I just left Pope mania. It is bizarre. I’ve not seen so many closures for anyone. A journalist was lying on his back on Madison Ave taking a picture up the Avenue. Now there’s something you don’t see everyday!
HRSMom, at least you had the Pope - we have been dealing with the Chinese president’s visit this week here in my neck of the woods, and the closures (unannounced!) were probably on par with what you experienced. Shutting down the ENTIRE 5 lanes N and 5 lanes S of I5 so the dude can get to dinner?! We all just sat on the bus like a bunch of hostages. I did a lot of shopping, but in protest, I did not buy a single thing made in China.
China is going to buy over 300 Boeing planes. It’s like early Christmas!
@NoVADad99 - my husband and son visited the Boeing plant this past summer and they were telling me of the long waitlist for one of Boeing’s new planes. Wonder how far up the list the Chinese order is? 
Boeing apparently has people working around the clock on their backlog (???).
BunsenBurner, we will be getting President Obama, Raoul Castro and President Xi of China simultaneously on Monday.
A friend who lives on the street where the Vatican Embassy is in NY just posted a picture of the Papal flag flying out the window. According to her it only flies when Pope is in residence. She had to be escorted by police to take the picture. She also had to show proof of her residency to secret service and was wanded and her bag was searched before she could enter her block. She is taking it all in stride.
zoosermom, I feel your pain, yikes.
<<<
I can imagine that parishes might act in response to that call, perhaps by working with refugee families to help find housing and jobs or something like that.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
Catholic parishes have “adopted” refugee families for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories involved parishes sponsoring Vietnamese refugees who literally arrived in droves with just the barest clothes on their backs…sometimes children arriving w/o parents.
While not “refugees” in the truest sense, parishes in the entire SE and likely beyond responded to the newly homeless/desperate Katrina victims. The Catholic schools took in children (w/o tuition), families opened their doors, etc.
Helping the needy and poor is nothing new to Catholics or their parishes.
I know, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I just meant this pope is somewhat different in his emphases of what is important, and parishioners might respond to his call to action about refugees.
I’m visiting my Catholic mother and sisters next week. I’ll be interested to hear the reports of how they and their fellow parishioners reacted to this visit.
All I can think is that the Pope must be exhausted (?).
Has a Pope ever addressed Congress in the past?
No. This is a first.
I was raised Catholic. First, he has a LOT of energy for a man his age. Second, I got a little teary at him blessing my governor who is currently being treated for cancer. He is Catholic and I’m sure it was extremely moving to him.
<<< @musicprnt
Georgetown, like BC, Fairfield university, Notre Dame and so forth, are Jesuit schools,
<<<
Notre Dame is not a Jesuit univ.
Notre Dame is very Catholic–one of the most famous Catholic colleges. I know several alums.
RE post #83 - Boeing ALWAYS has people working 'round the clock. It’s called 2nd shift and graveyard. Standard operating procedure. The line never stops moving except Christmas - New Year.
Part of the China Boeing deal is that Boeing will send final assembly work for the 737 aircraft they’re buying to China. The Boeing machinists are furious.
My friend took more pictures today. One of the Fiat parked and waiting I guess to take him to the UN. The other is of the PopeMobile just parked on the street. It has a fitted cover on it. I’m surprised it wasn’t parked in a garage, but maybe it’s too tall to fit through an entrance?
@jonri:
You are correct that Notre Dame is not Jesuit, I thought it was (it was founded initialy by a member of the Holy Cross). You are also correct about U of P, I knew Franklin was involved, but assumed the Quakers had something to do with it. That said, it had nothing to do with my fundamental point, which was that religious institutions were established by a variety of religious faiths, I was wrong about which Catholic order founded Notre Dame and that U of P was founded by Quakers, but the key point is that religious institutions founded schools in this country.
“I disagree that catholics (and other religious groups) have suddenly found working with the poor to be the ‘in’ thing because of this pope.”
Yep, you always have to be careful about this, because it shows the dichotomy between the leadership of the church and its people. There are plenty of people in the church, and parishes, who have been heavily involved in this kind of work. The issue I think is the perceptions that somehow the people in the church and parishes were just like the leadership, and that isn’t true. The leadership of the church in the US practically turned the public face of the church into issues of sexuality and the like, whether it be same sex marriage, abortion or later on, contraception in health care plans, and they pretty much determined being Catholic was about action against these things. It was these same men, and the vatican leadership at the time, who went after a group of nuns, who spent most of their time working with the poor and powerless, because they didn’t speak out forcefully enough (according to the Bishops in the US and Benedict’s vatican) on same sex marriage and abortion, and it is telling with the change in leadership, suddenly the nuns are okay doing what they do. There were parishes who seemed to follow the vatican party line, there was an interfaith effort among churches in my area of all kinds to raise money and help the victims of Katrina 10 years, and there were two local parishes (as opposed to probably 20-25 who worked with us) that refused, and their reason they told us was they were spending all their efforts at the time to try and get a constitutional amendment to get same sex marriage banned, and that they were making a major push t try and change NJ’s abortion laws to put in strict restrictions (both of which obviously failed). Having visited both churches, when you entered them around that time, they had big tables with postcards pre filled out to send to representatives expressing opposition to abortion and same sex marriage, but there was very little literature about helping the poor. Charity and helping the poor has always been at the center of Catholic belief, and to me it is one of the things that the church and its members can be proud of IMO.
I think what Francis words may do is tone down the rhetoric of the bishops and maybe force them into shifting their priorities, which is not a bad thing, because then parishes and members and such can go about doing what they were doing and not face censure because they weren’t political enough for the leaders.