Popery

The view from Rome is always serious

Sister Dominica, while teaching the history of the faith to our eager young minds back in seventh grade, said that the Holy Spirit had to be guiding the Barque of Peter, or else the ship would have crashed on the rocks and sunk ages ago.

It took me until I was in college before I found out what she meant. And the old bird may have been right. The Catholic Church has had so many evil, old and senile or young and corrupt, venal, irrational, domineering, psychotic, and outright useless twits among the Vicars of Christ that indeed it should have shriveled up and died long ago.

But the popes are still with us, and still doing stupid and occasionally amusing things. I’ve collected some recent fun stuff here:

Pope Palpatine — Scary pictures of Pope Benedict XVI

Earlier essays tended to be more serious:

• Papal Trivia — Some fun facts about the popes
• Treasures of Our Catholic Traditions — Scandals through history, starting with the rise of the papacy
• The President, the Pope, and the Pastor — Catholic connections to Lincoln’s assassination
• Pius XII and the Holocaust — Questions over the pope’s role in World War II

Much more amusing than those later capers are the cartoons and photos that make fun of the pope and his awesome solemnity that are collected here. Enjoy!