What Happened in Spain

will, regrettably, probably stay in Spain:

...There's nothing new about reporters turning measured papal statements into blaring headlines. Nor are such journalists wrong to surmise that Benedict's views challenge the prevailing secular ethos of our age. But in their frenzy to depict the pope as crotchety culture warrior, they miss the meatiest part of his challenge.

Benedict's fundamental critique of the secular West is not about flawed policies as much as the flawed ideology that drives them: the naïve assumption that we can remember our respect for human rights while forgetting the Judeo-Christian heritage and view of the human person that gave rise to that respect in the first place. In his quiet, erudite way, he dares us to see faith as a foundation rather than an obstacle to our freedom, to live as if the God of the Bible still matters today and to ponder what our longings for beauty and infinity tell us about our eternal destiny.

Benedict sounded these themes Sunday, in a 1,900-word homily of which only about 100 words related to the hot-button issues that received all the press.

"At a time in which man claims to be able to build his life without God, as if God had nothing to say to him," the pope said, architect Antoni Gaudí's remarkable cathedral reminds us "that the secret of authentic originality consists … in returning to one's origin, which is God."

In other words, the transcendent world view of faith is more original and liberating than the materialist one championed by secular sophisticates. Those are provocative words, worthy of serious debate. Too bad skewed papal media coverage ensures that most Americans and Europeans will never hear them.