April 17, 2008
The Ethereal Pope (Kathy Kemper)
April 17, 2008, our capital city, Nationals Park, Mark Tuohey’s suite, 7 a.m.
Nationals Park presents itself as light and airy. The weather has been delivered from heaven. The music takes us to the heavens.
I hear a 65-voice Intercultural Choir with members from 35 countries singing in French, Zulu and Spanish, among others. A 250-voice Papal Mass Choir and a 175-voice Children's Choir singing in Latin. An 80-voice Gospel Choir singing in 10 languages out across the stadium. Now I am in some celestial place.
The pope fans are refined, respectful and thrilled. They are as diverse a crowd as I have ever experienced. We are experiencing a highlight of our life.
Forty thousand Pope fans and every one of us feels our audience with the pontiff is intimate, close, unique, one on one.
I daydream and try to think of another timeless figure with the name recognition of the pope. Jesus, Buddha — they are individual religious icons.
I wonder: How many people in our flat-world community have NOT heard of the pope? Perhaps not Benedict XVI or John Paul II, but just THE POPE?
Historically, what has the pope’s name recognition been?
I think these questions tell the world community something we should listen to, as does the music.
Kathy Kemper is founder and CEO of the Institute for Education, a nonprofit foundation that recognizes and promotes leadership locally, nationally and in the world community.
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I like the Pope, but he went over the line by essentially suggesting that the US needs to maintain unlimited illegal immigration. While that's good for the Catholic church in America (and I'm sure that reality has not escaped the Pope) it may not be so good for the country. It's also not proper for the head of another state to weigh in on such a mixed foreign/domestic policy of the United States.
Comment by Igor R. — April 18, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
I wonder what Pope meant by suggesting the Catholic Church in USA needs to be "cleaned up". To me it meant the removal of homosexual priests who are basically the pedophile predators that everyone is talking about.
Comment by Misha F. — April 20, 2008 @ 12:50 am