American Cities Angry At Pope

It’s amazing. Major metropolitan newspapers are going negative on the Pope because he’s not coming to their fair cities. All of a sudden they all want the Pope in their cities. But they have a funny way of showing it.

Here’s some of the opening salvos:

Philly:

Sometime next year, the pope will hit the United States to plug his new album or something. It’ll be Pope Benedict XVI’s first visit to the States since he became pope.

Benedict will be hitting New York, obviously, as well as Washington, D.C., but apparently he’s not going to be driving his popemobile around Philadelphia. KYW 1060 reports the pope’s itinerary — which includes speaking at the UN and visiting the White House and Ground Zero — does not include Philly.

Geeze, what more do we have to do? (Okay, sustain a population or still be the nation’s capital, I assume.) We have one quarter of the American saints and we can’t get a simple papal visit?

Chicago:

Thirty years ago Pope John Paul II visited Chicago, celebrated mass in Grant Park and waved to his Chicago flock from the balcony of the cardinal’s residence. But as details of Pope Benedict XVI’s first U.S. tour have emerged, the anticipated itinerary does not include Chicago. Why not?

When the recently dubbed “green pope” comes to the U.S., he will reportedly address the United Nations regarding the morality of the fight against global warming. Indeed, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Vatican ambassador to the U.S., confirmed on Monday that the United Nations address would be the centerpiece of the pope’s trip.

But he will have other missions as well. The professor pope will meet with presidents of Catholic colleges and universities, predominantly run by religious orders that are struggling to stay afloat.

He will attend ecumenical and inter-religious meetings, where he will undoubtedly address his statements regarding the Catholic Church as the single path to salvation and his controversial comments about Islam.

Early rumors about the tour included a stop in Boston and a mass on Boston Commons. But according to the itinerary released Monday, there was no mention of Boston, the epicenter of the sex abuse crisis.

Do you think Chicago should be on the pope’s itinerary? If so, how would you persuade the pontiff to come to the Windy City?

Boston:

Pope Benedict XVI will visit New York and Washington, D.C., in the spring, but will not come to Boston, the Vatican’s top diplomat in the United States announced this morning.

In his first visit to the United States as pope, Benedict will speak at the United Nations, visit the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Manhattan, and meet at the White House with President Bush. He will also celebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium in New York and at the new Nationals baseball stadium, which is now under construction in Washington.

The decision is a blow to Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who had pushed hard for Benedict to visit Boston, which will be celebrating its bicentennial as a Catholic diocese next year. But Boston was a controversial option because of its prominence as the city in which the clergy sexual abuse crisis erupted.

So let’s just get this straight. He’s visiting Catholic colleges that are “struggling to stay afloat.” He’s visiting Boston which is the “epicenter” of the sexual abuse scandal, and meeting with other religions to clear up his “controversial comments” about Islam and other religions. Wow. It doesn’t seem like things are going well for Catholicism. So why do they want the Pope to come to their city?

My goodness. I get nicer invitations from my in laws who might as well actually say, “Come over and bring the kids so we can insult you and question all your choices.” Nowhere in any of those pieces is anything positive about the Pope while they are saying how terrible it is that he’s not coming to their city.