I was reading the current issue of the Fifth Estate, and I came across a quotation of a provocative a passage from the same magazine in 1978, regarding the death of Pope Paul VI:
Like a full moon, like the blazing collapse of a bank in an earthquake, like the comedic sinking of an imperial barge, the death of a pope, and the giddy and liberatory revelation that we are now — if only momentarily — living during a time when there is no pope, is a cause for celebration.
I turned on the radio and learned that John Paul II has died. Indeed, I suspect that John Paul died at the precise moment I read that passage.
Coincidence?
Update: And if that’s not strange enough, as I posted this, a story came on the National Public Radio, an interview with a nun here in New Orleans. She reflected on the pope’s visit to this city in 1995, and specifically mentioned the little Catholic school where I work.
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Since officially the pope is the only resident of Vatican City, now Vatican City is the only “country” in the world with a population of zero! (Of course, before it was the only one with a population of one, but zero seems a lot stranger.)