No Apology

The Pope has touched me down under.
I felt uplifted, upright and up for it.
I hope he felt the same.
Then again, I don't know whether this particular priest has those feelings. I doubt very much that he has. But many in the church over which he has secondary domain have a propensity for such excursions and this particular Pope has a particular propensity for apologising for it.
I wonder if all those who were abused will be thankful for that. I wonder whether they will feel, if they now have the capacity for feelings at all, that all the sins visited upon them, all the depravity, all the residual trauma, all have been washed away in one stroke.
Somehow I doubt it.
Have you noticed that today everybody seems to be apologising for something?
We have the Pope doing it for the prolific sexual abuse by priests, the Australian Prime Minister to the Lost Generation and, most frequent of all, our own Prime Minister who seemingly will apologise to most everybody for most anything. Most often Tangata Whenua.
And does it achieve anything?
I doubt it.
For politicians and popes apologies are the 21st Century sound bite: easy, cheap, and once delivered done.
Apologies, as they have grown in frequency, have diminished in sincerity.
But I don't know that.
I just have a feeling.

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