"Uh, straight people? If you’re going to ignore the Pope when he says idiotic, backwards, retrograde crap about you, then we really ought to ignore him when he says idiotic, backwards, retrograde things about me."

Besides, maybe the hysterical news media is a good thing. It draws attention to that other Pope's gobbledygook. His claptrap views about straights are old hat. The stuff about gays is new fertile terrain for us to laugh at him about.

At least the last pope did enough things to merit attention, like apologizing for torturing Galileo. And trying to make amends with the Orthodox and the Jews. I know that this Pope is only a caretaker pope, but he could at least try to be worthwhile. Maybe hold a clambake or something.

Also, I hate to admit it, but I agree with the Dope on the in vitro issue. Granted, my rational is completely different. I'm basically against people making new babies in any way, in vitro or old fashioned F-ing. Until every orphan and or foster kid has a home, people have no business making new ones.

As far as I can tell, the reason the Catholic Church and its pontiff receive the sort of uncritical coverage that, say, Scientology does not has a lot to do with the large numbers of Catholics who read newspapers or watch television news.

PRINCE: Sire--over what do you rule?

KING: Over everything.

PRINCE: Over everything?

NARRATOR: The king made a gesture, which took in his planet, the other planets, and all the stars.

PRINCE: Over all that?

KING: Over all that.

NARRATOR: For his rule was not only absolute: it was also universal.

PRINCE: And the stars obey you?

KING: Certainly they do. They obey instantly. I do not permit insubordination.

NARRATOR: Such power was a thing for the little prince to marvel at. If he had been master of such complete authority, he would have been able to watch the sunset, not forty-four times in one day, but seventy-two, or even a hundred, or even two hundred times, without ever having to move his chair. And because he felt a bit sad as he remembered his little planet which he had forsaken, he plucked up his courage to ask the king a favor:

PRINCE: I should like to see a sunset ... Do me that kindness ... Order the sun to set...

KING: If I ordered a general to fly from one flower to another like a butterfly, or to write a tragic drama, or to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not carry out the order that he had received, which one of us would be in the wrong? The general, or myself?

PRINCE: You.

KING: Exactly. One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform. Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable.

PRINCE: Then my sunset?

NARRATOR: The little prince reminded him: for he never forgot a question once he had asked it.

KING: You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But, according to my science of government, I shall wait until conditions are favorable.

PRINCE: When will that be?

KING: Hum! Hum!

NARRATOR: Replied the king; and before saying anything else he consulted a bulky almanac.

KING: Hum! Hum! That will be about--about--that will be this evening about twenty minutes to eight. And you will see how well I am obeyed!

That ain't news.

The Episcopal House of Bishops (analogous to the Senate) doesn't chuck the constitution and bylaws of the church to prevent a duly elected bishop from being consecrated, or to prevent other gay bishops from being elected.

That, apparently, is news.

Now I gotta read that article on him in the new New Yorker, but only after I've eaten breakfast...

Nice post.

Dave

And unlike the priests who vow to not do any of the above, I haven't resorted to fondling little boys. Which is why I don't see how the pope, as head of the largest organized child-molestation ring the planet has ever seen, has any authority to dictate morality to anyone.