Papal memories

The Pope’s recent visit has jogged memories of previous Papal visits to the U.S. Television features prominently in my memories probably because I grew up during the television era. The first Papal visit to the U.S. (ever!) occurred in October of 1965. I was a second grade student in a Catholic School in the heart of “da region“. This was an historic visit because it was the first time a modern Pope in left the Vatican and traveled to another country. The Pope’s visit took place in New York City where the Holy Father addressed the United Nations (he was in the U.S. for a total of 14 hours). On the day Pope Paul addressed the United Nations and rode in a motorcade through New York City, the nuns in my school brought in a small black and white portable television set into the classroom. That whole day we watched this historic event on a tiny, grainy, black and white screen instead of having class! As you can imagine, we were thrilled! And not just because we didn’t have class!

There is a back story to this. As a child, one of my favorite television programs was a show called The Outer Limits (this web site describes the original Outer Limits as such: “This series of sci-fi/horror fables enthralled, excited, or scared the Sugar Pops out of Kennedy-Johnson-era audiences from September 1963 to January 1965.) I suppose it would seem tame to those used to the stunning special effects used in tv and movies today but in 1963 this show simultaneously terrorized and rivated me. One episodes, The Sixth Finger, made a lasting impression. It starred David McCallum (who baby boomers might remember as Illya Kuryakin from The Man from U.N.C.L.E ) . The plot of the The Sixth Finger is about a Professor who has invented a machine which speeds up the process of evolution. A young miner volunteers to be the first human subject for the machine. Immediately he has more intelligence and understanding, and his body evolves as well. His forehead is higher, his eyes brighter and his fingers, long and sensitive, now have three joints instead of two. The stub of a sixth finger begins to grow. The evolution continues until he represents man of one million years in the future.

---

Original Outer Limits Theme

There is a point to this really! Look at the two pictures below. Notice the resemblance? Unfortunately for poor Pope Paul VI, his picture conjured up memories of the t.v. show The Outer Limits to me. Now I know he was a wonderful Pope who came to New York to address the United Nations on World Peace
(At this time the cold war was at its peak and the Vietnam war was starting to escalate). His Papacy saw changes in the Church balanced with preserving tradition. I hope no one takes offense. I was just a seven year old who watched too much television!

My second Papal visit memory occured when I was a senior at the University of Pittsburgh. Pope John Paul the II, elected Pope in 1978, made his first visit in the U.S. (coincidentally, one of his stops was at CUA ). about a year later. Pope John Paul II was a BIG DEAL!! Not only was he the first non-Italian Pope in 400 years, his predicessor’s tenure lasted only about a month. Poland was behind the iron curtain at the time and the Polish government almost stopped Karol Wojtyła from attending the second Conclave. Perhaps they had a premonition of the outcome!

Saturday Night Live was in its fifth year and one of the shows most popular recurring characters in the 70s and 80s was a gentle, cigarette smoking, Italian-accented Father Guido Sarducci played by comedian Don Novello. “Father” Sarducci was a fictional gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican newspaper.

In one particular skit, Father Sarducci is so overcome by newly elected charismatic Pope’s U.S. visit, he sponsors a “Find the Popes in the Pizza” contest.

The lucky winner would be the recipiant of an “I saw the Pope on tv” T-shirt! Sa-WEET!

Father Sarducci appeared on an episode about a month later to talk about the enthusiastic response to his contest. During the sketch Father Sarducci showed a film of a busy mail room (supposedly at the Vatican) where postal workers are supposedly sorting through the many entries to the contest. One of the postal worker takes and envelope and chucks it across the room. In a dead pan manner Father Sarducci says, “Opps, “musta” “beena” “froma” Protestant”. I thought that was one of the funniest things I had ever heard!
I enjoyed “Father” Sarducci’s skits that poked gentle fun at the idiosyncrasies of people.

Now, whenever I think about Pope John Paul II’s first visit to the U.S. I think of college, SNL, Father Guido Sarducci and pizza! However, since the time of his election until his death, I had nothing but admiration and love for the beloved Pope that was Eastern European like me.

In the News

New from the Library of Congress: The Resource Shelf. Information Commons are a good way to attract undergraduates to campus libraries. PLA tells librarians to just get over it! Dude! Be careful about what you put on Facebook. The Internet is the new black, Web 2.0 founder says. Spike Lee and Nokia collaborate on social film project to be viewed on cellphones. Wikipedia will soon be available in print! Whats up with that? Net neutrality battle returns to the U.S. Senate. Senate votes down proposal to restrict circulation of R-rated movies in libraries that receive public funds. Operation Bagdad Pups update.

From CUA LIbraries web page: Before you buy an expensive citation manager program consider Zotero, a free, open-source citation manager. Zotero Keeps track of citations and managing that ever expanding bibliographyWith one click you can download citation information from the ALADIN catalog, Amazon, JSTOR, Google Books, and many other library catalogs and journal databases. You can also download and store PDFs from article databases, take a snap-shot of the web page, and apply tags to your “library” of citations to keep them organized. When you’re ready to print that bibliography for your well researched paper, select your sources, select the citation format (APA, MLA, and others), and you have a nicely formatted bibliography ready to be printed or placed at the end of you research paper. Read More

---