Last week’s Roving Reporter survey “What will you miss most about the Pope?” was inappropriate. The question was posed to highlight the Pope’s irrelevance to the Wesleyan community and belittle those who actually feel loss at his passing. It demonstrated how Wesleyan’s acceptance of cultural diversity extends as far as religion, and then hits a wall of tolerated misunderstanding.
I know the Roving Reporter is an entertaining piece of non-importance meant only to provide the students with a quick chuckle from some witty remarks. I understand that it often takes a sarcastic tone and, like the astrologers on late-night TV, is meant for entertainment purposes only.
With that said, I still think that it was inappropriate to portray the Pope’s death in such a sarcastic and hostile manner. For a campus that takes such pride in its acceptance of cultural diversity, we seem to be equally proud of our antagonism towards religion, and in particular, Christian religion. We have a Buddhist House and a Bayit. We celebrate Purim and Ramadan and hold weekly meditation sessions. We have all these things to embrace religious diversity, but it is still OK to make fun to the Pope when he dies. I agree with the criticism that the Catholic Church maintains many antiquated social policies that need to be modernized, but there are more constructive ways to engage in religious debate than by mocking a dead man in the paper.
It is a challenge of living in a diverse environment to be sensitive to others’ beliefs. At Wesleyan, we generally go to great lengths to meet this challenge. I feel that sometimes the effort to understand other cultures and religions is not extended to Catholicism. I have found that many students don’t respect that there are many ways to practice religion (even one as rigid as Catholicism), and are more likely to dismiss it without critical examination. I feel that last week’s Roving Reporter survey was an example of this dismissal and that it is not something that Wesleyan should be proud of.
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