Pope Leo off to good start says old Lutheran...

Pope Leo XIV, official portrait

 Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/6-6-26

 I like Pope Leo XIV, and I’m a lifelong Lutheran. Brought up in Lutheran Sunday School a long time ago, I was always wary of anything pope related. Most Lutherans were.

 

Furthermore, I was kind of scared of the first pope I was ever aware of, Pius XII. He was pope during World War II and after and showed up in movie newsreels a lot being carried around the Vatican on the shoulders of Swiss Guards in gaily colored outfits. This was before the popemobile.

 

Skinny Pope Pius XII looked very grim and, besides, he was the No. 1 Roman Catholic and I was a Lutheran child in an era when American Catholics and Lutherans (as well as other protestants) did not get along that well. Blessedly, things have changed quite a bit in recent years; we’ve become more ecumenical. Also “ecuwomenical.”

 

Still, as a non-Roman Catholic I didn’t pay too much attention to popes over the years. You hear about them on the news, Popes Francis, Benedict, kindly old John XXIII, John Paul, others, but it doesn’t mean too much to a protestant. I remember thinking when Pope Benedict was in office that perhaps his Vatican cook would ask him for his breakfast preference thusly: “Eggs, Benedict?”

 

But enough about recent popes. My favorite Pope Leo, until the current one, was 11 Leos before him, Pope Leo III. He was pope in medieval times, also known as the Middle Ages. Pope Leo III looms large in world history because he was the pope who crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor ruling much of Western Europe in the late 800s.

 

This stuck with me after studying as much history in college as possible to avoid classes in math and science. 

 

While many years — make that decades — have passed, certain events in ancient history are retained in fond memory. I came to understand that the reign of Charlemagne had a profound effect on subsequent western European history, but it seemed to me, his descendants who followed him into European royalty were, well, political correctness aside, insensitively described in physical terms that were not considered that attractive.

 

One of them was known as Charles the Fat. Always sensitive about gaining weight, I was particularly drawn to accounts of Charles the Fat’s exploits, most of which I have now forgotten. I guess he is best known for being fat.

 

Same with Charles the Bald. He became a ruler too, in spite of hair issues that have lasted in recorded history for millennia. I’m not that happy with my own hair loss, but it will soon be forgotten when I am forgotten. I hope.

 

Then there was Louis the Stammerer, son of Charles the Bald. Boy, Thanksgiving Dinner must have been a riot in that family. Many readers know I kid a lot in this space, but I am not making up these names. You can Google them.

 

Also, I don’t mean to cast aspersions on readers who might be overweight, might be bald and might have speaking difficulties, especially some 1,000-plus years since these people existed. But they existed. It’s history.

 

I ran into my first pope, Pius XII, again as an adult when I visited the Vatican on a tourist trip. Walking into St. Peter’s Basilica, there he was pictured in a huge mural dominating an entire wall. Explaining my familiarity with him from early life newsreels to trip companions, I think I came off as James the Stammerer.

 

It was on that trip that we also visited the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo’s dramatic fresco of the Creation of Adam dominates the ceiling. I had a stiff neck, so it was difficult to fully appreciate the dramatic portrayal of God, but I could see enough that God looked pretty much the way I’d always pictured him, despite being a lifelong Lutheran. Great beard.

 

We have Pope Rex Harrison to thank for that dramatic fresco. Oops, that was the movie. O, the agony and the ecstasy of it all. 

 

I wish Pope Leo XIV well. He’s started out strong with his AI encyclical that has frightened Silicon Valley. As for me, I’m frightened BY Silicon Valley.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org. 

OF POPES AND GIRL SCOUTS AND VIKINGS: Lack of authenticity is what’s ruining the world today

By Jim Heffernan

Just when I was thinking about going ahead and popping for a box of Girl Scout cookies from my granddaughter, the Pope resigns? Holy smokes.

Pope Benedict XVI
2010-in St. Peters  Square

You might not think these two happenings are related, but you’d be surprised to learn that they are – as far as I’m concerned.

We were all surprised to hear that Pope Benedict XVI, 85, has decided to step down and not step up upon departing the Holy See HoHHoly(that would be heavenward) like popes have been doing for the past 600 years when the last resignation took place, I’m told.

I spend more time thinking about popes than your average casual Lutheran. If you have ever been a Lutheran, you know that the pope in Rome does not loom very large in your religious life. I have seen Lutherans sneer at the sight of the pope, not that very many have actually seen one other than on TV or, in the olden days, in movie newsreels.

That’s where I saw my first pope, Pius XII, who became pope the year I was born and reigned – or whatever they do – until passing away the year after I graduated from high school. He scared me. Pius XII was very severe looking, and – I mean no disrespect here – really skinny. I think popes should be fat, in the spirit of Fat Tuesday. Devils should be skinny.

The newsreels used to show Pope Pius XII being carried around the Vatican on the shoulders of male Swiss Guards wearing skirts. Somehow this pageantry struck this young Dulutheran as, well, odd but fascinating. We Lutherans didn’t have anything like that to show for us.

Catholics have this whole pope scene and we have an ex-priest trying to lose weight on a diet of worms? Didn’t seem fair to me.

Years later, after I had sort of grown up, I finally made it to the Vatican only to be informed, on a hot Rome July day, that I couldn’t wear shorts in St. Peter’s Basilica or the Sistine Chapel. Cripes, a guy could get hot knees.

Anyway, I solved the problem by wearing those khakis that have zippers just above the knees so you can shed the bottoms, turning them into shorts after coming back out of the shrines. Ever since, I’ve called them Vatican pants, meaning no disrespect to the Swiss Guards whose knees are pretty obvious under their tights.

What this has to do with Girl Scout cookies is a question one or two readers might have asked by now. Well, here goes: I think each Girl Scout should bake her own cookies to sell. Where are they baked, China? All they sell are cookies mass produced somewhere and shipped to the troops.

I’d feel a lot better about putting out my good hard-earned money for Girl Scout cookies if I knew the scout had baked them. And shed the mints, girls, for heaven’s sake.

This opens up a broad subject of authenticity that goes all the way to Rome. I think the pope should be Italian, like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida.

Resigning Pope Benedict is German. His predecessor, John Paul II, was Polish. It’s time we got back to good old Italian popes like Pius XII and John XXIII, to whom Fat Tuesday seemed particularly appropriate.

As an aside, isn’t it nice that the Super Bowl honors the papacy by using Roman numerals?

Continuing, let’s address a few other authenticity concerns. Let me just state without equivocation that I think the Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Gophers should all be from Minnesota, also Wild and Timberwolves. The same should apply to other teams, like the Dallas Cowboys. They should all be cowboys.

Authenticity. There’s so little of it these days.

Finally (and it’s about time) let me say I’ll miss Pope Benedict, especially at breakfast time. How often, as I’m choosing between Wheaties and Shredded Wheat, do I think about how easy it would be for the current pope to decide what to have for breakfast?

Of course he has a cook, and can’t you just hear him or her, as the pope settles his morning robes at the table, ask, “Eggs Benedict?” Now there’s a Catholic dish this old Lutheran can sink his gums into.