Bad Days Ahead, Maybe a Tarnished Silver Lining
They elected another Pope. It’s Ratzinger – the Goebbels of the Vatican. Un-fucking-believable, even for an organization as self-destructively oblivious as this one.
Well, for Catholics and the dwindling number of Westerners who still take Catholicism seriously, it’s time to kiss the Dark Ages hello again. For the rest of us, we can only hunker down and await an onslaught of rabidly reactionary politicking from an extremely rich, tax-exempt organization that claims mandatory authority over its members, including public office-holders. The medieval wing of an organization that just barely got over Galileo has now claimed the right to declare itself “infallible” (the irony of which they never seem to get). If you thought John Paul II was bad, wait till you get a load of Pope Torquemada Jr.
The unwelcome silver lining is this: he will certainly accelerate the race to irrelevance of the Catholic church in educated, industrialized countries. Already, it is known that rates of non-compliance by Western Catholics with church dogma on birth control, abortion, and other personal-liberty issues have been very high for decades; I predict the rate of Catholic use of birth control will grow by at least 15%, and total membership in Catholic churches will drop by the same level, in 5 years in the US and most EU countries. Conceivably, adherence to conservative religion across the board will decline as the excesses of a church, and a Pope, for whom the word “excess” has no meaning become more visible. This is all to the good.
The bad side of the good side is that it is the conservative elements that are driving Catholic church growth in its region of greatest growth right now – Africa. We can only expect a consolidation of that trend, and ever-greater pressure against women’s independence, birth control, access to abortion, condom use, and other liberating measures. The result, for as long as Ratzinger and his ilk have the whip hand, will be yet more uncountable thousands of African deaths from AIDS, starvation, and childbed fever, and still more misery for African women. Things don’t look great for Latin America, the Caribbean or, hell, anywhere else, either.
For those with more choices, though, the problem is largely political. Few care what the Vatican thinks about how they should live their lives, and fewer will when the Ratzingerian Papal bull starts to pile up in coming years. The real challenge is to keep him from making his personal obsessions mandatory, and his personal phobias crimes, for the rest of us who dare to claim the right to live our own lives and make our own decisions. Beyond that . . . well, who cares? Meet the new Pope – same as the old Pope. I doubt many of us are going to get fooled again (or for the first time).
We’re infallible starting ………. NOW!
No wait, starting NOW!
Okay, GO!
Here I was hoping to have a lesbian preistess marry me and April.
The really important question you’ve left unanswered is who will be the new Grand Poo-Bah of the Moose Lodge?
I mean, really, it amazes me that anyone still thinks the pope is relevant to anything whatsoever. Indeed, it’s only people’s perception that he is that makes it so. Just don’t look, just don’t look…
I knew this was coming. It’s been coming for a long time, if you know how to read the signs. Next phase: they’ll say it isn’t happening. Then they’ll put it in operation. The problem with the new dogmatists is this: the last time they had any real pull, the average was a few years’ education, and half the population baled hay. So they just listened to the priest and tugged their forelock. Now, if they really try to enforce what they threaten to, they’ll gain some Nigerians and lose the US, South America, and the rest. But, safe in the Vatican, the tiny little man will be safe… and infallible.
In the 1900’s, after Garibaldi threatened the medieval church, they traded land for the doctrine of infallibility. In the ’20s, they struck a deal with Mussolini: give us statehood for the Vatican, and let us teach the children, we’ll ignore what your thugs are doing to free-thinkers, teachers and socialists. Then, in the ’30s, the man who would be Pius XII struck a deal with Hitler: you let us teach the children, and we’ll let you name a bishop or two, and we’ll fold your moderate opposition, the Catholic Party.
What’s next for these troglodytes? Hmm, how about a Holy War in the Middle East? Deus Vult!
Wow, Godwin’s Law in only two sentences. That must be a personal record for you.
Stormy:
I’m sure KTK will try harder in the future.
JLRoberson:
The Pope may not be as relevant as he once was in the industrialized nations, but your “irrelevant” logic displays woeful ignorance of the way things are in Latin America, South America, and Africa.
