Monday, April 21, 2008

The Pope: Rock star or Bin Laden of the West?

I’ve been watching with some amusement the news coverage of the Pope’s visit to America. It seems pretty transparent to me that “W” is leveraging His Holiness as a moral rallying point not only for Catholics, but for everyone else who doesn’t stand behind Bin Laden.

So now we two opposing (and some would say imposing) figureheads, each on opposite sides of a quite arbitrary paradigmatic divide, vying for the hearts and minds of the global massive.

Georgie-boy gets the rub-off of the supposed authority of his god (as represented by the Holy C), while the Vatican gets to exercise the kind of political influence possibly not seen since the Dark Ages.

Think about it; although there’s no danger of anyone being excommunicated, we’re seeing all the signs of an over-powerful church. Relics are on sale in the form of T-shirts, cups, caps and other merchandise; there’s even debate at ground level as to what actually constitutes valid mementos. One’s place in the bosom of the kerk, as it were, is no longer a given – you need tickets. The Pope himself is feted and fawned over by politicians just as his predecessor was all those years ago.

We need a modern day Oliver Cromwell; one who'll bring us a modern day Restoration.

And perhaps that is an Obama. Not just of the Bin Laden variety.

No comments: