From the "Hugh Hewitt" show.
Mark Steyn on the Pope, the incompetent American media coverage of the Pope, and the vertebrae-challenged Republican Senators
A once a week dose of Mark Steyn is all you need to keep grounded in a world that seems to get a little goofier every week. Here's the transcript from just a few minutes ago:
HH: I just want to take your temperature on this amazing outpouring of grief and respect for the Pope. What does that tell us?
MS: Well, I think he was without doubt the most consequencial pope for several centuries. If you compare him with a man like Pius XII, who was pope during the turbulent years in Europe when Nazism and Communism was on the rise, and was in effect swept along by the forces of history, whether or not you regarded him as a bad man or a good man, the truth is really that he was a relatively mediocre man who was shaped by the times. The difference is that John Paul II chose decisively to shape the times, and that's what makes him important.
HH: Now, Jim Geraghty today has posted a lengthy set of excerpts from CNN's pope coverage, in which the various correspondents, particularly Christiana Ammanpour, cannot help themselves, but they end up always critiquing the Pope and his policies. Why is that? How appropriate is it?
MS: Well, I think they just don't get him. In defense, I don't mind them doing that, because the alternative is to do this thing...he was great with crowds, he knew how to pull a crowd, he knew how to work a crowd, which Bill Clinton was just saying a couple of hours ago. and that's actually just as shallow and insulting. And what is the problems for western correspondents like Christiana Ammanpour, is that they can't actually get out of this little, tiny parochial box of issues that are of concern to them, which is basically abortion and homosexuality, and look at the bigger picture. And if you can't look at the bigger picture, you really shouldn't be on T.V. making a fool of yourself in front of millions of people, talking about the Pope.
HH: Have you seen anyone on television attempt to deal with the mystic side of this Pope?
MS: No, I haven't. You see occasionally someone who will speak with a priest and attempt to deal with it. What we have here is, if you compare, for example, basically the grievance that the New York Times and Christiana Ammanpour and everyone have with the Pope, is that he didn't accommodate their views on homosexuality, abortion and contraception. You know, fair enough. But they wouldn't dream of making that same critique of Islam. They wouldn't, for example, demand that Islam introduce female Imams. You just don't see stuff like that. So in a sense, that proves the point that the world we live in, regardless of where you are in it, is essentially a Judeo-Christian world. And in that sense, the Christian Church, and the Catholic Church in particular, is supposed to be the Church for the whole world. And so these people seem to think they can just go to the Pope and say get with it, man. You've got to come up to speed on gays and condoms and all the rest of it. And they would never dream of making that same critique of Islam.
HH: Now it's also...he is...I don't want to call him pre-modern. He is a modern figure in a post-modern world. And standing for absolute truth in many different ways. There are a lot of people who do not understand that concept at all, Mark Steyn.
MS: That's absolutely right. He is a modern man. That's why he's the most traveled Pope in history. He's been seen by more people in history, and that's what makes him important, too, because he was Pope during a time when the population base of the practicing Christian Church shifted from Europe and from the western world to the developing world. I mean the big growth areas for Christianity now are in Asia and Africa and China. And this is a Pope who reflected that. He didn't just kind of hang out in his backyard like his predecessors did. And so he is a modern man. But being modern doesn't mean you have to go along with trends that, even if you are morally neutral on them, have had disastrous impact. They've had disastrous demographic impact. He's a Pole who lives in Italy. There aren't going to be any Italians in a couple of generations, because they no longer have the breeding, the fertility rate necessary to sustain a population. Why should a Pope who goes back to St. Peter go along with practices that put the human race out of business?
HH: It sure does underscore the emphasis he's put on the gift of life when you look at the demographic trends in Europe. Mark Steyn, looking ahead to the conclave, which begins on Monday, April 18th, what do you expect to come out of that? I think you just hinted not a new Italian Pope.
MS: Well, I don't know. One of the interesting things, it doesn't seem such a big deal now, someone said to me because they had a Polish Pope last time, the Italians are going to want to go back and not set a new precedent this time and have an Italian Cardinal. But I don't think anyone thinks like that again now. And so I think it will be a genuinely open way where the ideas of an African or Latin-American Pope will be entertained on the merits. But this is the hardest electoral college in the world. You know the kind of meaningless blather you get into when people are speculating who's going to be the next Governor of South Dakota. This is a far more closed shop than this. We really don't know.
HH; Do you think the whole Terri Schiavo backdrop will have any impact on the Cardinal electors?
MS: I think that had a huge impact on people who think seriously about the issues of life. These are people who were chosen by John Paul II, and they understand that there's a level of decadence abroad in the western world. And that they are engaged in a struggle to hold the line until that can be reversed. And in that sense, this appalling case is really the starkest because of America's legalistic culture in a sense, because it wasn't just done quietly by a doctor as happens every day in the Netherlands. Because the entire power of the state, after all these various appeals, put her down like a dog, then I think that will have a great impact on people thinking about the culture of life and the need to sustain that through these dark times.
HH: You just used a phrase, which is very striking...the level of decadence abroad around the world. What do you mean by that?
MS: Well, because I think that essentially modern post-Christian Europe, and Canada, and large parts of the United States, too, have replaced the traditional impulses of civilization, which is to breed, and to prosper, and to expand and survive with a culture of narcissism. You know, I'd like to have, if you put it to me in those terms, I'd like to have meaningless, promiscuous sex, and just think about myself all day long, and all week long, and all year long. But in the end, when you prioritize that, you actually destroy the culture that enables it. It's a completely absurd culture and brazen. And that's what we've done.
HH: So, thinking it through, decadence is close to narcissism, family is close to the opposite of decadence?
MS: Yes, I think so. Because the fact of the matter is, if you do not...most societies have built into their DNA the need to survive, the need to prosper, and the need to reproduce. And we have managed to lose that in an extraordinary short period of time, and quite remarkably. And it's all very well to say that eventually the Muslims and the Hindus and so forth will stop breeding, too. That's not a good sign, either, because apart from anything else, it's a game of last man standing. So if radical Muslims are the last people to have five, six, seven or more children, then the world that they build will be the one that determines how we live, too. And so it's a simple, foolish, self-defeating sort of selfishness to carry on like that.
HH: Wow, that's remarkable. Mark, before we leave, I want to test the waters about what you think is happening to the Constitutional option in the Senate. We've been getting a couple of different stories here, what's your assessment?
MS: I think, unfortunately, the United States Senate, Democrat and Republican, is actually well to the left of where the American people are on these issues. And people complain about what Republican presidents, and what Republican Congressmen, and what Republican Governors do. You never meet the level of dissatisfaction that they have with Republican Senators. And they being in control, with the Jim Jeffords interlude excepted, they've been controlling this body for a long time now, and we need a bit more stiffness and firmness of spine from them.
HH: Joe Scarborough, on his radio program this morning, said to me that Bill Frist could not win one primary if he fails to break the filibuster. Do you agree with that?
MS: I do. And I think he would be an extremely weak candidate. I don't see what is the point of setting yourself up to be a presidential candidate, unless you have some tough legislative victories under your belt. If he's weak on this, he can't then go to the people and say he's a strong leader. That won't play in New Hampshire or Iowa. It's going to be ridiculous.
HH: And that's exactly why I think we'll get a vote on the Constitutional option.
End of interview. |
