Thursday, January 26, 2006
Sapphire bullets of pure love
Pope Benedict XVI has released his first papal encyclical this week. A papal enyclical is an open letter, usually to bishops. This one is addressed to the bishops, priests, decons, religious men and women and all the lay faithful. While I'm not quite sure I fit under any of those categories, I read it anyway. Why?
Because the letter is on a topic that doesn't get enough media time these days: Love.
Of course the press in its coverage is quick to note the full title, "On Christian Love," and is quick to look for controversy in the document--Christian love v. Jewish love v. Muslim love etc. But what I found intriguing, was that he has chosen this particular topic at this particular time in history.
Love. When's the last time you've talked about love with someone? What about the last time you've talked about war? War on Terror? War in Afghanistan? In Iraq? Africa?
These days, war is more about controlling what people are talking and thinking about, and less about guns and body counts. A terrorist attack isn't about the dozens (sometimes more, as we've seen) of people killed, but about the fear it can generate across the globe.
Pope Benedict has sent out his own little bomb to the media. While currently the news media are looking to find out who the Catholic Church is speaking against (gays, unmarried couples, non Christians--if you look hard enough you can find just about any nonCatholic), but that's what the media do these days, if it bleads it leads, right?
But we can hope those headlines will lead more people to devote their brain cells to thinking about love a little more; maybe some media pundits will devote 7 minutes of air time to a discussion of agape vs eros as opposed to a debate on the tactic of Sharon vs Hamas; perhaps a poet or two will write a sonnet about love as opposed to a cry of pain about death and destruction.
Or maybe not.
Because the letter is on a topic that doesn't get enough media time these days: Love.
Of course the press in its coverage is quick to note the full title, "On Christian Love," and is quick to look for controversy in the document--Christian love v. Jewish love v. Muslim love etc. But what I found intriguing, was that he has chosen this particular topic at this particular time in history.
Love. When's the last time you've talked about love with someone? What about the last time you've talked about war? War on Terror? War in Afghanistan? In Iraq? Africa?
These days, war is more about controlling what people are talking and thinking about, and less about guns and body counts. A terrorist attack isn't about the dozens (sometimes more, as we've seen) of people killed, but about the fear it can generate across the globe.
Pope Benedict has sent out his own little bomb to the media. While currently the news media are looking to find out who the Catholic Church is speaking against (gays, unmarried couples, non Christians--if you look hard enough you can find just about any nonCatholic), but that's what the media do these days, if it bleads it leads, right?
But we can hope those headlines will lead more people to devote their brain cells to thinking about love a little more; maybe some media pundits will devote 7 minutes of air time to a discussion of agape vs eros as opposed to a debate on the tactic of Sharon vs Hamas; perhaps a poet or two will write a sonnet about love as opposed to a cry of pain about death and destruction.
Or maybe not.
# posted by VMH @ 1:57 PM 
