A Different Sort of Read

Yesterday, I returned home after a week-long vacation. I had a stack of mail waiting for me. Included in that stack were several weekly and monthly Catholic publications to which I have subscribed for years. I was excited to see the first issue of my subscription to the weekly English summary of L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See. Other geeks might have their fantasy sports. But give my my Vatican!

One thing that struck me right away - the writing in L'Osservatore Romano is far different than the writing in the U.S. Catholic publications. The writing is blunt and pretty easy to read. The articles tend to be pretty short and focus on basic information. I think this difference relates to the differing perspectives between people in the U.S and people elsewhere. In the U.S., we tend to think that the borders of the world are comprised of the Canadian border, the Mexican border, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. We also tend to think the history of the world began with the discovery of the Americas. U.S. media is developed in this environmnent.

It is refreshing to read a weekly publication that is developed from a different perspective - one that sees the U.S. as one of the many geographic locations in the world and one that sees U.S. history as a small sliver of world history.