MADRID, Spain - In a breathtaking display of collective devotion, or perhaps a desperate bid for an excuse to leave work early on a Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of Spanish souls crammed the bricked veins of this ancient capital for a historic open-air Mass celebrated by His Holiness the Pope himself. It was, depending on your perspective, either a profound spiritual communion or the world's largest, most well-behaved rock concert without a single decent guitar riff.
Let us paint the scene, dear reader, for these are the moments that make a gonzo journalist's gin glass sweat with anticipation. Picture it: a sea of humanity, stretching from the Plaza de Cibeles to the very edges of the city's collective sanity. Flags fluttered. Hymns echoed off baroque facades. And somewhere, a man in a tweed jacket with a notepad was wondering if the incense was laced with something more than just good intentions.
The Pope, that white-clad beacon of moral authority, rolled through the crowd in the popemobile, looking for all the world like a celestial action figure on parade. He waved. They wept. He blessed. They swooned. It was a spectacle of such pure, unadulterated pageantry that even the most cynical of atheists might have felt a twinge of something resembling wonder. Or maybe that was just the heatstroke.
Now, I am no theologian. My grasp of Latin extends to ordering the occasional gin and tonic in a Vatican City bar. But even I could appreciate the raw, unbridled absurdity of it all. Here were hundreds of thousands of people, standing for hours in the Madrid sun, enduring the logistical nightmare of portable toilets and overpriced bottled water, all to witness a man in a funny hat speak words they could barely hear. And yet, they cheered. They sang. They held aloft their children as if offering them to the heavens. It was magnificent. It was maddening. It was, in short, humanity at its most beautifully irrational.
But let us not pretend this was purely a spiritual exercise. No, no. This was politics on a grand scale. The Pope's visit was a masterstroke of soft power, a gentle reminder that the Catholic Church still has the clout to shut down a major European capital for a day. The civil authorities, of course, were all smiles and polite applause, but behind the scenes, you can bet there was a flurry of security briefings and traffic management meetings that would make a chess grandmaster weep.
And what of the message itself? Amidst the pomp and circumstance, the Pope spoke of mercy, of inclusivity, of a church that opens its doors to all. Lovely sentiments, to be sure. But one couldn't help but wonder how those words sit with the thousands of empty pews across Europe, or the scandals that have sent the faithful scurrying for the exits. It's a beautiful fairy tale, if you can ignore the plot holes.
Still, give credit where it's due. The Pope turned a Tuesday in Madrid into a global event. He made people believe, if only for an afternoon, in something larger than themselves. He gave the news networks something to cut to between segments on Brexit and the latest political scandal. In a world starved for spectacle, he delivered a feast. And for that, I tip my gin-soaked fedora to the man.
As the crowds dispersed, shuffling back to their lives with sore feet and perhaps a renewed sense of purpose, I retreated to a quiet bar near the Plaza Mayor. The barman, a man of few words and generous measures, poured me a double. 'For the Pope,' he said, with a wink. 'And for the madness.' I could not have put it better myself.
So raise a glass. To faith. To folly. To the sheer, glorious absurdity of watching hundreds of thousands of people gather to hear a man speak about things they cannot see. That, my friends, is the news. And we report it from the edge of sanity, where the gin is always cold and the spectacles never end.
