Not sure how many of you watch the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, but Thursday night the broadcast commemorated the 75th anniversary of CBS Radio’s World News Roundup. Begun the day after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, commonly referred to as the Anschluss, the World News Roundup is the longest running news broadcast.
In keeping with the news of this week, Pelley featured none other than “legendary Vatican correspondent Winston Burdett in 1962 reporting” on Pope Paul VI’s coronation (sic—the ceremony actually took place June 30, 1963).
Unlike my commentary on Wednesday about Burdett, Pelley did not mention his confession as a Soviet spy.
Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak: It’s a common marketing theme—sell the customer on the hype, not the actual product. If a deal can’t be struck, there must be something wrong with your marketing, with how you project yourself to the public.
How would you feel if you were Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and you heard House Speaker John Boehner blame “candidates and personalities” rather than proposals on Medicare and spending cuts as the reason Republicans lost the election last November?
In the days, weeks and months since Barack Obama won a second term and Republican numbers in the House and Senate suffered dilution, GOP insiders have searched for a new path to victory. Their most right wing members met this week at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee conference in National Harbor, MD. With nary an exception, speakers picked up the failed banner of 2012, demanding an end to Obamacare and other benefit programs. They weren’t interested in developing a more humane Republican Party platform, just a more palatable face to their repressive (my word, not theirs) positions. Republicans want to sell the sizzle, not the steak.
Across the Atlantic, a new pope was chosen. The Catholic Church is under stress. Reform seems to be needed, and wanted, both in its administrative functions and its theological tenets. But like Republicans gathered outside Washington, the cardinals stuck to their conservative doctrines. They picked a new Holy Father who is singular only in that he comes from the Americas. His thinking is decidedly Old World.
Initial enthusiasm for the selection of Francis I may well give way to more sober reflection by rank and file and uncommitted Catholics who want women to be ordained as priests, who want an end to priestly celibacy, who want acceptance of alternative lifestyles, who want abortion and contraception to be tolerated.
The challenge both the pope and the GOP have is how to appeal to a wider audience than their respective true believers. The Church, on the surface, has opted to offer a sizzling, appealing new face. Humble, compassionate, a tireless worker against poverty. Someone eager to shake up an entrenched Vatican bureaucracy. Time will tell if he’s more than an attractive new look. Will he diversify? Will he expand power beyond old, mostly white, men?
One of my Catholic friends suggested I refrain from commenting on the pope. I am, after all, not Catholic. But the pope is more than just a religious leader. Some consider him the most powerful man on earth, being the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, even if they are not all strict adherents to his doctrine. Even among non-Catholics, the pronouncements of the pontiff demand attention. And commentary.
So I hope Pope Francis will become more tolerant, less restrictive. I’m emboldened by news today that Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), a one-time supporter of the Defense of Marriage Act, now endorses the right of gay couples to marry, to be entitled to federal marriage benefits. Yes, Portman changed his mind only after his son revealed he was gay. But it’s another example of a prominent Republican who has had personal experience with the LGBT lifestyle within their family. Portman, and Dick Cheney and Ted Olson, haven’t stopped loving their children. They’ve accepted them for who they are. They’ve accepted their equality and suitability to raise a family. Pope Francis, along with many conservative thinkers of all religions, may yet come to that same level of acceptance.