Mixed Reaction To Joseph Ratzinger As Pope Benedict XVI
When German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI there were two reactions in the sq…
Mixed Reaction To Joseph Ratzinger As Pope Benedict XVI
When German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI there were two reactions in the sq…
We Have a Pope
WHITE SMOKE billowed out from a stovepipe on the roof of the Sistine Chapel and bells pealed across Rome Tuesday evening, as word spread that a new pope has been elected to lead the one billion faithful of the Roman…
We Have a Pope
WHITE SMOKE billowed out from a stovepipe on the roof of the Sistine Chapel and bells pealed across Rome Tuesday evening, as word spread that a new pope has been elected to lead the one billion faithful of the Roman…
We Have a Pope
WHITE SMOKE billowed out from a stovepipe on the roof of the Sistine Chapel and bells pealed across Rome Tuesday evening, as word spread that a new pope has been elected to lead the one billion faithful of the Roman…
Of Popes and Hopes and Moonbats
Today, white smoke signaled that Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to be the next pope, the first from Germany since the 11th century. He has chosen to be known as Pope Benedict XVI .The newly elected pope issued his first blessing to the nearly two hundr…
The New Conservative Pope
Munich Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedictus XVI, has a personal history that may make some very uneasy: Belfast Telegraph September 21, 2000 (available on Lexis.com) The [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith] CDF is chaired by Joseph Ra…
I think a little introspection on behalf or yourself and the left in general is order. When you breathlessly spout phrases such
as “…for Catholics and the dwindling number of Westerners who still take Catholicism seriously, it’s time to kiss the Dark Ages
hello again”. You need to ponder the “dwindling number of westerners” part a bit more, and liberalisms role in that sad fact.
If societies with abortion, birth control, condoms, and all the “liberalizing benefits” of developed civilization can’t even
manage to replace their populations, how seriously can they be taken as holders of a legitimate ideology for the advancement of
the human race?
As for “kissing the dark ages hello again”, maybe you should do a some quick googling inquiring about Charles Martel and the Gates of Vienna.
It seems those stupid Catholics back in the dark ages understood critical lessons that have escaped much of western civilization today.
The Catholic church understands the fact that civilizations must fight to survive. If your world view makes you too stupid to
understand the fact that you must produce another generation to replace yourself, holders of that view will be rewarded with the
irrevalence and spite of cultures and civilizations understanding that fact.
And they wonder why they’re having trouble with the religious voters…
Democrats are going to continue having trouble connecting to the religious voters so long as their grassroots continue to be openly hostile to religion. A brief glance around prominent net-roots sites
[Muslim conquest] It seems those stupid Catholics back in the dark ages understood critical lessons that have escaped much of western civilization today.
The Catholic church understands the fact that civilizations must fight to survive. If your world view makes you too stupid to understand the fact that you must produce another generation to replace yourself, holders of that view will be rewarded with the irrevalence and spite of cultures and civilizations understanding that fact.
So . . . our only hope for avoiding the collapse of our civilization and its conquest by a a backward, oppressive religious regime is . . . to abandon the values that define our civilization and embrace a backward, oppressive religious regime?
The value of the Catholic church is that it imposes sexual oppression in order to force us into an involuntary breeding war with an equally oppressive culture so they won’t “spite” us? And if our population doesn’t increase our civilization will collapse through the well-known economic law of Mandatory Fertility Inflation?
Take a deep breath, dude. Look around you. We’ve got a good thing (more or less) going here just as it it. Enjoy it. Try to relax.
Blog the pope
Some reactions to the new pope
Kevin… (deep breath…cough)
I’m not suggesting a breeding war, would it be too outrageous to suggest we should at least be at replacement level?
Complete ignorance of the demographic implications of a declining population juxtaposed with an aggresive, wildly increasing
population is irresponsible if you want our civilization to continue in existence. Whether it be agressive muslim populations,
or fast growing African/Asian/Hispanic populations, please tell me how the ideas of modern “liberalism” can compete against any of these
with a declining, weak population?
Tho point is that civilizations must compete. I do enjoy the good thing we currently have going, I relax often with a beer and a smoke and
( wife willing ) a poke. But I think about the longer term situation for my two kids and I’m not so sure what lies ahead for them. The current
situation is out of balance. Maybe I differ with you in that I give much credit to Chrisianity ( & Judaism ) for getting us as far as we are, I’d rather
listen to and consider the criticism they offer in an attempt to find a better balance, than throw it all away for future generations on selfish hedonism.
Yeah, Stormy Dragon, but it’s kinda hard to avoid Godwin’s Law when Benny Da Pope was an ex-Nazi.
As for “Ratzingerian Papal bull starts to pile up in coming years”…The dude is already 78 years old…how many Bulls can a man make in the twilight of his life?