According to Lord Patten, the momentous occasion of the papal visit may cost up to £12 million. This is causing some organisations to have angry outbursts, tears-popping-at-the-eyes and hands clenched frenzies, while they kvetch such sums of money should not fund the papal visit. Lord Patten has been quick to articulate that the one-day G-20 summit cost £20 million. But why do we not hear the Pope detractors/Pope kvetchers complain about this enormous expense? Could it be that they are not sincerely concerned with kvetching about costs, (I mean, why don't they take issue with other public expenditure budgets?) but more interested in detracting from the papal visit?
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English is an enormously rich and eclectic language with words from Yiddish that were derived from the Pope’s mother tongue, German. I’ve chosen the Yiddish word ‘kvetchers’ (‘keh-vet-cher’ as in rhyming with ‘Jessica Fletcher’) for the Pope detractors. According to Leo Rosten’s
The Joys of Yiddish, a ‘kvetcher’ is ‘anyone, male or female who complains, frets, gripes….A chronic complainer. ‘What a congenital kvetcher’!’’
The verb ‘to kvetch’ comes from the German ‘to squeeze’ or ‘to pinch’. Now, I’d like to see ‘some’ start their penny pinching with the organisers of the G-20 summit.
Thanks to Vincenzo for posting the Zenit article on Sancte Pater
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