Irrit8

The Lady Doth Protest Too Much. It has become too difficult to refer to Pope Benedict XVI in the masculine gender. When men flurry about in satin dresses, generally we refer to them as drag queens.

Frequently we love drag queens, and find them deserving of the highest form of adulation and worship. At the risk of stereotyping, the most fabulous of drag queens – admittedly a rare breed -- are gorgeous, with razor sharp wit to match their immaculate make up and trend setting fashion. Sometimes there is sadness beneath the surface, not because they hate themselves, as some may posit, but simply over the burden of having to constantly navigate their lives and choices through the relentless ignorance, fear and derision of others. Anyone who hasn’t been on the receiving end of the gifts and wisdom bestowed by a true drag queen hasn’t really lived. Pope Benedict XVI, however, is just not that type of lady.

The New York Times, November 24th, reported on the disclosure of a new Vatican directive that deters most gay men from joining the priesthood including a clause that says spiritual directors and confessors in seminaries "have the duty to dissuade” candidates "who show deep-seated homosexual tendencies" from joining the priesthood. Would that not turn the confessional into a Catholic version of Operation TIPS, the ill conceived program proposed by the Bush Administration that encouraged citizens to rat on their neighbors if they thought they displayed “terrorist tendencies,” like skin color darker than Ann Coulter?

While a directive in the form of a homophobic screech that is designed to mimic the unworkable, impossible to fairly enforce, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” will hurt the Church more than anyone else, it shows where this Pope’s mind is toiling. “Out damn spot,” didn’t work well for Lady Macbeth, and the Pope’s unnatural focus on homosexuality is not going to be a cruise either.

Policies that confuse people like Michelle McCusker:

I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I'm pregnant and choosing to have this baby.

The 26-year-old preschool teacher was fired last month from St. Rose of Lima in Queens, and is represented by the New York Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit filed Monday against the school and the Diocese of Brooklyn.

Diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa, in a news release commented:

This is a difficult situation for every person involved, but the school had no choice but to follow the principles contained in the teachers' personnel handbook.

Message to Catholic girls who fuck before they marry – as rare as gay priests – is simple. If you want to keep your job in this forgiving religion, make sure you abort the baby before you put on any noticeable weight, and you’ll be just fine. Or else claim it was conceived immaculately.

Amidst all the brouhaha over faggots and whores tainting the pristine reputation of the Catholic Church, where does the leadership stand? Whilst impossible to ignore the opulence of the Catholic Church, even after the bankruptcies resulting from the moral bankruptcy of policies like the latest one, designed to create liars and attract perverts, the Pope is setting an atrocious example for those attempting to find spirituality outside the material.

It turns out that Papa Razi, or Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger or Popina Benedict I, rather than emulating Pope John Paul II, is fashioning herself after Diana. Gallivanting in designer sunglasses and red Prada slippers, the Petty Pope is raising plucked eyebrows by her extravagant fashion choices.

Popina Benedict I is said to have thrown a diva tantrum after Annibale Gammarelli, whose firm has been serving the Vatican since 1792, was dropped after Popina was forced to appear in a cossack that revealed her lily white ankles. Oh the horror.

According to CNN, "Alessandro Cattaneo, and the 20-year-old religious-fashion house of Raniero Mancinelli, which has provided the pope with dazzling new vestments (some with shimmering, sequinlike details)" are the new fashion darlings at the Vatican.

As Madonna becomes Kabbalist Esther, it seems the Pope wants to become Madonna. Who's the material girl now?

Ordinarily we would wish her well, but actually we wish her hell. Someone has to say it, so here it is: the Pope is a bitch.

Posted by Unknown at 11/27/2005 01:14:00 AM