I particularly love this section:
Ratzinger gets it. For this reason, I suspect that, while it’s somewhat unfair that Bergoglio is being played off against Ratzinger, Ratzinger himself, in his retirement, is not resentful of his successor’s popularity. I rather picture him watching the TV reports on Bergoglio, and saying, “Yes! Zat is exactly vat I vas trying to say.”And then he drank a goblet of human blood. I often wonder if these Christians, when they talk openly about how they're trying to put one over on the suckers, understand how weird they sound to normal people. Then I remember normal people don't read them.
Now, if Pope Francis really is more open to helping the poor and ceasing the persecution of gays (not holding my breath here), I imagine Poterma will write something about South American radicalism and the evils of liberation theology.
ReplyDelete... Bergoglio is being played off against Ratzinger
ReplyDeleteImagine if President Obama had referred to His Holiness as "Bergoglio." Maybe it's okay if you're inside the Real True Christian club: Pope Francis is "Bergoglio" or "My Pal Jorge"; the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Communion is "Bart" or "Dancin' Dimítrios"; and Franklin Graham is "Grifting Bloody Diarrhea."
I especially liked the part where Mr. Potemra goes out on a limb and distances himself from another writer's praise for Mussolini. National Review is getting almost progressive here.
ReplyDelete"It has come to my attention that not only did the trains not run on time, they weren't even privatized. You're off the list, Benito!"
ReplyDeleteI prefer "Electric Bergoglio" myself.
ReplyDelete"My newest husband" - Kathryn Jean Lopez
ReplyDelete~
I don't know, I thought Pope Benedict's role in Star Wars Episode 3 lacked nuance.
ReplyDeleteJesus, the Anchoress thingy is special. Shorter "The Pope has clearly read Sun Tzu, and has crushed the press underneath his Humble heel overwhelmed the doubters with the truth.
ReplyDeleteUmm, Lizzy baby, so, the previous popes were lying through their teefs? I thought JPII and John23 were saints-to-be, isn't dissembling (to be kind) one o' those sin-type-widgets? They all thought so highly of their theology that they hid it, as in the parable of Cardinal Dolan's $50M in cemetery maintenance trust funds?
"I'm what I like to call a Ratzinger Republican."
ReplyDeleteIf you were 'normal people', Roy, I wouldn't read you.
ReplyDelete"Then I remember normal people don't read them."
ReplyDeleteWhat an outrageous statement! Why, I was reading the "The Russian Monk" chapter from "The Brothers Carry Motzahs" this morning. And believe you me, I was getting all famischst over it.
I dropped an ice-cream cone yesterday. Talk about nuance! Thousands of the little guys, and many I've never met before. Oh well, it's all due-to-Romney.
ReplyDelete"Hell hath no fury like a wingnut scorned."
ReplyDeleteYou would be pretty irritated, as would I, if nobody heeded the 7 shocking Biblical truths on investing revealed in the Bible.
I almost feel sorry for Potemra:
ReplyDeleteJerry Falwell used to interrupt his speeches against homosexuality with the statement, Don’t get me wrong, I love the homosexuals. The secular culture would roll its collective eyes, and think, What a lying creep Falwell is.
But because I shared Jerry’s basic faith commitment... I believed that he was sincere.
Don't get me wrong, I love lying creeps. But Jerry Falwell was a lying creep. And maybe the secular culture thought Falwell was a lying creep because, you know, he was, and maybe the secular culture thinks Pope Francis is sincere about not judging the gays because he doesn't do shit like blame 9/11 on them.
I don't recall that the corollary to "judge not lest ye be judged" is "never give a sucker an even break."
I don't recall that the corollary to "judge not lest ye be judged" is "never give a sucker an even break."
ReplyDeleteYou obviously don't own a Scofield Bible.
So, he's praising the pope for lying to millions of people? That's weird. What does Victor Davis Hanson think about this?
ReplyDeleteHe's buying a new padlock for his chainsaw.
ReplyDeleteshorter Ratso Ratzinger: " You want the word on that brother-and-sister act, Hansel's a fag and Gretel's got the hots for herself, so who cares, right? Load up on the salami. "
ReplyDeleteRemember, the phrase "The end justifies the means" was coined by none other than Papa Frank's dead boss, Saint Ignatius Loyola. That's one reason that an argument characterized by a fog of high-sounding bullshit is called "jesuitical".
ReplyDeleteEight hundred and thirty-two words of dribble Potemra got out of what the Pope said. Here's what Pope Francis meant, if any of you were still feeling curious: The celibacy of the priest is what's important, not what they're being celibate from.
ReplyDeleteI'm not even a Christian, never mind a Catholic, and I figured this out as soon as I saw the quote. The amount of stuff that Potemra and Scalia managed to see in it....well, I would have been fine if those rocks hadn't been flipped over.
Nobody expects the Spanish Republicans!
ReplyDelete“Yes! Zat is exactly vat I vas trying to say.”
ReplyDeleteI knew Hogan was hiding the radio in the plant box, but zumhow, he outsmated me every zingle time!!
That was from Werner Klemperer's controversial off-broadway production of Klink at Nuremburg.
ReplyDeleteAlso, anyone who starts a column with the phrase "Herewith: a suggestion." should be punched in the face about a billion times. By me.
ReplyDeleteWherefor?
ReplyDeleteNevermore.
ReplyDeleteSo, he's praising the pope for lying to millions of people?
ReplyDeleteSmacks of praising a fish for breathing water, doesn't it?
“Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo.”-Marx.
ReplyDeleteMoreso.
ReplyDelete"Your, uh, Holiness Emeritus, why did you retire from the papacy, given that it's by default a lifetime position?"
ReplyDelete"'Cuz I'm tired. Tired of being admired. Tired of love uninspired. Let's face it, I'm tired."
