By Bowsy the Bear
On the occaison of Pope Benedict XIV’s election, Spring 2006
And so it is that the conclave of cardinals has baffled the members of the Roman Catholic church by choosing a staunch proponent of Roman Catholicism to lead them.
I must say I am fascinated by the reaction. What the hell did you people think was meant by the phrase “Is the pope catholic?” He is. That’s his job. It’s a bit like that old question; “does a bear shit in the woods?” We all do it, us bears, and you’re supposed to know that. Hence when someone asks you whether a bear shits in the woods, it is assumed that you know the answer to be yes, and it’s taken to be a rhetorical question to make you look like the stupid dumbass that you apparently are.
No offence.
That’s not to say of course that we bears are uncivilized animals. We have toilets in the wood. They are indoor toilets, with hand wash basins and mats and the full works, but that does not mean they aren’t in the wood. I think that confuses people sometimes.
The last pope in fact wanted to shit on the tarmac at every airport he visited, but Cardinal Ratzinger, not one for big gestures, gently persuaded him that a simple kissing of the ground would be more appropriate. He then explained that the pope / catholic thing and the bear / woods thing were not interchangeable, and advised Pope John Paul II not to mess with things that had been “laid” down”, so to speak, by his god..
And that brings me to my point.
Staunch catholics maintain that church policy on age-old issues such as non-ordination of women and condemnation of various “evils” cannot be changed because they were laid down by God countless millennia ago. But tarmac hadn’t been invented when god wrote the bible, so he must have brought in that new rule (the one that says the pope shouldn’t shit on the runway at airports) relatively recently. If he can bring in new judgments on runways and things, then obviously he would, if he felt it appropriate, come back and update his teachings on all the old stuff. He hasn’t, so clearly he wants things left as they are.
In other words, he wants the pope to continue to shit in the woods and not take crap from anyone else.Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking “What the hell does a bear know about major issues of theology?” And that’s an excellent question. Pity you were too much of a pussy to ask it out loud.
Well, the answer is nothing. I’m just a bear. I eat marmalade, look cute and sit on Neal’s bed or in the attic. That’s why we bears are not allowed to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church. Most of us end up joining a cult instead. It’s much easier to get to the top, and the rewards are far greater, unless of course it’s somebody else’s cult. Never ever join somebody else’s cult. You’ll be waiting ages for a promotion and the chances are you won’t get there without committing some sort of a coup.
Coups are a pain in the ass. You end up remortgaging your house to pay for the guns and the after-coup party, and there’s a shitload of paperwork involved if you are actually successful. If you stage a successful coup to take over a country, for example, you have to write a whole bloody constitution. Call me a lazy bastard, but that’s more trouble than it’s worth.
The point is Cardinal Singed-rat is right about everything. The problem is that there are millions of people in the church who shouldn’t be there, because they don’t agree with the teachings of it’s founders. Now, if this was a yacht club or a pigeon fanciers’ society, someone could just move a motion (not literally of course, unless you’re the pope and you’re on the tarmac) to change the rules to whatever fitted the current fashion. But it don’t work like that. God has apparently made clear his unchangeable policy that women and homosexuals are scum, so no matter how much you may hate that view, as I do, he has to be obeyed.
Cos he’s God.
He’s not some asshole who walked in from the street and declared himself the Supreme Being. He made the fucking streets. He made the tarmac that’s in the middle of the streets, and he made the dope that gets sold in them. God bless him. And what thanks does he get? You bastards put his son up on a goddam tree and leave him there until he’s dead.
Then the poor bastard comes along every few years and puts a representative on earth, as chosen by his cardinals under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and all you can do is whine that his pope causes AIDS in Africa. Yeah well at least with AIDS you don’t get nails driven through your hands and a crown of thorns on your goddam head.
Stop whining you assholes. At least you get to shit indoors. I’m Bowsy the bear, for MatchstickCats-NewsBurp, and you haven’t heard the last of me, godammit.