Giving the keys to the house to an American was not at all the same thing as surrendering them to the Saxon stranger. It could be construed as a return of the exile, a making whole of what had been sundered. And it hinted at a fantasy future in which we would all look as gorgeous (and be as rich) as Grace Kelly but still be as holy and Catholic as we assumed her to be. To watch this homecoming on the new medium of TV was to be reassured that aspirations to modernity could be reconciled with traditional devotion and historical continuity.
