Diet Catholic

At the risk of seriously dating this particular post I've got to comment on something as we wait for the Papal Smoke to issue forth from the Vatican Chimney like the Holy Ghost took a big ole bong hit. It's funny watching the 24 hour news channels armchair quarterbacking this whole process like it has any relevance at all. The camera pans out over a ginormous crowd of people in the big courtyard of the most pimpin' house on Earth and it's mystifying what they're all doing out there. I mean, there are more than a few nuns in the crowd and I can see why it's such a big deal to them. This guy is basically their new fake boyfriend, whoever he his.

"He looked right at me!"

I had a guest last night in the restaurant remark, "Black smoke today girl! No decision yet!" and I struggled momentarily to compose myself and respond accordingly. Was that a joke? Uhhhh....

But I digress. The latest in a string of absurdities is an article linked here about Catholics wanting their new pope to be more liberal. 

• 71 per cent of Canadians (55 per cent of Americans) want to allow priests to marry
• 62 per cent Canadian (52 per cent of Americans) want women to be ordained
• 57 per cent of Canadians (43 per cent of Americans) want to allow birth control

Now I'm no expert but I think that maybe these guys are misunderstanding how the Catholic Church works. It's not a democracy like California. The Pope says to build the Death Star and they build it, they don't get a vote on it or anything. If they don't build it he puts the squeeze on the Cardinals and they come on board and figure out who's responsible for the delay and use the Force to crush this person's trachea while the other priests look on in mute, subdued horror.

...Or something like that. The point is that the Pope is the king of the church. He makes the rules and the Catholics follow them. No matter how big a pain in the ass. Do you Catholics find that system old fashioned? Yes of course you do, because it is. So is making burnt offerings in a temple and eating the blood and flesh of a dead god. The only thing I can think of that might be more old fashioned is cutting out people's hearts on the top of your pyramid temple and throwing the bloody things down the steps into a pit in the bottom of which lives the Rabbit god that eats the moon.

Western Catholics are gradually ignoring more of the edicts of their Pontiff for convenience. Not that there's anything wrong with that- it's common sense that if you can't afford to feed 143 kids that you should not have 143 kids. But I'm not sure that giving up Twizzlers for Lent is really cutting it.

The idea that Catholics want their church to modernise to the level of current society is indicative of just how much our world has changed in the couple of thousand years since they started. It used to be that the  social standard originated in Rome and the Faithful (and everyone else that didn't want to get burned as a witch) adjusted their lifestyles accordingly. How quaint to think that Catholics now want this reversed. The people whose soldiers still look like this:

"Oh Alphonse, you dapper little minx!"

There is a name for a Catholic church that allows priests to marry and doesn't require the members to be beholden to the whims of an old man in a castle: I believe they're called Episcopalians.