Pope-A-Dope (Or, Pontiff-icating)

I couldn't escape it. It was all over the tube today. All Pope, all the time...infesting my city like a white-robed virus, clogging the airwaves and the streets alike.

So, on the principle of Know Thine Enemy (as Jedi to Sith), I watched for a bit. Well, more than a bit. And I was appalled.

First off, I was made physically and spiritually ill by the sight of scores, if not hundreds, of old, white, skirt-wearing males. I started keeping track after a while, and I saw exactly TWO women all afternoon, one a child, one a grownup, in "official" capacities connected with Palpatine.

The child was a teenaged Jewish girl who presented him with a copy of the Haggadah when he made his much ballyhooed appearance at an uptown synagogue; the other was a reader at the "ecumenical" prayer service that followed at a more uptown Catholic church. Wow. Way to show how you feel about women, von Ratz!

Then there was the whole synagogue appearance carnival. Fine, he wants to reconcile with Jews, excellent! BUT how do WE reconcile the fact that not that long ago he restored that vile Latin prayer in the Tridentine liturgy that prays for the Jews to be converted as a people to Christianity?

So, it's okay to hang out at a synagogue for half an hour or so and accept the gift of a Seder plate, the Haggadah and some matzoth, but you still believe the Jews are wrong and ill-informed and you PRAY FOR them to no longer be a religion but just another bunch of converted Christians. MAN, does that steam me! And I'm not really happy with the craven rabbis, apparently merely anxious to make public relations history, who didn't protest this, either.

Oh, and "ecumenical" prayer service? Sure, there were a bunch of Armenian and Orthodox prelates there, plus a lot of fat, greasy-looking, greasy-hearted Evangelicals (don't blame me, that's what they looked like, Southern used-car salesmen...). But I saw NOT ONE WOMAN AMONG THEM. Not even a nun. The only woman who went up to be presented was the Rev. Bernice King, estimable daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, may their names live in glory evermore. That was it.

And it'll be a cold day in Hitler Youth Hell before my own faith gets an apology out of the Vatican for killing hundreds of thousands of us, and as many utterly innocent women just for being women. I doubt I'll be sharing the quaich with a pope at a Samhain celebration anytime soon. Unless it's Pope Eve Mary I, and I don't think she's coming down the pike, not in this millennium anyway...

Watching the priestlings and the smug, smarmy cardinals surrounding Ratz like cassocked and biretta'd remoras, I wonder how anyone (and there were dozens, all crowding the camera for their TV moment) can still buy into this charade.

Even the trumpeted "private" interview with sex abuse survivors from the Boston area: I was not there, obviously, but from what was said, he basically just said ooh so sorry and yes we must do better. Well, big whoop, Benny! How about some REAL contrition, not just lip service? He's sorrier that the church has had to pay out 2 billion bucks in reparation and fines than that it was all covered up in the first place.

IT'S A SIN, pope boy! How could you even THINK that the God you profess to love and serve would be pleased that you basically ignored the whole thing (or your predecessor did, even more so, may he rot in the hell he believes in) and just shuffled off the pederast predators to new dioceses where they could prey upon new innocents? You make Jesus cry! Or maybe just get out the whip he used on the moneychangers...

Tell you what: I'd like to bring back the repentance ceremonies of King Henry II of England. You know, the one where, having been found implicitly responsible for the murder of Thomas Becket, he was publicly flogged in Canterbury Cathedral and had to do all sorts of penances. Yeah. I think that might be a REAL deterrent. For priests and popes alike.