As usual, the Vatican is on guard against grave threats to morality

Love that photo in the first post . . . great lookalikes.

Every bit of modernization/advancement the Church made under Pope John Paul II, Ratzinger seems determined to destroy. Next, he'll target Vatican II in his quest to make the Catholic Church as disagreeable and old fashioned as possible.

And Catholics will continue to leave in droves.

 

Maybe there is fun in being the guy - or girl - who sucks the fun out of everything..

 

Things I was not allowed to do from about the age of 4 (when my parents became fundamentalist) to my late teens when they started to move away from it:

Go to movies
Date in any way
Listen to secular music
Watch the Smurfs (use of magic) or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (anthropomorphic animals on TV were getting people desensitized for when the Tribulation came and demons walked among us)
Celebrate Halloween
Miss church for any reason on Sunday morning, Sunday night or Wednesday night

I was also told regularly that Jesus was coming back any day now and not to make too many plans for the future, because the world was going to go any day now. When I was really little, I'd spend time wondering if I was going to be able to jump in the front seat and drive the car when my parents were Raptured and suddenly disappeared, in case I didn't make the cut for whatever reason, and then I'd have to subsequently live in the woods to avoid taking the Mark of the Beast.

Fortunately, they mellowed out quite a bit since then, though my Dad still dropped a "this current economic crisis and the devaluation of the dollar is setting up things for the One-World Government and the Mark of the Beast as currency" in the conversation the other day.

All in all, I think I turned out alright and at least I avoided a lot of the stupid stuff I could have done to wreck my life until college. But yeah, a lot of the fun was sucked out.

 

The good thing, I suppose, is that Pope Fester ain't likely to be in the chair very much longer.

It'll take Pope George Ringo I to start kicking ass and getting things into gear (hunting down and getting rid of the pedos, opening the priesthood to women and married people, loosening restrictions on divorce and birth control), or else the Catholic Church in the western world will be defunct within 30-50 years.

 

Dont forget the Catholic Church now has disaffected ANGLICANS! So if you're an Anglican priest, you can marry, but if you are Catholic-Forgettabouit.

 

Yeah, basically, the Catholic Church threw its doors open to the Anglican wing of the Westboro Baptist Church.

 

Jesus. This explains EVERYTHING.

 

So you're the fun one in the family?

 

I take it you aren't Catholic, or at least not a practicing Catholic?

 

In a related move, our parish priest (with absolutely zero enthusiasm, I might add) read some statement from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops at the end of Mass stating -- in brief -- that because some current health care reform proposal would make the Hyde amendment obsolete, Catholics should call their congressional reps en masse to make sure it doesn't pass.

Pope Benedict has some apprentices among the USCCB, needless to say.

 

(B). They've got to get to work on my reform program, especially Point No. 1, before my checkbook or I come back through the doors.

No comment, because the appropriate board has been shut down.