I of course refer to King Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene II, Line 59. Since I first conceived my grand design to conquer the world, I knew that it should be at the top of the post-coronation agenda: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” It just makes sense, if you think about it. Since all law shall flow through the conduit of my own self under the title of Juris Dictor (one of my many titles, and which shall be on the list of the top five read by my herald every time my presence is announced) there is really no need for a class of professional legal advocates. This is not to say that there will be no true law under my reign, or that my judges will be capricious, tyrannical, or unchecked. Just trust me, it’ll be okay.
Anyway, the second thing I’m going to do is kill all the entirety of the professional media. Them, and all those “experts” and analysts that they have on as a part of the endless procession of talking heads. Also all clowns, because clowns are inherently evil – and mimes, because mimes are like undead clowns. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. There’s still a fair amount of time before I start my campaign up, and I don’t want to tip my hand.
All the same, I feel like I should explain to the second of my target classes why their heads will be on the chopping block, metaphorically and perhaps literally, depending on my mood. (I haven’t decided exactly how I will conduct state executions yet. I’m kind of torn between death by a stadium full of drunk college kids armed with BB guns and death by partial immersion in Coca-Cola – have you seen what that stuff does to chicken bones?) I don’t want to steal the thunder of Del from Old World Swine, but I am tired of clueless pluralists deliberately missing the point of events so completely, and with such blatant bias. I don’t see anyone dredging up some penny-ante dissident Buddhist theologian whenever the Dalai Lama shows up in town. (Incidentally, I would love to know if any such thing even exists. Do Buddhists have schisms and heretics?) And yet for some reason, while the good Tibetan spiritual leader is treated as the dignified head of a worldwide religion, whenever Catholicism comes up it gets treated by a social movement with a disunified base repressed by an unreasonably hierarchical leadership.
When will you people get it? My religion is not a club. It’s a…wait for it…religion. And a religion has tenets, to which one must adhere to be considered a member of the faith. Would a Hindu who ate beef be considered a “real” Hindu? Certainly not by other Hindus, I’m willing to wager. Similarly, a Moslem who thinks that the Prophet was “just a really good guy,” aside from any fatwahs that might issue, would be pretty definitively not be considered a “real” Moslem. Arguably, an uncircumcised man parading around claiming to be a Jew would get laughed out of (hopefully) any synagogue he entered. So why exactly do you treat a Catholic who asserts the “right” to dissent from Church teaching on human life, sexuality, priesthood, or anything else, as if he was a full member of the Church with some sort of validity, clout, or authority? You know what I call someone like that? Not “Catholic,” that’s for damn sure.
I think I’m going to try to pass myself off as a Rastafarian theologian and get “expert” status with some media outlet. I will be a full and practicing member of the religion…except I’ll respectfully dissent from the teaching that Haile Selassie is God Incarnate. Oh, and pot is for losers, even if it’s claimed as a religious observance.
Filed under: Catholicism, Pope Benedict XVI, epic rant, media, pompous asshats, religion
