Monday, May 14, 2007
Blame it on Benedixteen
I've been following the news concerning the Good Shepherd who leads my flock, AKA Pope Benedict XVI, on his trip to Brazil with a slowly growing sense of rage. All week he's been running off at the mouth about what everybody is doing wrong and why they're all going to hell for it, and I'm embarrassed for myself and Catholics everywhere. Instead of preaching about unity and peace like my man JP Dos would have done, he's busy wagging his finger and honing his already insufferable judgment skills. From CNN:
World economies are not the only things Benedixteen has a 14th century stance on. Of course he took the opportunity to sound off about sexiness, too. Sort of.
Does Benedixteen realize who he is talking to when he's going off about family values (ie: no fun sex of any kind)? This is BRAZIL, dude. They're famous for being libertines.
So far, the only thing Benedixteen has effectively crushed is all the solid diplomatic capital built by JP Dos. Maybe the people of Latin America, and everywhere else, will stop having pre- or extramarital sex when priests stop molesting kids...in other words, never.
Benedict criticized capitalism's negative effects and Marxist influences that have motivated some grass-roots Catholic activists, remnants of the Liberation theology he moved to crush when he was a cardinal. "The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful destruction of the human spirit," Benedict said as he opened a two-week bishops' conference aimed at re-energizing the church's influence in Latin America.So capitalism and communism are both bad? Well, what type of economy does he approve of? Wait, I know...break out the reliquaries and brush up on your Latin, Catholics, because I would not be surprised if the Pope advocates getting medieval on the world's ass. He's probably "moved to crush" such ideas to get the world divided up into a series of fiefdoms so he can tithe the fuck out of everyone and get some new Prada loafers to hot up his papal cassock:
World economies are not the only things Benedixteen has a 14th century stance on. Of course he took the opportunity to sound off about sexiness, too. Sort of.
Benedict called the institution of the family "one of the most important treasures of Latin American countries" but said it is under attack and that "civil legislation opposed to marriage which, by supporting contraception and abortion, is threatening the future of peoples."Know what else is threatening "the future of peoples"? AIDS, you asshole! And the consequences of overpopulation, too. The above statement was supposedly directed at Brazil's efforts to stem the spread of SIDA by handing out free condoms, and Mexico's recent legalization of abortion. Recently, Benedixteen said that the pro-choice Mexican lawmakers should be excommunicated. I didn't realize that excommunication was a go-to option for the church anymore. I know it's still technically on the books, but I thought that in practice it went the way of simony and the selling of indulgences. If he's bringing excommunication back, then I'm totally fucked in that department. Good thing I'm a minister of the Universal Life Church and thus have a backup religion, in case I get unceremoniously booted from the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church for my anti-future of peoples views on these matters.
Does Benedixteen realize who he is talking to when he's going off about family values (ie: no fun sex of any kind)? This is BRAZIL, dude. They're famous for being libertines.
The pope's message on immorality could be a tough sell in Brazil. Though more than 70 percent of the nation's 190 million citizens are Catholic, sex before marriage is common. And while polls show Brazilians oppose expanding access to abortion, they overwhelmingly support using condoms to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.I guess Benedixteen has never seen Blame It on Rio. I remember my dad talking about this movie like it was Citizen Kane when I was a kid, and my mother telling him not to talk about it in front of myself or my brother. I saw it on TV a couple months ago, and I thought it was simultaneously one of the stupidest and most appalling pieces of crap ever committed to film. It stars Michael Caine as a married coffee trader or something, and he lives with his daughter Demi Moore and his best friend's family in Rio. He ends up fucking his best friend's teenaged (and NOT even close to legal) daughter, and when the shit hits the fan, he does just what the movie's title implies: he blames it on Rio, and his best friend and his wife are like, "Okay, fair enough." Seriously, he skates on a child rape charge solely because it was Rio's fault! Apparently in Brazil, all that churrascaria eating and enthusiastic carnival-ing is just SO HOT that a man cannot be blamed for succumbing to his perverted desires with willing fifteen-year-olds. By the way, this movie is a comedy. Blame It on Rio sucked, but it seems like a viewing might benefit Benedixteen in terms of showing him what he's up against in his attempts to preach abstinence to all those sexed-up Brazilians. Then maybe he wouldn't waste everyone's time by blasting anti-AIDS efforts and complaining that globalization is making the church even more impotent in terms of economic power and cultural influence.
Scantily clad actresses are the norm in the nation's hugely popular soap operas, and most women on Brazil's famed beaches wear bikinis, leaving so little to the imagination that they are known as "dental floss." Plastic surgery to reshape breasts and buttocks is nearly as popular as orthodontia, with most surgeons offering extended payment plan options.
"Nothing could be more countercultural than his message in Brazil, the land of the thong," said David Gibson, author of "The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World."
So far, the only thing Benedixteen has effectively crushed is all the solid diplomatic capital built by JP Dos. Maybe the people of Latin America, and everywhere else, will stop having pre- or extramarital sex when priests stop molesting kids...in other words, never.
Labels: Catholicism, Pope Benedixteen, ranting, scathing indictments
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How dare you disparage Blame it on Rio, the best travelogue/soft core sex-romp film ever made? It probably helps that I was 12 when I saw it in the theater back in '83.
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# posted by 
: 5/14/2007 8:55 AM
: 5/14/2007 8:55 AM Links to this post:
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