New Pope and New Acela Problems

And now, to two big stories I've been following, neither of which involve Tom DeLay.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was, of course, chosen to succeed Pope John Paul II, and will now reign as Pope Benedict XVI. Although he has been a staunch conservative on issues regarding women in the priesthood, contraception, and celibacy, I am willing to give His Holiness a chance to address the problems facing the Church during his papacy. While he is unlikely to bend on the issues I've previously mentioned, he promises to be good listener and respond to the concerns of Roman Catholics everywhere. Pope Benedict XVI hopes to reverse the Church's decline in the West and build bridges to non-Catholics, especially non-Christians - if he can accomplish and address everything confronting him, I, for one, will be impressed.

One personal concern of mine involves relations between the Vatican and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is expanding in traditionally Catholic Latin America, and specifically the Mormon practice of proxy baptisms of deceased non-Mormon Christians. Several deceased Catholics have received such baptisms, often without the knowledge and consent of their survivors. The Vatican has ignored the matter, preferring to regard the Mormon Church as irrelevant. They no longer should, with the Utah church growing so rapidly. Relations between the two faiths have never been good; a dialogue is becoming increasingly necessary.

If you have a personal concern you want to share with His Holiness, you can do what I did - e-mail him! Yes, Pope Benedict has a public e-mail address, and you can contact him at benedictxvi@vatican.va .

The other big story I've been following regards Amtrak, the national passenger railroad. With the White House's proposal to eliminate federal funding for Amtrak as a prerequisite for reforming the railroad, a bipartisan coalition of members of Congress have been skeptical about Bush's plans. Amtrak's troubles come, ironically enough, as the Acela trains, once regarded as the trains that would save Amtrak, have been taken out of service for brake inspections and repairs that should not have been necessary. The New York Times has chronicled Amtrak's recent woes in an excellent article in this past Sunday's edition.

Part of Amtrak's problems comes from the fact that it doesn't have a dedicated subsidy like aviation and highway interests do, and a bill sponsored in the House by Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) aims to correct that situation. While it should have bipartisan support, the anti-Amtrak attitudes of other members of Congress means that the Nadler-Menendez bill's passage is not assured.