All Things Catholic

After a lengthy and, at times, contentious debate over
recent years about a new English translation of the Order of Mass, which
relies more heavily on a sacred vocabulary closer to the Latin originals,
some observers were surprised by the relatively anti-climatic nature of
the vote of the American bishops last week in Los Angeles. Following a
fairly brief discussion, the bishops approved the translation by an
overwhelming vote of 173 to 29.

Several factors no doubt help explain the result, including a recent
letter from Cardinal Francis Arinze of the Congregation for Divine Worship
to Bishop William Skylstad, president of the American conference, which
made adoption of the text seem inevitable, and the general fatigue many
bishops feel with the "liturgy wars" which have rocked English-speaking
Catholicism since the mid-1990s.

Anyone who has followed American politics in recent
years knows the revolution that has taken place in the "religious vote."
Once the Democrats were the party of immigrant Catholics, and the
Republicans the party of the Protestant establishment; today the Democrats
tend to be the party of secularism, and Republicans the party of voters
for whom religion is a major concern.

Now a provocative article by Italian political scientist Ernesto Galli
della Loggia suggests there is a parallel phenomenon in Italy, which he
calls the "death of cattocommunismo," the term for the Catholic
version of leftist radicalism which was long a potent force in Italian
politics.

Tuesday night, Georgetown University hosted its annual event for alumni
and friends at Rome's Minerva Hotel. I was asked to moderate a panel
discussion on Vatican diplomacy featuring Ambassadors Francis Rooney, who
represents the United States to the Holy See, and Francis Campbell,
representing the United Kingdom.

Both are Catholics who do not come out
of conventional diplomatic circles. Campbell is a policy wonk who worked
for Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street, while Rooney is a
successful businessman with construction firms in Oklahoma and Florida.

Rooney said there is a great "symmetry" between the interests of the
Holy See and the American government in promoting "human dignity and
essential freedoms in the world," which he described as "under attack" in
places such as Venezuela, China, Bosnia and Russia. He specifically
mentioned the struggle for religious freedom in various parts of the
world.

On Wednesday, Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls released a statement which is also likely to cause some consternation in Israel and among sectors of Jewish opinion. In the wake of Israeli bombings in Gaza and elsewhere that have resulted in civilian casualties, Navarro said:

"The Holy See is following with great apprehension and sorrow the episodes of growing, blind violence which are causing blood to flow in these days in the Holy Land. The Holy Father is close, especially in prayer, to the innocent victims, to their families and to the populations of this land, hostages to those who delude themselves that the ever more dramatic problems of the region can be solved with force or in unilateral fashion."

Journalists have a rather peculiar way of evaluating public figures. Like athletes, we want to be in the game, and that means covering someone who consistently makes news. That way our copy makes the front page, or our TV packages become the lead item on the nightly news.

Even reporters who didn't share his faith convictions, therefore, generally enjoyed covering Pope John Paul II, because he dominated the world's attention for more than a quarter-century. Some journalists made their careers as chroniclers of his life and papacy. Biographer Jonathan Kwitny once dubbed John Paul "the man of the century;" I suspect many in the Vatican press corps would add that he was "the story of the century" as well.