[extropy-chat] il papa's last rites?

[Damien Broderick]

At 12:35 PM 4/2/2005 +0200, Amara wrote:

>Here (in Rome at least), the Pope is a symbol of something solid in
>a world of uncertainty, to nonCatholics as well.

Well, maybe so. As was Stalin, back in the day. Still, it's hard to credit 
the rash of headlines reading like this:

<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8068038>Feverish 
Pope Weakens as World Braces for His End

World *braces*? Really? What does the braced world anticipate? Will the 
heavens open? Will the Antichrist appear? As a satirical web site put it so 
neatly in a list of the likely consequences:

<22. Mankind scrambles to choose new leader of inflexible, sexually morbid 
institutional anachronism; heretofore anonymous bureaucrat will instantly 
be celebrated as world's holiest man as he travels to AIDS-stricken Africa 
to denounce the use of condoms.>

Damien Broderick