Any other Catholics feeling exposed

[globalvillage]

and exploited by all the media coverage? The mass has always been very personal to me, and to see the spectacle and hear the play-by-play repeated all day long just feels wrong. All of the beauty of ceremony and tradition and emotion reduced to a media circus.
I'm not suggesting it's wrong to televise, but it seems more like voyerism than religion to me. Like someone's peeking in my windows.
I think I'd be OK with it if it wasn't for all the commentary. I just wish it would have ended when they buried him.
Is this selfish? I'm all for inclusion, but not like this.

[Cuban_Liberal]

1. Yes.

I feel oddly violated.

:shrug:

[babylonsister]

2. I'm not even religious and I agree with you.

Total exploitation by the media. Agreed, this was historic, but less can be more and the media overdid it IMO, just like Schiavo, etc. Less work for them is how I see it... I can't believe they don't get how insulting and mind-numbing some of this info is.

[evlbstrd]

3. I was offended,

and I don't even practice anymore. Don't get it at home so much; no cable. But at work, there's a huge teevee in the lobby with CNN on all the time. Sheesh.

[saltpoint]

To his substantial credit, Jesus looked past the existing --

-- institutions, including and especially the temples -- and headed out into the white silence of the desert to hang out with the Essenes with John and the others.

John and the others were NOT media-genic individuals. They were craggly-ass wildpeople who had their own way of doing things. Jesus chose them and not the stultifying dogma of the local temples.

The media assault on just about anything usually cheapens it, no matter the subject. It may be that Catholics and anyone else who wants contemplation space in their spiritual lives will have to abandon the basic institutions to achieve it.

St. Francis is the model more admired than the Roman Catholic heirarchy who regarded him as a nuisance.

[noahmijo]

4. More offended than exposed

That the right wing evangelical Catholic hating media at Faux along with * are using this issue to try to advance their own agenda and act like they're mourning when in fact they are celebrating and thinking to themselves "The boss Heathen is dead and these moron crackers who live in the deep red states are eating up our bullshit by the ton"

[n2mark]

5. Said this last Saturday

I resented that they played on the pope's death before he died. It was like the media could hardly wait for him to die, when he did die, you know the rest, they got their wish. The media is sick, really sick!!! I felt when the Pope was dying the media should have butted out and give the privacy to those of the religious beliefs, but they didn't. They just carried on and carried. Now they are going to go further, they will make it a circus until a new pope is elected. Sure wish they would keep their nose out of this, this is between the church and the parishioneers.

[gumby]

7. I heard somewhere,

in the "media" no doubt, that the major media players had been renting apartments there for over a year so they could have a staging area and ring-side seats. Truly disgusting.

[eleny]

6. My thoughts

I was raised Catholic but don't practice or believe in any organized religion now. But I think it's pretty wild that the Catholic church has been called a cult by so many people - but now, we have this worldwide intense coverage with dignitaries like Bush in dutiful attendance. Although I don't practice any faith, I think this coverage is a sharp stick in the eye of all the wingnuts who name-called and put down RC's. I wonder how they feel about their golden boy pResident and his intense pandering and use of this event?

Not exactly a response to your question. But it's been on my mind today watching the replay of the mass and ceremony. Thanks for the opportunity to share the thought.

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

8. The saps need pap

[this_side_up]

9. It's not over. There are 9 more

days of prayers, masses and maybe other ceremony-type
gatherings.

The 10th day is the first day of the Conclave.

[progressoid]

11. And then add a few more days of reviews and expectations of the

new Pope.

[catbert836]

10. Well, despite that, we have to think about

what did we expect to happen when the Pope, possibly the best-known man in the world, died? I didn't expect anything less than this media circus, and although I am offended slightly by it, there wasn't any other way, I don't think. Like John Paul II himself said: "If it dosn't happen on TV, it dosn't happen".