Lessons From Italy

Recent photographs of Pope Benedict chatting with Pope Francis have left me stupefied.  I never could understand how a pope who under the right circumstances is deemed infallible could resign and live in the back lot somewhere while a new infallible pope took the throne.  It grappled with that for  awhile but I made my peace with the idea since Pope Francis seemed at least on the surface of things  to have moved resolutely away from the issues that exercised Benedict toward the concerns traditionally associated with the man of whom he is always called the vicar of here on earth, that is, Jesus, and I mean poverty, need, want, love, and so on.  I don't like seeing Benedict coming out of his retirement apartment and talking with the new pope; it is dissonant.  I fear his authority.  Oddly enough it is the same reason that I dropped my initial allegiance to Hillary Clinton in the presidential primaries way back when Obama first ran.  I was altogether enthusiastic until I saw President Clinton out on the campaign trail and I suddenly realized that if Mrs. Clinton made it to the White House her husband would still have all the security clearance and other perquisites of a retired president, plus a live-in situation at the White House, and no doubt a casual drop in basis in the Oval Office.  That thought did it for me, and now I feel the same way about the Popes, not to mention the thought of Mrs. Clinton once again in the running for the presidency, and this time no other candidate likely.  Italy has been on my mind recently for another reason and this was the announcement that Mayor DeBlasio was off to Rome to learn from the city's mayor as well as some other Italian urban officials how they do things over there.  I realize he is gung ho about his Italian ancestry and god knows I love Italy, lived there a couple of times years ago, but I don't think anyone thinks to go to Italy to learn how to administer anything, maybe putting truffles into risotto, something like that.  It was said once upon a time that Mussolini made the trains run on time.  But he did a lot of other evil repressive things, so that accomplishment is probably not worth reviving, since the  price is too high.  Mr. DeBlasio should visit his ancestral home and stay away from any city hall while he is over there, that's my thinking.