Bravissimo NY Times

I am just now catching up on reading all about Pope Benedict's trip to the UK last week. Given that I did lots of running around and my media sources were limited to NPR snippets about protests and sex scandals, I was relieved to read what the man himself had to say. I particularly felt the beauty of this quote, from a speech he gave during his homily in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park:

There is only one thing which lasts: the love of Jesus Christ personally for each one of you. Search for him, know him and love him, and he will set you free from slavery to the glittering but superficial existence frequently proposed by today’s society. Put aside what is worthless and learn of your own dignity as children of God.

Thank God for the Holy Father to remind of us that....because the world is weary indeed.

I also appreciated this Op-Ed from (shocker!) that bastion of left-wing liberalism, the New York Times. Columnist Ross Douthat had this today regarding protests to the Papal visit:

And yes, the church’s exclusive theological claims and stringent moral message don’t go over well in a multicultural, sexually liberated society. But the example of Catholicism’s rivals suggests that the church might well be much worse off if it had simply refashioned itself to fit the prevailing values of the age. That’s what the denominations of mainline Protestantism have done, across the last four decades — and instead of gaining members, they’ve dwindled into irrelevance.... This, above all, is why the crowds cheered for the pope, in Edinburgh and London and Birmingham — because almost five centuries after the Catholic faith was apparently strangled in Britain, their church is still alive.

Bravissimo, NYT. Now I know why, despite your manifold faults, I continue to read you.