By me.
ReplyDeleteForthwith.
"... because I shared Jerry's basic faith commitment...."
ReplyDeleteSo, Potemra is happy to use religion to dress up his bigotry, too, eh?
Someone in hell is grunting out his thanks for the vote of confidence in between getting fucked in the ass by Zombie Reagan.
And why would a German ex-pope yell at his TV in broken English?
ReplyDeleteIt's kinda like a cross of Mr. Bean and Bill O'Reilly trying to write a term paper.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty much as far as it gets.
Because if he had yelled in German, Michael Potemra wouldn't have understood it.
ReplyDeleteTrue. But it still reminds me of when Patty and Selma made Homer speak in a "dog voice".
ReplyDeleteAnchoress's post seems like a whole bunch of sour grapes. "You reporters might think that the Pope said nice things but he's just saying that because he wants to trick you into making people like Catholics again!"
ReplyDeleteExcept as otherwise stated herein.
ReplyDeleteYou have a point. But I was naively thinking it's just an incredibly shitty thing to applaud.
ReplyDeleteHerewith a suggestion, therewith a suggestion, everywhere a suggestion suggestion.
ReplyDeleteAnd rumor didn't even use lube!
ReplyDeleteI see what you did there, Lili.
ReplyDeleteWe must all have waffles,forthwith!
ReplyDeleteVon Shtupp for Pope!
ReplyDeleteso, the previous popes were lying through their teefs?
ReplyDeleteUh, no?
I thought the point of both articles was essentially bemusement at the fact that what Pope Francis said is basically exactly the same as what the last two Popes + Jerry Falwell said, yet when Pope Francis says it it's portrayed as a progressive forward movement on the part of the church and when the previous Pope or Jerry said it, it represented the backwards entrenchment of outdated bigotry.
Mantera seems to see it as, basically, a lack of charity on the part of us non-Christians while Scalia views it as evidence of the Pope's masterful control of his media image. I suspect it may literally be nothing more than the fact that the new Pope doesn't look as much like Emperor Palpatine.
Maybe I'm too filled with atheist charity today, but I think both authors actually do seem to think it's a very weird phenomenon.
Also. Too.
ReplyDeleteEschatologists hate him!
ReplyDeleteFind out the one weird tip that can get you into Heaven!
ReplyDeleteI think you nailed it exactly, except perhaps for one quibble:
ReplyDelete"You reporters might think that the Pope said nice PROGRESSIVE things but he's just saying that because he wants to trick you into making people like Catholics again!"
The reason for the sour grapes here I think is the desperate concern the progressives might have won a point off of the pope.
His friends all call him B-Dog.
ReplyDeleteYou Teutonic twat!
ReplyDeleteEven so, and notwithstanding. (h/t Edward Eager)
ReplyDeleteThe Pope being from Latin America, he probably thinks the Pope stole his chainsaw.
ReplyDeleteisn't it Popin' 2: Electric Bergoglio
ReplyDeletewhy do people who study Duncan Black hate the pope?
ReplyDeleteMy Aunt Louise, nun for 50 years now, always used "Ratzinger" to refer to Pope Palpatine, as a way of denying his legitimacy. Of course, this required a lot of verbal gymnastics so as not to piss off her bishop and mother superior.
ReplyDeleteNow she sends me a lot of stuff on Francis and calls him that. I guess she's okay with this one.
Reminds me of Fascist General Annibale "Electric Whiskers" Bergonzoli, captured by the British in WWII.
ReplyDeleteHenceforth
ReplyDelete"Klink, Shut up!" General Berkhalter.
ReplyDeleteYeah, right?
ReplyDeleteI think I'm safe saying that lying breaks one of those 10 Commandments. Catholics should expect better from the Pope ... heck, I had to confess little white lies weekly when I was a kid.
Scalia is nauseating, as always. So distainful of the humans and their petty human needs.
ReplyDeleteInasmuch.
ReplyDeletePope Joe Lieberman?
ReplyDeleteWhen Rove was in charge he was a devout Ratfucking Republican.
ReplyDeleteFifthwith.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's possible that it's all because Francis has not established his bona fides as leader of a worldwide child rape network
ReplyDeleteDitch Witch.
ReplyDeleteBunch!
ReplyDeleteWell, it's true that the new pope is a better liar, in that he doesn't actually lie. He makes, uh, *Jesuitical* statements.
ReplyDeleteBut pay careful attention, look at his history, and you'll figure out which the misleading statements are. Francis is trying to convince the right-wingers in the church that he is one of them. He really, really, really isn't: he opposes the concept that priests have the authority to tell people what to do.
He will be interesting.
Yep.
ReplyDeleteBut just try and figure out what the agenda of "Francis, Bishop of Rome" actually is. I think I've got it figured out, but it doesn't seem to be obvious to most people.
ReplyDeleteHint: read Argentine press who studied his personal life.
I know that she believes herself to be a clever dick--excuse me, dickess--by quoting the Art of War, but she comes off a bit more as, "Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again."
ReplyDeleteHeretofore, hitherto, nevertheless, whoopsy-daisy.
ReplyDeleteIt's the old sothron tradition of following an insult with "Bless his/her heart."
ReplyDeleteIf he'd managed to trim *ahem* half an hour off his facial hair grooming routine in the morning, he'd have escaped.
ReplyDeleteScalia is nauseating, as always. So distainful of the humans and their petty human needs.
ReplyDelete____________________
My site: Máy Tính Bảng
I feel sorry for Michael Potemra. He is really much better liar than Jerry Falwell.
ReplyDelete____________________________________________________________
Excel
Consultants
----------------------
ReplyDeleteEveryone with what he think
-----------------------
http://www.rendaextra13.blogspot.com