Funeral of Pope John Paul II

"Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." (John, 21:18, from the gospel readings at the funeral)

I watched CSPAN's rebroadcast of the Pope's funeral yesterday. Some random thoughts: Lovely ceremony. My grandmom was especially happy to hear Latin being used a lot. Lots of clapping and cheering, obviously the Pope was well-loved in Italy as well as abroad. Cardinal Ratzinger, the dean of the College of Cardinals, had to stop multiple times because of the chanting from the crowd. He looked a little discomfited by it. (from SROatK, apparently the chants were "Giovanni Paolo Santo" or "Saint John Paul," a call for the Pope's canonization) Good to see the Eastern churches had a sizeable group there. Even some of the churches which have had a strained relationship with Rome had their patriarchs there (FR thread) I suspect over the next couple of weeks in the runup to the Conclave on April 18, there's going to be a certain segment of the Church hoping that the next Pope will "return to the spirit of Vatican II." I think they're going to be very disappointed: John Paul II had a quarter-century of appointing cardinals who were in line with his apostolic thinking, so I'd be very surprised if the cardinals suddenly selected a liberal to lead the Church My personal favorite to become the next Pope is Cardinal Francis Arinze from Nigeria. However, as God wills.

Trip to Philly, and "24" shoot

I spent most of last week back in Philadelphia, visiting my folks and attending the Population Association of America annual meetings. It went pretty well: I did a poster session there on my dissertation research, and won a blue ribbon for it, which I was very happy about. Funny thing is that I've done poster sessions before, one which was professionally prepared (lamination, color, etc.), and never won anything, whereas this time I did a pretty simple design with big graphics and color backgrounds, and it won. Go figure. I had a nice time staying with my parents. We're all getting a little older, but it seems like everyone's health is holding up, thank goodness. The trees aren't out on the East Coast yet, so things were still looking pretty barren overall, though the crocus are out. I took a little time while I was downtown to do some research from the 1930 census on my Dad's family, so I was glad I was able to get that done since I've been wanting to finish that for a couple years now. In other news: the FOX TV series "24" is filming an episode in our apartment complex this week and next. Most of the shots this week were late at night, so we didn't get to see much other than the frenzy of activity that is modern TV making. LOTS of wires strung throughout the place, many trailers (including a mobile carpentry shop) and Port-O-Potties set up around the complex, etc. I'll try to get some pictures of it next week when they're shooting.