but:
VATICAN CITY Pope John Paul II on Saturday denounced the war against Iraq as threatening the "fate of humanity" in his first public comments on the U.S-led attacks.
With all due respect: Fuck you, your Holiness. You don't have a clue. And you sound absolutely nothing like the man who took Peter's Throne many years ago; you know, the freedom-fighter Polish priest who defied the Nazis.
I hope this makes American Catholics finally decide they've had enough of being reigned over from Rome. Between this Pope and the boy-buggering scum that infest the American priesthood, I can't imagine what would keep an American Catholic loyal to the Church at this point.
LATER THOUGHT: Actually, loyalty to the Church is not what I meant. Loyalty to the Church hierarchy is what I meant.
Jews don't have a religious hierarchy (even the rabbi of my synagogue doesn't have the kind of power over me that the parish priest has over Joe Catholic; he's a teacher, not a religious overseer), so my usual unbelief at the deference paid to priests, bishops, and so forth, is that much greater when I hear this kind of crap out of the Supreme Leader of the Catholic Church.
When I was much younger I almost decked the small-town Catholic priest who buried my Uncle Bud. After spouting anti-Semitic garbage during the service (knowing damn well that Uncle Bud's youngest brother -- my dad -- was Jewish), he had the gall to accuse me of trying to steal his overcoat after the service, too. (Why he thought an overcoat with a liberal coating of cat fur might be his, I have no idea.) To this day I'm sorry I didn't slug him.
On the other hand, the priest who married two friends of mine several years later was the kindest, most holy man I think I've ever met. But he served a fairly large parish in Indianapolis -- a lot different from a small town in northern Indiana. Father Pat was the kind of man the Church needs if it hopes to survive in America.
