The eternal legacy

These few weeks hold a very new experience for my generation -- it is the first time we get to witness the death of a pope and the election of a new one. The magnificent funeral rituals seen on TV are quite an impressive experience for anyone who hasn't seen them.\nIn the bigger picture, however, that we're all watching is neither new nor a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. John Paul II is only the most recent in a succession of 264 popes. All of them have died, so what we're seeing these weeks has been done literally hundreds of times before.\nBut that's what makes all of this so special.\nLord Macaulay, though a Protestant himself, said of the papacy, "No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre."\nHe is right. It is one of the very few direct, living links that modern man has with the world of antiquity. In fact, one of the pope's titles, "Pontifex Maximus," was held before the popes by the Roman emperors, and before them by the Roman high priests. The list of all the incumbents of this office covers an astounding 52 percent of recorded human history.\nI always find it amazing that the papacy has been able to survive Roman persecution, the Great Western Schism, the Reformation, the nationalist revolutions of the 19th century and both world wars.\nThe massive news coverage, the millions of people flocking to Rome and the presence of foreign dignitaries at the pope's funeral indicate that the papacy is still strong as ever and remains a force to be reckoned with even in our own day.\nThere are those who criticize the papacy for still existing, and the basis for their criticism is that the papacy is not a modern conception.\nWhy must something not being modern mean it is bad? This is a huge fallacy of logic that has, unfortunately, led to the demise of many ancient and revered institutions. Failure of some of them to adapt to changing political and economic climates did contribute to their downfall, but there are more victims of the obsession with tossing away tradition that has swept the modern west. In most cases, it succeeded, but it offered nothing to replace the lost traditions. Instead, we're left with a world of mass media, mass marketing, mass government and mass culture. In this environment, the tastes and fashions of the time are king, and they constantly change with ever-increasing rapidity.\nThe sense of meaninglessness that bogs the postmodern world comes from its dependence on change and the helpless sense of being caught up in futile, passing fads.\nThat is also probably a very important reason why the papacy remains so strong. Its firm root in tradition provides a sense of constancy in an ever-changing world. The Church is not unable to change, but refuses to change, and in doing so, states that the religious matters over which it governs should not be held subject to the whims of the times. \nThis attitude has always prevailed, and it is what always gave the Church an air of remote sanctity, removed from the pettiness of everyday life. That was the attitude of John Paul II -- he based his pontificate on his religion, not on the tastes of his times.\nAs we watch the pope's last rites and the election of a new one, let us be mindful of the enormous force of tradition behind it and always cherish this still-strong remnant of past ages.