An Antidote to Grief

The instant hagiography being created around the late Pope makes me want to puke. This was not a great and good man, but a throwback to the era of medieval despots, the Inquisition, and the rule of theocracy.

Paul Varnell of the Chicago Free Press provides a salutuary counterbalance to all the current nonsense.

Watching the hordes pouring out their superficial self-indulgent grief over this person is strongly reminiscent of the orgy of self-flagallation that accompanied the death and funeral of another modern media 'saint' - Princess Diana.

Thankfully that orgasm of lachrymosity seemed to get Dubious Di out of everyone's system: since then she has more or less disappeared off the radar, her shrine unvisited, her memorial a joke, except to a faithful few.

I suspect the same thing will happen with JP2: once people are over the shock he'll be bundled off into the filing cabinet of history with a sense of profound releif. People loved them both, in the same way they loved Lisa McCune's character in Blue Heelers, but deep down, everyone is profoundly, if guiltily, glad they're gone. Hence the excessive ME ME ME LOOK HOW SAD I AM mourning. The prevailing underlying sentiment is actually one of THANK GOD THAT'S OVER!!!

Amen to that