It must be brilliant being the Pope, mustn't it? Think about it, he gets to swan about in his posh dress all day, ruling over millions and millions of people and getting your every whim catered to by a dedicated army of funny little men in crimson frocks. The downsides are, of course, that you can't ever get your end away and to get the job you have to have your bollocks weighed on a small, silver trowel by a small, silver Archbishop, but that's a small price to pay for eminent domain over about a quarter of the world's population and the ability to, apparently, make up mortal sins on little more than a whim; the Vatican today unveiling ten modern day 'deadly sins' to link up with the old, classic-style mortal sins. The new deadly sins include accumilating excessive wealth (the irony of the Catholic church chastising others for making lots of lovely dosh is surely not lost on anyone - Ed), genetic manipulation and, perhaps unsurprisingly, environmental pollution. Yes, the Pope has gone green.
The contents of the new deadly sins isn't the issue, though. Not my issue, anyway, not today. My issue with the Pope creating new deadly sins is that I thought the idea of what was and what wasn't a deadly sin was pretty much set in stone. Not in the same way as the ten commandments actually were set in stone, but figuratively pretty much fixed. I certainly didn't know that the Pope could just gallivant around editing them to say whatever he likes. Can he do that with the rest of the Bible as well? Will, after he goes on a particularly ecumenical binge on the holy wine, the world's Catholics wake up one day to a message on their Popephones saying they all now worship Clancy the Swearing Toad? It's a slippery slope with no real end in sight: "Bethlehem was actually a small town near Todmorden", "Jesus spent his formative years in a blood-feud with Ming the Merciless", "Pontius Pilate looked just like Ringo Starr" and so on. It just shouldn't be done.
Still, I suppose he's done it with all the best intentions, even if the environmentalist slant does seem a bit of a trendy land-grab to try to grab some of the stinkies and hippies back to the Catholic fold. I'd just be too tempted to abuse it if I had that kind of power. Maybe that's why I've never been considered for Popedom (Popeism?) - that and being entirely the wrong religion and all - it's highly likely I'd just go mad with power. I'd have to start by changing the actual title to something a bit more punchy, like 'Superpope'. After about a week of that and passing sins requiring my servants bring me my soup at a particular temperature or risk eternal damnation,
I'd get bored and just start messing with people;
"Today, all of Surrey is in mortal sin."
"Oh but why, oh powerful master?"
"And so is everyone called Les."
"Damn you, Superpope!"
It'd all be a great laugh, wouldn't it?
"From now on, not sinning shall be considered a sin, so everyone has to sin, all the time, or else be a sinner. Ecclesiastical feedback loop!"
"Alright I've changed my mind, everyone give me money."
I'm sorry, I appear to have entered a reverie.
I'm blaming the vodka.
Goodnight.
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