Culture of Grief and Death

The Common Media are setting new lows for squeezing out every drop of grief and misery from the THE POPE AND TERRI SHOW.

While the absolutely brain dead Terri Shiavo was squirming about in her bed, the cameraman was seemingly trying to shove the lens right into her mouth. Thank God she was brain dead. That her parents so gratuitously used the media to showcase their daughter’s condition was not, in my view, a very gracious act. Every medical scientist equipped with the inarguable scans of her brain stated emphatically that she was not aware of anything whatsoever; not even discomfort in her death throes – the morphine administered more for the placating of her relatives than for any relief for Terri Shiavo.

The press, especially the American press, which the rest of the world is so sheepishly trying to emulate, made hay from her tragic situation for a solid two weeks and will continue now through the family’s grieving process.

Did I not call this a culture of grief and death (back in 1996)? How exactly though are we supposed to sate our need for human joy through this weird sentimentalizing process? Quite hysterical really, all those poor sods lined up in Florida praying like hell, and for what? To keep those tubes snaking in and out of improbable orifices in the body of a person who has been repeatedly declared brain dead?

Pope John Paul II, bless his soul, was declared dead before his time by the Italian media and Reuters on Friday, not wanting to be scooped by anyone, all of whom having a zillion cameras and commentators all over the Vatican.

As an ex-devout Catholic I watched his Papal career with intense interest. He wrote and spoke with a true fervor and an intimate awareness of his audience. How close he came to being truly an emancipated man of power and light. I suggest his stubborn commitment to orthodox dogmas related to priestly celebacy and restrictions against the use of condoms (appallingly naive in this age of AIDS) had a negative impact on massive numbers of his flock and possibly even infringed upon his own absolute enlightenment. But as to his powerful presence as a man of principle and one thoroughly committed to bettering the lot of the human family, I am supremely impressed and thankful to those Cardinals who found him to be Papabile 27 years ago.

In this instance of his death, the common media have been entirely correct to devote so much time and airspace to the intellectuals of the spiritual house of Catholicsm as they offer their stories and pay homage to Pope John Paul II.