4/19/2005 11:53:00 AM by Rob

Ratzenberger is now Pope

I suppose if you're not Catholic, then you don't care. Or if you're over 70 and long for the days when masses were still said in Latin, and when there were definite barriers between the Church and its followers, I suppose maybe you're even pleased with this news.

For us younger Catholics, though, this ain't good news. Not, unless, you don't mind belonging to a "virtual church". There just aren't enough people (read: men) who fulfill all the requirements to be a priest anymore, and the new Pope isn't going to do anything to address that. A few more years of attrition, and they're gonna have to shutter most of the smalltown and smaller parishes, so

He and his kind think that there ain't nothing wrong with the Church that can't be fixed by lots of (organized) prayer and going back to the basics, written at a time when there were serfs-n-lords, and women were little more than sperm vessels and scrubmaidens. Which, I suppose, you might figure me all in favor of. But I'd be a serf, and not a very good or obedient one. I'd probably be burned alive at a stake.

Fuck the good old days! They sucked!

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