This is the last day before draconian cuts known as the sequester destroy struggling Americans mostly on the bottom rung of what was laughingly called the social ladder. I've just turned from the interminal coverage of the 86 year old ex-Pope's luxurious trip from the luxiurious Vatican digs to the even larger 135 acreage of the Castle Gandolfo where he'll retire in what most of the billions of people on this Earth can only dream of in their so-called afterlife some call Heaven.
Then, as often occurs in this serendippy scenerio sometimes called the real world, the biopic on Babe Ruth was just beginning with an opening scene in 1902 where the seven-year-old Babe is being handed off from the untender mercies of his Da' to the official at some religioso-run 'Industrial School for Boys.'
This child bullied by the others for his fatness finds reprieve by the talent he shows for hitting homeruns. I switched to Democracy Now when the gate closes on him as he enters into future fame as the famed baseballer Babe Ruth.
Make of this all what you will, but I think Castle Gandolfo and its farm would serve the vision of Jesus and St. Francis as a sheltering school for our children much more honorably than as the one-man retirement pensionne of an old man wh has already had all the earthly pomp any of us truly earns. Penance in a more Christian circumstance would surely encompass throwing those castle garden gates wide to welcome children and elderly who have had less fortunate experiences.