First there was the Met Gala, now the toe-curling footage of bishops in abito piano grooving to disco music at the end of the youth synod. (Even the way the room was rigged out was so 1970s: it looked as if Dave Allen had decided to set one of his spoof clergy sketches in the Top of the Pops studio.) Every time the Vatican tries to get hip with contemporary culture I find myself reaching for my rosary.
It was both rather pitiful and revealing. Like the synod on the family, this one ends by raising more questions than it answered, and the indelibly embarrassing sight of bishops trying out their funky moves embodies a serious hermeneutical question: what is it about youth culture which is now deemed so alien to our religion that they feel the need to pay homage to its hierarchy of values if they are to have any credibility with its adherents?
