5 Stages of Delia Viewing

Stage 1: Crushing
You see a pretty, blonde, skinny, blue-eyed girl on TV waxing rhetorics about the Vatican and the Pope, sharing personal experiences, and you are mesmerized. After watching John Bitterman, John Allen, and all the other stiff Roman curia guys, the perky blonde chica is a welcome change. So you crush and you drool. You are impressed and interested. She seemed intelligent and erudite. If you're a journalist, you would want to write about her. If you are just a regular bloke, you Google and you Yahoo. If you are a psycho, you might think about stalking. But mostly, you crush and drool.

Everytime something big happens from the Vatican, a lot of people find themselves in Stage 1. In our short-attention span society, you might not find yourself beyond Stage 1 before Delia disappears again from the 24/7 news realm. But if you stay long enough, you will soon find yourself on Stage 2...

Stage 2: Didactic Observation
After 28 times of live Delia hits, you start listening more intently to what she says. To the untrained ear, she seems absolutely brilliant. But the "uhs" and "uhms" - which seem to punctuate every 3rd word of her sentence - begin to sound more prominently. You are now observing from afar, and notice - the drool stopped.

Stage 3: WTF?
This stage is akin to Kubler-Ross' 3rd stage "Anger". Once you really start listening and watching Delia, you notice your IQ fall sometimes. From interviewing Anne Rice about a really tepid book to reporting on a plastic Nativity scene, or more recently, investigating the imminent end of the world... you watch stunned. You wonder what CNN has done to the Delia from Stage 1 is and what this Delia is doing in her place! You think of all the FAV news you read or see, and you wonder why Delia isn't covering them! You wonder why she seems to fly to Rome every chance she gets. Huh? Meanwhile, all the FAV news happening at home don't seem to cross CNN's radar - like the non-stop FAV attacks on the Separation of Church of State, or how FAVers are stealing this election again, or training camps for Jesus soldiers. WTF? Really, CNN, what the fuck are you doing to Delia?

Stage 4: Depression
If you have been a Delia-observer from the beginning and have maintained a blog peppered with her pictures, if you have really really, at some point, really adored her, you have now fallen from your high and have smacked your head against the floor. You think of all the possibilities squandered, the newsworthy news ignored, the potentials you now fear would never be... and you just sink in a shallow pool of depression. Delia - who you and others thought would be the thinking Catholic's eye candy - has yet to live up to the hype.

Stage 5: Acceptance
Well, since you cannot do anything about it, you just sometimes turn the MUTE button on. At least, she's still easy on the eyes. You have now accepted that Delia is not the world-renowned genius theologian Vatican expert yet girl-next-door that CNN (or your personal blinders) wanted you to see - all you need to do is listen to John Allen to see the contrast. She's someone who got lucky, picked from an obscure Catholic magazine and thrust into the sell-out spinning cutthroat world of NY cable news. She doesn't have the soothing voice of Diane Sawyer or the exotic accent of Christian Amanpour, she doesn't have the authoritative inflection of Hala Gorani, Elizabeth Vargas or even Brianna Keilar, for that matter. What she has is 7 years of living in Rome, working the Vatican beat, her fluency in Italian, her contacts at the Curia, her familiarity with Vatican politics and nuances. She may be a bit late sometimes on picking up on a story, but she sure can talk the Catholic talk.

And then you wish her all the luck. Because you still remember when you were going through Stage 1, and it was such a bittersweet time. You still cheer for her, you still hope that someday, she (if CNN lets her) will report on some real FAV news that affect our world. You might have given up on the Pulitzer or Edward Murrow or Peabody, FOR NOW, but with all your heart, you still wish her all the best.

And depending on how you look at it - you might find yourself lucky or condemned to be back to Stage 1...


Delia Gallagher