"Pockets of Silence" from the Reformers

by Bud Macfarlane – 22 April 2005

In an April 20 CBS news report on the announcement of the election of Pope Benedict XVI, we came across an interesting description of events supposedly transpiring in Saint Peter's Square: "While there were cheers and deafening applause, there were also groans and pockets of stunned silence." The curious line "Amid the applause were groans and pockets of stunned silence" showed up in an MSNBC story filed on the same day. Hmmnnn. The exact words pockets of stunned silence were used in two stories by two different mainstream secular news organizations. The stunned silence clearly issued from disappointed liberals who were shocked (shocked!) the Catholic Church had once again elected a doctrinal "hardliner."

In the midst of "deafening applause" it is hypothetically possible to hear groans, however unlikely. Perhaps the CBS and MSNBC reporters were both standing directly beside the same groaner or groaners. Maybe the groaner made a point of physically leaning over to groan directly into one and then the other reporter's ears to insure being heard above the din of "deafening applause." Could be. Yes sir. Maybe that's what happened.

Then again, maybe not.

But even us dumb red-staters can figure out that it is impossible to "hear" silence, much less stunned silence. Silence cannot be heard, even when it arrives from a "pocket." In reality, the reporters were making sure in their heavy-handed way that the world knew, right-off-the-bat-like, that some Catholics were unhappy with the choice of the German Shepherd.

Pockets 'o Silence? They haven't shut up since.

No doubt you've heard and read the numerous mainstream media references to Catholics who want the Church to change its position on various issues, from contraception to all-male priesthood. The Jesuit editor of the Journal Time Forgot and Nobody Reads, America, and Rip-van-Richard McBrien among them. The random quote from the I Don't Go to Church Since I Took Up the Cause of Abortion but I'm Still Catholic Chick in Saint Peter's Square type. These dissenting (and ultimately clueless) Catholics are sometimes described in reports as concerned "reformers." Yak yak yak.

Reformers? Did we hear someone say, reformers?

In terms of doctrine, there is nothing to "reform." Pope Benedict is as powerless to change anything revealed by God through the prophets, Jesus, Sacred Scripture, or the apostles (in what is known by Catholics as the Sacred Deposit of the Faith) as any of the 264 popes who preceded him. There is no doctrine to reform. The Church has and will continue to develop ways of better defining, applying, and expressing particular teachings as the need arises or times require, but ertswhile reformers are in for a long, frustrating life if they expect any future pope to call a press conference and suddenly explain, "Hey, you know that ancient, unchanged, and fully explicated teaching on the implacable moral evil of contraception which has profound ramifications for marriage, family, salvation, and society? Turn on your recorders and get your pen and paper out, sports fans. We blew it. Contraception is, as of today, an officially Good Thing. Go ahead, Johnny, start buying Trojans. It's cool."

A better term than reformers would be whiners. Or crybabies. Malcontents. Nags. Mind-numbed lemmings used like tools to serve the nefrarious agenda of a godless liberal media to take cheap shots at the world's most feared protector of love, innocent and defenseless little babies, salvation, mercy, truth, and freedom. It's silly and annoying to watch or hear anyone who claims to be a serious Catholic continually display such a delirious combination of arrogance and ignorance, decade after decade, "hardliner" pope after "hardliner" pope. We much prefer they remain in their pockets 'o silence, or at least do some homework, realize we're already at the Ides of the Aughts of the New Millennium (2005 for those of you in Rio Linda), and then face the fact that your hope for a doctrinally "liberal" pope is a myth from the musty old 1960s that died in the 1970s with the election of Pope John Paul II. Or better, join the rest of us having blast during these halcyon days of the New Springtime. We've got a world to convert, and as of April 20, that includes taking Vitamin Benedict 16 to keep up our strength.

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Bud Macfarlane, founder of CatholiCity.com and the Mary Foundation, is the author of three bestselling Catholic novels, available free of charge from Saint Jude Media. You can comment on his articles here.