As I’m sure most of you are aware, the infallible Pope Benedict the 156th A.K.A Pope Ratzinger (Rat for short) recently resigned. This means that there is a vacancy for the top job in the Catholic Church, at the right hand of God – or if you’re anything like me, you will see it as an opportunity for some butt nugget to wear a silly hat and have control over 1 billion people and have everyone go mental over his every word.
So as of today (Tuesday), all the cardinals have gathered in the Sistine Chapel where they will sit and debate who God will choose as the next Pope. It’s quite possible that the new Pope has already been announced, as the last few took less than 24 hours to elect, but it’s quite possibly that this process could last anything up to two weeks.
For those of you that don’t know, 117 cardinals get ‘locked’ in the Sistine chapel and have to keep voting in secret until they can agree on a 2/3 majority; then they burn some stuff to create white smoke from the chimney signalling to the world that the evil deed is done. It would probably be wrong of me to assume that they’ll learn from their mistakes the last time round, but I’m guessing the previous election went something like this: ‘So, John Paul 2nd was a pretty popular geezer, and now we need someone with a modern touch to bring us closer to the 21st century and take over the reigns to try to deal with the whole child abuse/sex scandals, Church corruption, the issue with those pesky homosexuals as well as the whole abortion/condom/aids thing; I know, let’s elect a geriatric, conservative, right-wing former Hitler Youth guy, he’ll know how to solve all our problems. Where’s that motherfucking white smoke?
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So who are the potential candidates for the top job? To be honest, I don’t really care. I know there’s some black dude, and some people are claiming he’s the favourite and that it would do wonders for the church’s image to elect the ‘first’ black Pope; have they never heard of Pope Gelasius? Obviously not.
So Rat was like the first Pope in 500 years to resign and everyone was making a big deal about it. Catholics and their sympathizers were quick to jump to his defence and suggest that it was brave to continue to lead the Church with failing health for as long as he did. I don’t know about you, but I call bullshit. I can just about remember Pope John Paul 2nd, and that dude could barely string a fucking sentence together yet he still managed to do his dirty work and kept at it until he eventually snuffed it.
Traditionally, the papacy is a job that you have for life, until death do you part. Popes just don’t retire, they are supposed to be God’s chosen representative on Earth. Retiring is like saying a huge ‘up yours’ to the big man upstairs, it’s just something you don’t do. It must be expected that in later years they will struggle with ill health, that’s why they have advisors and people to do their work for them, so they can focus on being a figurehead and just attend a few public gatherings and read a few prayers out every now and again in front of what is mostly a cheering crowd of brain dead morons.
The average age of an elected pope is between 63-65, so Pope Rat was already getting on a bit when he was elected at the age of 77. He will now be referred to as Pope Emeritus or something daft and will retire to his papal summer palace funded by the poor and built by slaves to spend the rest of his days in ‘reflection and prayer’— perhaps he’s reflecting on the time he spent in the Hitler Youth and praying that one day scientists will be able to find a way of preventing aids from seeping through condoms.
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Obviously his resignation had absolutely nothing to do with him being the central figure in a Church that tried to cover up sexual abuse stories, of course not. It was he who convinced Pope John Paul 2nd to put a single body in the church in charge of investigating sexual abuse cases. It was he who deemed it an ‘internal church matter’ and didn’t report the cases to the police. Instead, the ‘preliminary investigation’ evidence was kept confidential and sent directly to his office; the priests and other abusers in question were simply given a warning or sent to a different diocese where their crimes were not known and they could potentially carry on their abuse. This is the legacy left by Pope Rat, and it will be up to his successor to try to sort out his mess.
I think it’s obvious to anyone with any degree of intelligence that the papacy is about as far removed from the teachings of Christ as you can possible get. I mean, this bell-end sits on a golden throne, with golden rings and extravagant clothing and probably wipes his ass with gold encrusted toilet paper. He lives in a palace and is waited on hand and foot by servants.
Jesus, on the other hand, was a poor peasant and so were his disciples and they preached against the power and extravagance that the papacy wields. If Jesus came back today he’d no doubt have a shit-fit and damn these people to hell. Wasn’t it Jesus who said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God? So why do these Popes not heed his warning? The last thing he would have wanted was a large percentage of the planet’s population worshipping some geriatric in a stupid hat preaching sermons on charity and kindness.
As you can probably tell, I’m not a religious guy, and so I guess the moral of the story is that I couldn’t really care less who the next Pope is. Despite the future lulz and face-palms the next Pope will inevitably provide us, we should abolish the papacy and expose it for the crock of shit that it is, and spend our time doing something productive – like reading Sick Chirpse articles, that would be a good place to start.
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