I'll say up front that I was never a huge fan of the last Pope (apart from anything else
his memorial page on the Vatican website is more sickeningly sentimental than even the worst of the
sad Diana fan pages). He may have helped overthrow Communism in Poland and he stood up for the poor (hint: that was his
job) but his record on women's rights, pedophile priests, homosexuality and combatting the spread of AIDS was straight out of the dark ages. Needless to say, if he gets canonised, I'll be disgusted by the shallowness of the Catholic Church but not very surprised.
So I rather enjoyed the following dialogue I overheard between two women sitting at the next table to me in a pub last week
Woman 1 - "I don't understand it -he actively prevented attempts to stop the spread of AIDS, confirmed the status of women as second-class citizens within the Church and yet all those people flocked to Rome for his funeral last week and now they're praying at his tomb!"
Woman 2 - "They're not worshipping him. They've gone to make sure he's DEAD!"
Meanwhile
Popapolooza kicks off today and I can't help feeling there might be a couple of ringers in this list...
There's
an impressive list of contenders - many of whom are aren't even in the enclave (Note - apparently it's not mandatory that the next Pope be
a current cardinal although obviously it helps to keep it in the family). So I'm wondering who else might be eligible to vote for Pope. I mean
Is the bear a catholic? and of course that in turn begs the obvious question:
Does the pope shit in the woods?
posted at 3:18 PM
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