The Pope Tells Suffering World To ‘Man Up’
The Pope, leader of the Catholic Church, made history on Friday by agreeing to a televised question and answer session on an Italian network. This story is important because the Pope, and the church in general, have a notorious history of not answering people’s questions. Normally the Pope acts in God’s image by sitting in an unreachable golden palace and refusing to answer anyone’s prayers.
The Pope was asked seven questions from people around the world. Since the questions were all preselected, pre-recorded and the Pope can talk to God, you’d expect the answers to be pretty impressive. But, as with all things Pope related, the answers were a lot like an Eastern European math professor: cryptic and utterly unhelpful.
One notable question came from a 7-year old Japanese girl who in the wake of the tsunami wanted to know why God let children be so sad. To this admittedly brutal question the pope replied, ‘We do not have the answers. Just know that Jesus suffered.’
Which I’m sure put that little girl at ease. I’m sure as she limped back to her radiation soaked gymnasium waiting for news of her parent’s death she thought, ‘Man up. Jesus suffered and he didn’t complain. I must man up. If God would kill off his own son to teach us a lesson then why would he care about me? I must stop my bitching and man up.’
Another question of note came from a woman who asked the Pope if her son, who is in a vegetative state, still had his soul. To which the Pope replied, ‘The situation, perhaps, is like that of a guitar whose strings have been broken and therefore can no longer play. The instrument of the body is fragile like that, it is vulnerable, and the soul cannot play, so to speak, but remains present.’
Some would say the analogy of likening her son to a busted guitar makes zero sense. But to those I would say, ‘Brush up on your Bible Study.’ We all remember the parable of the guitar with no strings:
‘And lo did Jerry behold the guitar had no strings and could not play. Yet the guitar still remained in the garage collecting dust. And Jerry asketh, ‘Why dost thou keep a guitar with no strings?’ And He said unto Jerry, ‘The guitar must stayeth in the garage. For one day it may be sold on eBay for a reasonable profit.’ (Jerry 25:9)
Glaringly omitted from the question and answer session were topics surrounding priest child abuse cover-ups, rumored church money laundering, and possible corruption in the Vatican. But, of course that is not what the church is all about.
The Catholic Church has been, and always will be about pretending to have the answers to questions that are entirely unanswerable. You can’t expect the Pope to answer real questions dealing with facts and evidence. That is just not how it works. You’d be better off to ignore the whole thing, put your shoulders back and man up.
