I thought that I could get through this day without an actual Christmas tort worth noting. However, an astonishing breach of security occurred Thursday night in the Vatican. Somehow a mentally unstable woman was able to jump the barriers in St. Peter’s Basilica and knock down Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass at the Vatican.
The 82-year-old pope reportedly got up and was unhurt. He proceeded to give the full mass without referring to the incident.
So much for the Swiss Guard. The really hit their high mark with Innocent VIII in crushing the forces of the Duke of Milan.
The president with those gate crashers and now the pope:
For the full story, click here.
Willy, you’re right. Probably the pope is mentally less stable then her to begin with.
Just keeping you honest.
chris,
I’ll tell you, this action sorely test my faith in non-violence! đŸ™‚
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAxSx4MVNMo&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
That was “Marching the Hate Machines Into the Sun” by Thievery Corporation here on Radio M/AY, a free service of M/AY Intergalactic Tours and Hard Logic, Inc. – parent company of the M/AY Bus Company. For your listening pleasure, we go retro for the next hour with limited commercial interruption. Up next, it’s Pink Floyd with their classic “Pigs”, Elvis Costello and the Attractions with “Accidents Will Happen” and followed by XTC’s big hit from the 80’s, “Dear God” to start. While enjoying your music selection and the spectacular scenery, we here at the M/AY Bus Company would like to remind you to browse our overpriced catalog of junk from the Rube Goldberg Store. Again, you have a lot of choices in leaving reality and we here at the M/AY Bus Company thank you for choosing us as your transport of choice.
Tootie:
” If we were a just people (and I submit that we are not)…”
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I have no idea why you remain a citizen of such an unjust and delusional society, where even the largest religious group comprises the “Great Whore of Babylon.” Surely your piety could be put to better use. I would have thought you would have formed a group of like-minded “thinkers” and set out to the desert or the jungle to build your own Holy Utopia replete with new God-made laws and, of course, no lawyers. Alas, it seems you lack the courage of your convictions. To make it a little easier, AY, BIL, and Gyges will be consulted to see if we can turn your one-way intergalactic ride home into a charter! The more like you on the trek, the merrier.
Anonymously yours:
Perhaps I was too hasty in my assessment about the mental condition of those who would hold children to the same standards we hold adults. Maybe it is more an issue of stupidity or wickedness than craziness.
And I am one of the last people to defend the Catholic Church since as a “fundie” I believe the church is the whore of Revelation Chapter 17. And I am also aware of its past persecutions of people like me and I have no doubt that the Church is capable of this wickedness again.
What I am defending is the vulnerable nature of children and young people whose brains are not physiologically developed until 20 or so. And what I am defending is that it is therefore immoral to charge adults with the things they did as vulnerable children under the most horrific pressures beyond their control (especially when adults created the circumstances children were forced to participate in.
It is evil, in my opinion, to hold those physically (mentally) incapable of reasoning like an adult to adult abilities to reason about justice. If we are to believe the young can reason like an adult (which you appear to be saying) there should be no barrier whatsoever for the young among us making any and all decisions about themselves as adults do, and we should immediately cease and desist in our subjugation of them when they go beyond years of age 14 (the age of the Pope when he was a Hitler Youth).
That the Catholic Church itself has a theory about the “age of accountability” and that the Pope may have been at that age is not MY issue. That is their issue. And since I already discount the Catholic Church as being, in my opinion, wrong about so many things (including the age of accountability), the Church’s viewpoint on the matter is irrelevant to my conclusions. You are free to hold him accountable to his church’s own teachings, but since I consider those teachings corrupt, I’m not going to.
Of course, when a nation claiming to be just deludes itself and pretends it can deny reality (when it likes) by labeling a child an adult when that child commits the worst of crimes, I’m not surprised when those belonging to that same nation try to hold a Pope, who did no crime that we even know of, to that same corrupt standard.
If we were a just people (and I submit that we are not) the crime we would prosecute is the crime of trying a child “as an adult”. If the child WERE truly an adult, we wouldn’t have to recast his or her status to the adult category in order to absolve ourselves of guilt by using this metaphoric lie. We might as well recast the child or youth as a rabid dog, because if we are not going to try him as the child he is, why not invent any other suitable fiction.
That there isn’t another system of justice to deal with those special cases when children commit crimes adults commit is the fault of the people who make such laws (often lawyers).
Americans can delude themselves by pretending children are adults, but it only makes them look stupid, wicked, or both.
Jill,
Are you condoning violence as a means of solving ones problems?