I just lost my lunch all over my desk watching the Youtube promo for this “Alma Mater” release of “Music from the Vatican,” voiced-over by Pope Benedict.
They keep saying “it works, it just works,” but I suppose that what they mean is that it will work if they make a ton of cash on the business, which is their purpose. Wow, the Vatican has discovered the marketing folks on Nashville’s Music Row.
News flash to the Vatican: Music Row is going out of business. And I’m so pleased that Christian music marketing, which is the gift my folks—the evangelicals—have given to the world, has now infected the Vatican and even features a pope (who actually spends twenty minutes a day playing Mozart and Beethoven and who really knows something about music) doing voice-overs.
OK, boys, if you’re not interested in just cash, if this really is a ministry of the Church, then release the whole thing for free over the web. Or for a down load of a penny.
Yeah right. Ka-chink, ka-chunk goes the cash-register. They won’t do it. I just lost what was left of my lunch again. This is stuff I really hate.
Guess you noticed.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
