VIII.iv. Flocks

"Everyone soon or late comes round by Rome."
- Robert Browning

For a few fleeting days, Rome has once again become the centre of the world. Two million pilgrims, more than have ever been in the city at one time, are descending towards the Vatican. Trenitalia has added extra trains, the EUR exhibition grounds have been turned into temporary lodgings, and Saint Peter's is staying open twenty-one hours a day. The event is not only unparalleled in modern times, but in any age at all. The world craves historical moments that for the most part belong in the past, but for these few early days in April, the entirety of modern civilization's gaze is fixed on Rome. Antiquity and the future are colliding, and most people, in some way or another, are fascinated by it.
    John Paul II was the first Pope of the information age, and the uniqueness both of his life and death go to show just how young the modern world is. For centuries, for almost two millennia, hundreds of popes lived and died, their sufferings and triumphs unwatched by the majority of human beings. Even John XXIII, one of the most popular Popes of the twentieth century, did not attract the sort of constant, concerted attention only the twenty first century can provide.
    When did the secular world become so boring? Perhaps when it became so dominant. The global fixation on the Vatican, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, is a loudly indirect manifestation of a latent desire to see the world acclaim something as universal amidst a sea of relativities. I don't mean to say that the Pope or that the Church actually are moral absolutes, only that the idea of finding this, however unrealistic that idea may be, is what motivates people to watch crowds in Saint Peter's square fixedly for hours at a time. The mere idea of something universal galvanizes people, because universality as anything but an idea has become totally impossible.
    Everyone will still be watching for the white smoke.