New York City’s tabloid media, which always love a mega-event, are already enjoying Benedict’s visit; today’s New York Post features a story about a taxi cab with a faulty transmission that caused it to go up in flames Thursday in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, giving “cops a big-time security scare” and a Post caption writer the chance to pen this groan-inducing headline: “Hell On Wheels.”
Meanwhile, Benedict is winning accolades for meeting the sexual abuse scandals head-on, though he still has a bit of an image problem when compared with his predecessor. In a column that appeared today in AM New York, Ellis Henican writes: “Clearly, Benedict XVI is not a cuddly pope. He doesn’t have the charisma or the common touch that his beloved predecessor, John Paul II, was so famous for. If JP2 hadn’t been pope, he’d have probably been a movie star.”
“If Benedict weren’t pope, he might have ended up a university professor or the assistant principal for discipline at a Catholic high school. ‘Detention!’ he’d be growling at some miscreant sophomore. No, you don’t get nicknamed ‘God’s Rottweiler’ for no reason at all. But give this pope his props, as he finally reaches the large stage of New York. His message isn’t all finger-wagging and doctrinal purity.”
Henican goes on to praise the pope for his Thursday meeting with sexual abuse survivors.
For the full column, see: http://www.amny.com/news/opinion/am-ellis0418,0,3595244.story