Since I am the token Roman Catholic on this blog (even though it carries my moniker, harrumph), some thoughts on the passing of the Pope and what is to come:

1. Count me as one of the many who can remember no other pope. Being only seven when Paul VI died, John Paul I elected, died, and then John Paul II was elected, for me there has only been one pope. Thus it will be very odd and a tad disconcerting to see anyone else referred to as pope.
2. Thus the funeral and conclave holds great interest for me (I was glued to the boob tube for wall-to-wall pope coverage all weekend), both in its rituals as in its outcome. This process is something from old footage and books, but now we can see it work again.
3. Having been “inside” the Catholic Church for a few years, I’ve been enjoying myself by noting how many of the pundits (read: priests and professors) I’ve actually met. As of this morning, count me down for 5.
4. My eyes roll, the face turns red, the blood pressure rises, and inevitably I change the channel whenever I hear the chattering class talk about how the Catholic Church needs to “face the issues” of modernity. Of course this is another way of saying, “surrender entirely to modernity and begin ordaining female clergy, support birth control, back abortion and euthanasia, etc.” In other words, according to these dunderheads, the problem with the Church is that it does not think enough like us. Message to the aforementioned: “in the world but not of it.” Few greater disasters could befall the Church than if it made a conscious effort to resemble further the world around it. One of the greatest allures of the Church is its bold principled stance against the time and its many easy temptations. This was a core reason for JPII’s greatness. Take that away, and try making the Church look like any neighborhood institution (democratic and “modern thinking”), and its ceases to become an alternative in a very grubby world. And when it ceases to be that alternative, and going to Church is like going grocery shopping and your priest dresses like the local banker, no one will attend.
5. You want vocations? Reject the time. Stand boldly out there and say there is another way, and it is not found in the silliness around you. Only when put in stark contradiction to the modern world does the Church hold out hope. After Vatican II, the vocations slipped away. What makes us think further liberalization will bring them all back? Young Catholics, as so many polls and studies have shown, are through-going social and theological conservatives, thanks in large part to JPII. They are conservative because JPII’s message so rejected the times, challenged them, and offered a different path, one fixed in man’s nature and backed by two thousand years of Church teaching.
6. Another reason my eyes roll at the pundits calling for Church liberalization is that they absolutely misunderstand the place of American Catholics in the worldwide Church. Americans simply are not all that important in the Church anymore; they have an inflated sense of importance. As their numbers dwindle, and the rolls of Third World Catholics burst, American “issues” do not resonate with Rome. US liberal Catholics blather about married priests and women in the Church, while most Catholics around the world are thinking about social justice and globalization problems. Americans wonder why Father Joe is not Father Jane, and Third World Catholics are wondering if they’ll eat this week. Which do you think the Church considers more important?
7. When the pope doesn’t do as these liberal Catholics please, they charge him with being a reactionary, and become casual Catholics. They say the Church as “abandoned them” and does not reflect their ideas. Better put, they have abandoned the Church (the doctrine hasn’t moved a jot, brothers and sisters, it is you who have decided to move away from it) and they no longer reflect Church ideas. This is, in Evelyn Waugh nice turn of phrase in Brideshead Revisited, “setting up a rival good to God’s.” What greater sin, what greater threat to salvation, can there be than this?
8. A modest proposal: if the problem of American vocations is so extreme, isn’t it obvious that America needs to be evangelized by the Third World? Import to us Brazilian, Nigerian, Honduran priests to man our parishes and give missions in our cities and towns. Reverse the direction of so many years, of the First World bringing the Church to the Third World. They have God now. Unfortunately we have lost him. Send us your priests and missionaries.
9. I think Aaron Brown of CNN is on the verge of converting. Score one for our side. I also predict that this month will cause a noticeable up-tick in both conversions and vocations worldwide.
10. Check out this outstanding lecture given by George Weigel last January on the importance of the next pope. Spot-on.

11. One last thing. I like Bunnie Diehl quite a bit, and my blogging compatriots speak very highly of her. I refer to her blog almost daily and have happily linked to her for many months. But what is all this anti-Catholic stuff that is appearing on the comments about JPII? Some Lutherans have used the Pope’s death as an opportunity to discuss the Pope as “anti-Christ,” Church doctrines as “insidious,” and if the Pope is now actually enjoying salvation or hell. Now, I am no ecumenist, but somehow I doubt whether upon the death of a leading Lutheran (come to think of it, I don’t know of any) I’d be out there blogging about schism, error, and the fires of hell tickling eternally at the underside of Martin Luther. Call it class, respect, or just realizing the futility of such an undertaking, I wouldn’t do it. Clearly some others disagree, and that is a shame. Glad to see Max Goss over at In Hoc Signo Vinces is on the same page.

Just a few thoughts. I’m sure a few more will be coming in the days ahead.