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The Big Fisherman's Hands

From blackbiretta.blogspot.com

The Princes of the Church are fat old men.  No Bonnie Young Prince Charles there!  Like Phillip and Charles, you risk dying before you reach the top.  

 There may--here and there--actually be a few slimmer souls but, again, crimson desiccation is scarcely preferable to crimson portliness.  

 There no women, slim or stout.  There are no women.

 There is a good deal of attention to women and their proper place in the divine scheme of things, but there are no women.  I don't think there is even a married man in the Crimson Tide.  

 The Conclave of Cardinals--the Radiance of Cardinals--makes no pretense to be representative of the human community:  they are sort-of-celibate, ceremonially poor, and obedient only to themselves and to the one of themselves they will call, "Papa":  Pope.  It is oddly discordant to hear the Pope call himself "just a humble pilgrim".  The claimants to the Big Fisherman's role do not have calloused hands.  They are a Splendor of Portly Old Men.  

 Perhaps when they have nearly finished trading horses and burning wet straw in the signal stove, they should ask the finalists to stand before them in a row, and palms up, show their calloused hands.  

 "Are you," they should be asked, "going to create a church that includes everyone?  Will there be women here next time, and married clergy?  No more red slippers?"

Comments

  1. Smokin Jo ro landMarch 12, 2013 at 7:48 PM

    I remember being in Rome about a block from the Vatican when the red tide flowed through . Nobody has any feet . It was quite a sight . They were confirming a BUNCH of cardinals .

    ReplyDelete

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