Unpublished Blog Post Found On The Laptop Of A Long-Retired New York Advertising Executive

Next time...next time it will be better. Haven’t yet found the nun who was waving that black squiggly flag. Paint the runway white and gold? Nah, it didn’t work that last time, either. Someone said his Fiat driver was found on Uber, but I must check it first. A flash mob of people outside Saint Michael’s Cathedral acting out an open Communion line, complete with Papal ferula-shaped selfie sticks. Should be interesting.  Those kids might be on to something.  Does open up a new field, though.... And this time he got to visit the White House. Humpf.  Znerb. Tweb.

Think of that as the unpublished blog post found on the laptop  of a long-retired New York advertising executive. Think of it as a call back to John Bellairs’s mediation on the subject of papal visits to the United States following the first one, fifty years ago this October (our comments about the last visit).

Pope Francis arrived in the United States Tuesday (arriving from Cuba no less), and kicked-off his first full day on American soil with a visit to the White House, followed by prayers at Saint Matthew's Cathedral, and then to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception where he'll lead the first-ever canonization Mass on U.S. soil. The basilica is the largest Catholic church in the United States, opening in 1959 (no shades of Gorboduc's Cathedral here). After speaking to Congress tomorrow, it's off to New York for an address to the United Nations ("this sounds familiar," says the aging I. H. Samsonite, Jr.), followed by visits to the September 11 Memorial Museum, Harlem, and Central Park.

On Saturday he'll arrive in Philadelphia and - after speeches and services - will depart for Rome on Sunday evening.

Does this long-retired New York advertising executive have anything else to add?

Mass at night in blimp over Fairmount Park. Maybe we can get them to blink the lights at the Comcast Center at the consecration.

Quoth John, "let us not be silly."