{"id":2411,"date":"2008-04-16T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-16T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/04\/the-audacity-of-pope.html"},"modified":"2008-04-16T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-16T13:00:00","slug":"the-audacity-of-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/04\/the-audacity-of-pope.html","title":{"rendered":"The Audacity of Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Your Humble Blogger has hardly been idle. <\/p>\n

I just posted a little something over at the CBS News blog “Couric & Co.”<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Watching Pope Benedict step out of his limousine this morning and wave to the thousands cheering on the White House South Lawn, one thought crossed my mind: What would my grandparents think? <\/p>\n

They were immigrants from Austria-Hungary (later known as Czechoslovakia) who settled in the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania, where my grandfather spent most of his life deep under the earth, mining coal. Their English was spotty, and their education slim. I don\u2019t think my grandfather ever graduated high school. Together they raised five children in a rickety wooden row house not far from the coal mines. All the Hungarians and Poles and Slovaks clustered in one corner of the town. I don\u2019t know that I\u2019d call it a Catholic ghetto \u2013 but it was definitely off the beaten path. <\/p>\n

Back then, in the early days of the 20th century, Catholics were considered Papists, or pagans, or worse. They were the cooks and housekeepers and bus drivers and janitors. Some became priests or teachers. A few with money and connections would ascend to higher places \u2013 think of the Kennedys \u2013 but it was rare. (Even today, you will find high-profile Protestant pastors like John Hagee who refer to the Catholic Church as \u201cThe Great Whore.\u201d Some bigotry dies hard.) <\/p>\n

So what I witnessed this morning was, for me, moving \u2013 and monumental. Not so very long ago, the idea that a President of the United States would greet the Pope at the White House was unthinkable. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s more at the CBS News link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your Humble Blogger has hardly been idle. I just posted a little something over at the CBS News blog “Couric & Co.”: Watching Pope Benedict step out of his limousine this morning and wave to the thousands cheering on the White House South Lawn, one thought crossed my mind: What would my grandparents think? They…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-world","category-the-pope-and-bishops"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Audacity of Pope - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/04\/the-audacity-of-pope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Audacity of Pope - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Your Humble Blogger has hardly been idle. 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