Swallowed up by the news of a royal wedding and the death of a mad man this weekend was the beatification of his holy highness, Pope John Paul II in front of 1.5 million of his closest fans. I don’t even understand the intricacies of this process by whereby people are made into saints. Canonization…beatification…sainthood…Greek. I do know that it’s a very long drawn out process and an expensive one at that only done for the sake of being able to say “This person was better than you.” Just another example among many that point to this shit being completely void of anything resembling humility. PJP-II himself beatified 1,338 dead people in his 27 years with that authority. Along with that authority of course comes the authority to certify a miracle and proof that you performed a miracle after you died is required for beatification.
So under this guy’s watch, we saw what may have been the biggest RCC scandal in centuries as thousands upon thousands of children were molested and raped in a sick fashion by people who were provided authority over them supposedly from God. This we know. It’s not up for debate. Throw in the condemnation of contraceptives and the spread of AIDS and poverty, the oppression of women and homosexuals, and the complete disdain for anyone who didn’t accept Christ as their savior…for anyone who may have been born into something different or simply wanted to be accountable for their own sins…and it’s clear that you have to question the sainthood of this man, immediately. If you believe in such things as he did, you should even argue that his fate should lie well in the other direction.
Now there are a lot of people who say, “There you go bashing religion again, Vandelay…condemning people for their beliefs instead of respecting them.” Well I’m sorry, but those beliefs are far from innocuous. Let’s take a look at this “miracle” for instance. What was needed for Ratzinger to certify without a doubt that PJP-II performed a miracle and shall thereby be immortalized? Well a French nun who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and was being treated for Parkinson’s disease had some of her symptoms subside as a result of that treatment? Nope. She prayed to JPJ-II. That’s it. That’s your miracle. Another “fuck you” to the work of scientists and doctors from the Catholic Church and how many uneducated sheep are going to suffer now because they think that praying to JPJ-II, the God of Parkinson’s Disease, will help your Parkinson’s Disease. This was the same thing with Mother Theresa by the way. Some lady in Africa had an ovarian tumor and the doctor’s performed a routine surgery on it that had been done thousands of times but she had some rock that had apparently been blessed by Mother Theresa with her and this was enough for JPJ-II to declare that Mother Theresa saved this women’s life in spite of not only the doctors but the woman’s own husband saying it had nothing to do with the fucking rock. Again, how many people with the same condition will this affect? How many deaths will it cause? If it’s one…it’s too many. I don’t know what the other 1,337 miracles that PJP-II certified were but I’ll go on record as saying they were just as tawdry.
There is nothing innocuous about this folks. It’s as dangerous as telling people that an exorcism can heal their epilepsy. It’s not the same as telling people that the world is 6,000 years old and allowing them to live in their own ignorance but it’s as vile and depraved as some of the stuff we see in the OT, such as asking us to admire and emulate the man who would gut his own son to prove his devotion to God or that a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding night should be thrown in a hole and bludgeoned to death by rocks and we need to stop it with this shit. It’s time to grow up.
Oh by the way, while we’re pope-bashing here, let us not leave out Ratzinger who not only allowed a genocidal dictator to attend this shit, but actually made special arrangements for him to get there in spite of the EU’s travel ban on him. Well say what you want about Mugabe, but at least he’s not guilty of "coveting."
Finally to wrap up an awesome week, the Pope went ahead and fired a Bishop from the priesthood. Finally laying down the law on some of this pederasty, you say? Nope. The guy had the audacity to suggest that a woman or a married man is capable of delivering pastoral duties.
After all…this is the word of the Lord.
Well said, Vandelay. I generally avoid paying any attention to this stuff. But I do love reading your occasional tirades about it.
Posted by: Jeff | May 03, 2011 at 12:55 PM
Thanks Jeff. I envy you...this shit bothers me way more than I'd like it to.
Posted by: Vandelay | May 03, 2011 at 01:16 PM
"I don’t even understand the intricacies of this process by whereby people are made into saints. Canonization…beatification…sainthood…Greek."
Please allow Father Guido Sarducci to explain (circa 1979):
"To be made a saint in-a the catholic church, you have to have-a four miracles. That's-a the rules, you know. It's-a always been that-a way. Four miracles, and-a to prove it. Well, this-a Mother Seton-now they could only prove-a three miracles. But the Pope-he just waived the fourth one. He just waived it! And do you know why? It's-a because she was American. It's all-a politics. We got-a some Italian-a people, they got-a forty, fifty, sixty miracles to their name. They can't-a get in just cause they say there's already too many Italian saints, and this woman comes along with-a three lousy miracles. I understand that-a two of them was-a card tricks."
Posted by: Jack Klompus | May 03, 2011 at 01:22 PM
Klompus, did you just channel Becca?
Posted by: Vandelay | May 03, 2011 at 01:43 PM
'Klompus, did you just channel Becca?'
Becca was a miracle in her own right.
Posted by: Jack Klompus | May 03, 2011 at 01:48 PM
New borns make use of their own establishing sensory faculties to master regarding his news anime figures
Posted by: action figure | May 05, 2011 at 04:26 AM
"New borns make use of their own establishing sensory faculties to master regarding his news anime figures"
Isn't that a bit extreme, A-Fig? Here we are having an honest conversation about the Catholic church -- then you come along and sully it up with Japanese cartoonage. Fuckin' jerk.
Posted by: Jack Klompus | May 05, 2011 at 09:35 AM