This post is from April 19, 2005.

I've commented before that Benedict XVI seems to, ahem, arouse some odd emotions in a certain wing of the Church.

However, this is nothing on the rampant idiocy that must see every Pope as a political figure. Of course, the Pope is not so easily rendered as that. This doesn't stop the sort of hysteria and rampant (incorrect) politicization to which the Left inevitably descends:

This particular pope has risen by being the enforcer for doctrinal purity in the Papacy of John Paul II. It is this that makes his former affiliations an issue, because he demands that people die for their faith, or suffer tremendous hardships for it. And yet he was unwilling to do so. His youth is often offered as an excuse - but he is no older than other people he demands die for their faith.

He is also part of the apparatus which has covered up peadophilia in the church, giving Bernard Law an honoured place in the festivities at Rome. Again, the issue is hypocrisy. A man who forgives so easily lies and cover ups, and yet will not forgive others who he disapproves of, is a hypocrite.

He is also part of the apparatus which meddles in the politics of other nations. And yet, his defenders demand that those who are not Catholic say nothing. I would be happy to stay out of the politics of the Church of Rome, if only it would stay out of my politics.

He is the most forward figure in manking anti-privacy and anti-choice the central moral tennet of the Catholic Church - a movement that regularly accuses its opponents of engaging in a "holocaust of abortion". It will not be right to call Ratzinger a Nazi, when Ratzinger tells his faithful to stop calling other people Nazis. Again, hypocrisy is the issue.

Yes, well. It is not enough to ramble on, without sentence structure, and accuse a man grown of hypocrisy for a youth lived against his will; rather (meanderingly), one must also pretend that the infallible teachings of the Church are mere bullet-points of political doctrine, to be treated as malleably as Newberry repeatedly treats English grammar. One must engage in non sequiturs of epic proportions to make a point that could be summed up thusly: The Church has no right to judge, so SHUT UP!! One must, in other words, throw a temper tantrum over a joyous day for the world's billion Catholics.

Look on the modern Left, and laugh.

Update [2005-4-19 21:12:53 by Thomas]: Oh, and Benedict is right about the Holocaust of abortion, too.