Comments on: Poped!

By: Joshua W. Burton

Joshua W. Burton — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:51:05 +0000

Sorry, that was a very stale gibe. In penance, here’s something original (scribbled the day the white smoke went up, 2005).

Twenty-first century
College of Cardinals,
Holding back future with
Cross in the dike,
Picked a conservative
Uncontroversial
German to start their third
Thousand-year reich.

Erudite catamite,
Priests in America
Caused a real furor when
Choir boys they hooked.
Now comes aus Deutschland a
Leader whose charge is pro-
Tecting the Kinder, or
Kirche is cooked.

Pontifex, multiplex,
Cardinal Ratzinger,
Recently numbered a
Shepherd of men.
He’ll be a bridge to our
Posthuman progeny:
In hexadecimal,
Benedict 10.

Untergang, boomerang,
Germans enjoyed a great
Wiedervereinigung
Thanks to a Pole.
Wall-less and prosperous,
They can reciprocate,
Sending to Poland a
Pope—and the dole.

Beacon Hill, deacon’s will,
Cardinal Ratzinger
Offered to Kerry no
Wafer and wine.
Since he was then without
Infallibility,
Mission aborted. John
Paul wouldn’t sign.

And a couple of older ones, for good measure.

Ropery, potpourri,
John Paul the Second was
Named for the First, who was
Named for two more.
Ringo? George? No, Rome is
Noncoleopterist.
“Bigger than Jesus” was
Hard to ignore.

Antioch, underfrock,
Jesus of Nazareth
Left us a shroud as a
Sort of a gag.
Tell them in Turin some
Monocarboxylates
Should get the stains off that
Vatican rag.

By: Joshua W. Burton

Joshua W. Burton — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:37:58 +0000

“Bulletproof glass”—did Jesus wear nailproof gloves?

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:31:00 +0000

As far as German Shepherds go, I’ve seen/heard of two instances before of Benedict XVI being called that.

1) An Italian friend told me that shortly after he became Pope, a Church-hostile newspaper introduced him as “Il Pastore Tedesco”

2) A year or two later, I saw a car parked in a Catholic church’s lot with a bumper sticker resembling the ones dog owners sometimes have: “I [heart] my German Shepherd,” with a picture of the Pope.

By: bernarda

bernarda — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:08:33 +0000

Everyone seems to have forgotten the stories of priests raping nuns and young girls in Africa. The National Catholic Reporter ran some articles about it a few years ago.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-73355746.html

http://www.priestsofdarkness.com/nuns.html

Maybe the last Pope that had a normal sex life was Alexander VI. Some reporter should as Pope Benedickhead about him.

By: Steady Eddie

Steady Eddie — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:02:56 +0000

22—henry, and all this time I thought your “dark undertones” were about the fact that Ratzinger had literally been a go-along-to-get-along Nazi in his youth, and that German Shepherds/Alsatians were prominently used to monitor the lines of poor souls on their way to the gas chambers.

But being Jewish, and inclined to remember significant historical/contextual facts like those, maybe I’m susceptible to those particular “dark undertones”…

By: GeoX

GeoX — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:24:02 +0000

And they gave you a german shepherd to walk, with a collar of leather and nails…

By: John Protevi

John Protevi — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:08:12 +0000

I actually wasn’t thinking along those lines at all (suppose I’m still an innocent)

In fact I wish I had never heard the phrase “man-on-dog action” from a United States Senator, but such are the times we live in.

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:13:49 +0000

20 – I actually wasn’t thinking along those lines at all (suppose I’m still an innocent) – more just that German Shepherds/Alsatians can be pretty nasty and vicious as dogs go (although the most loved family dog of my childhood was my grandmother’s Alsatian/sheepdog mutt, which was a wonderful hound altogether).

Kieran – I had completely forgotten about that post of yours – now I wonder whether I thought those things because I had unconsciously assimilated yr point of view, or whether the similarity is b/c we have somewhat similar Irish Catholic-turned-doubting-social-scientist biographies.

By: AlanM

AlanM — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:36:44 +0000

Toby’s mention of papal visit-induced bacchanalia reminds me of a quote that my American history prof was fond of. Some nineteenth century American luminary commenting on the enormous revival meetings
of the 1840s(I think)that “more souls were begotten at them than were ever saved.”

If anybody knows the source of the quote, I’d be happy to find it out.

By: John Protevi

John Protevi — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:24:54 +0000

It’s too bad you couldn’t have included the person holding the placard in your photo. I’ve been wondering as to Rick Santorum’s whereabouts, and this might have been a valuable clue.

By: MR. Bill

MR. Bill — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:28:29 +0000

You’ll admit the Pope has cooler shoes than the recent Elton John, surely.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:51:10 +0000

15 & 17: B16 was remembering his lesson from Prince. “You can be the President/I’d rather be the Pope…”

By: Maria

Maria — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:34:52 +0000

15 – well it would have been a bit rude to laugh out loud.

By: Maria

Maria — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:34:08 +0000

Yes, I’d agree with Nick (11). The absolute peak of Irish Catholicism’s popularity was most likely the 1932 Eucharistic Congress. But in our lifetimes, there is nothing to match 1983.

By: vivian

vivian — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:00:09 +0000

Erm: And I thought he kept an admirably straight face when GBII said ‘we Americans’ like to be judged by how the weakest are treated in this country. Admirable?