[kj] (OT) Fwd: Relevant. And Wrong.

[Phillipps Marc]

>Go and wash your mouth out and say six hail Marys

Mark Steel's column in The Independent this week is a classic:


THEY SHOULD ELECT THE NEXT POPE IN A TELEVISED CONTEST

Apparently we all loved him. Every night the reporters in St Peter's 
Square tell us 'he was clearly adored by the people of every faith, or 
indeed no faith.' By the time of the funeral, they'll be saying, 'I've 
just been speaking to some Satanists who described him as a deeply 
spiritual and morally uplifting figure. They added that, while they 
'didn't agree with everything he stood for, none the less they felt 
they should add their tribute, and left this fluffy teddy bear, having 
first sacrificed it and eaten the stuffing.'

Then they tell us that he was officially the greatest ever Pope, with 
commentary such as: 'I think it's true to say that before John Paul, 
very few people had heard of the Catholic Church. There were one or two 
semi- known figures such as St Augustine, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 
but they were fairly marginal compared to the celebrity status of this 
Pope. After all, Jesus hardly set foot outside Galilee, and his idea of 
a world tour was a few days in the wilderness. He certainly didn't put 
himself about like John Paul.'

Next comes the bit about his inspiring last days, when they say: 
'Everyone was deeply moved by the way in which he carried on being 
alive right up until the moment he died. And that was clearly a measure 
of his deep faith.'

It's also becoming accepted that he ended communism. One news report 
claimed that 'It was down to the Pope that Solidarity could mount their 
campaign for freedom in Poland.' A glance at the news from the time 
might suggest that, while the Church offered tacit support to 
Solidarity, most of their appeals to the movement's leaders was for 
them to moderate their demands and not attempt to overthrow the 
government. But never mind, because before long, the official version 
will be that the Berlin Wall was knocked down by the Pope driving 
fearlessly headlong into it in his Popemobile.

In the rush to praise him, The Irish Post declared: 'He did much that 
brought the Church forward' because 'he acknowledged that Galileo 
should not have been persecuted for espousing the view that the sun, 
not the Earth, was at the centre of the cosmos.' So he brought it 
forward by dragging it into the 17th century. Presumably, then, in 
another 450 years they'll get round to apologising for fiddling with 
stacks of their choirboys.

It's acknowledged he was 'socially conservative', but that phrase is 
misleading " he was socially bloody medieval. Gays, abortion, 
contraception, masturbation, weren't just wrong, they were an 
abomination, punished with eternal damnation.

The dark side of these attitudes is that, the more you repress 
sexuality as 'sinful', the more it bursts out in genuinely depraved 
ways. Not only is the Roman Catholic Church at the centre of a huge 
child-abuse scandal, the recent Pope went to enormous lengths to cover 
that scandal up. In May 2001 he changed the rules to make each case a 
'pontifical secret'. Bishops could no longer investigate child abuse in 
their area, as each case had to be referred immediately to the Vatican. 
Seeing as most cardinals were appointed to ensure a continuation of 
policy, there must be a worry they'll announce the next Pope is Michael 
Jackson.

Something else that may come under 'socially conservative' was his 
fondness for creating saints out of people not necessarily all that 
saintly. For example, Alojzije Stepinac, beatified for his role as 
Archbishop of Zagreb during the Second World War. A fervent supporter 
of Hitler's puppet regime the Ustashe, his paper responded to the 
Nazis' arrival in Croatia by saying, 'The Catholic Church accompanies 
with rejoicing and delight the whole Croat people in this moment of its 
reconstruction.'

The Ustashe representative to the Vatican declared: 'The Archbishop 
justified in part the methods used against the Jews, who are in our 
country the most frequent perpetrators of abortion.' Maybe he should be 
declared the patron saint of managing to be despicable in two different 
ways all in the one sentence.

But Pope John Paul was, we gather, scathing about materialism in the 
midst of poverty. To which there needs to be one question asked: have 
you ever been to the Vatican? It's virtually made of gold. He could 
have taken half a dozen goblets from one room, flogged them in a car 
boot sale and made enough to feed Mozambique for a year.

Now the new Pope, leader of a billion people, will be appointed in a 
manner that would be condemned as a despotic farce if it took place in 
North Korea. So they should make amends by choosing their next leader 
with an international televised contest called 'Pope Idol'. It would be 
democratic, open, and every week we'd see Simon Cowell yelling: 'Stop " 
your catechism's out of time, your transubstantiation is so sloppy you 
nearly dropped your wafer, you're a waste of a cassock " get out.'

Or maybe God will decide that this is his ideal opportunity to prove he 
exists. Just as the last person files past the body, up he pops and 
starts jumping on a bouncy castle in the square.

And then won't I feel a right fool.







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