The Pope Song

JoeMyGod alerted me to this in the wee sleepless hours when the mind gets silly. Ordinarily I might dismiss it as childish and vitriolic, but the fact is that everywhere I go, people are simply and repeatedly saying "Fuck the Pope" in such resounding numbers and with such conviction that attention must be paid.

I suppose B16 will never hear this song. Really, who's gonna show it to him? The Vatican spokesman Father Lombardi? Even if he does hear it, he'll feel insulted but he will have no sense of how these words are widely expressive of both Catholic and non-Catholic current sentiment. He won't understand that people don't like to be judged, and they really don't like to be judged by those who commit and cover up serious crimes. Even in traditional Catholic art, the shepherd is never depicted flogging the sheep or arrogantly ignoring the flock.

I'm guessing that there isn't a cardinal or bishop alive who isn't secretly hoping that God will soon call B16 to his heavenly reward.

This so much more than just a PR nightmare for the Vatican. This is a time of clarification. The hierarchy is squirming on a slide under the lens of a powerful microscope. They deflect this scrutiny with expressions of outrage at the affrontery of subjecting Jesus and his bride, the church, to hateful scrutiny. That old switcheroo no longer works.

If the pope were inconvenient because he tells us hard truths that are for our own good, I'd say we should gratefully take the medicine, but he offers no remedy for the human condition and he brings us no closer to the divine element in the human condition. When I hear the words "Fuck the pope", I am silent. Qui tacet consentire videtur.