The staff at Der Spiegel is presenting a preview of the Pope's potentially difficult visit to his homeland, which H and I will be attending this weekend--beginning with biographies of the prominent-players Benedikt will encounter on his State visit, replete with skeletons in the closet. Berlin's lord mayor has said that the Pontiff is welcome in his city, but so are the protesters. Through the lens of Catholicism, Germany's statesmen are revealed as a quite a lot of reprobates.
"Luckily for the pope, he won't have any problems with two other prominent people he will meet in Berlin. Chancellor Angela Merkel (remarried) and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (gay) are both Protestants."
I suppose, by the rules, we all do. There are serious social schisms that need to be healed and some shadowy deportments that have gone too long without saying. Once, in seminar in college, I proclaimed--rather obtusely, that Jesus says: "The rules are for bad people." While I don't believe that's necessarily rubric or Church doctrine, there is ample latitude for tolerance and learning from one another and loving one another, despite any differences in upbringing and inculcation.
