals elevated by Benedict XVI. In that roster will be John Paul II's legacy of stability.
The refusal of even a single day's honeymoon for the new pope from the scribblers of the left tells us a lot about the folks who work on editorial boards, and also a lot about diversity in America's newsrooms. Are there even five traditional, Mass-attending and confession-going writers among the five editorial boards sampled above? Is there even one who would step forward to defend the Church's teaching on human dignity and sexuality? There are tens of millions of American Catholics full of joy at yesterday's news, but do they have any voice within elite MSM at all?
Not that it matters, except that it helps explain why the Los Angeles Times lost another 5% of its circulation in this week's report, dropping it below 1968 levels, even as the state it serves moved from 19.5 million to 35 million in population. The country's opinion elite has become uniformly shrill and predictable, and the left margin of the political spectrum it represents, deeply hostile to all that Roman Catholicism as understood by John Paul II and Benedict XVI represents. It is hard to sell newspapers to Roman Catholics when your contempt for its tenets and leaders drips from every page.
But at least the faithful these days can go to RomanCatholicBlog, The Anchoress, GalleySlaves, Professor Bainbridge, Amy Welborn's Open Book, The Corner, and EagleandElephant for word and reaction from their colleagues among the faithful. No wonder John Paul II welcomed the internet.
BTW: There is much talk of Benedict XVI having been the "enforcer" of Catholic doctrine, as though somehow that is exceptional or wrong-headed. MarkDRoberts, a protestant theologian, has a great take on the Catholic approach to teaching. Roberts also directs us to an essay on the new pope by Richard John Neuhaus. I am looking forward to the next entry in Neuhaus' Rome Diary.
hughhewitt.com
romancatholicblog.typepad.com
theanchoressonline.com
galleyslaves.blogspot.com
professorbainbridge.com
amywelborn.typepad.com
nationalreview.com
eagleandelephant.blogspot.com
weeklystandard.com
markdroberts.com
ctlibrary.com
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