A Papal Question

In a new encyclical, the Pope declares atheism has led to the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" as clerics incite mobs in Khartoum demanding death for a teacher who named a teddy bear Mohammed, the faithful in Iraq behead children of the wrong religious sect and eight Americans who want the most powerful position in the world express their faith in the Bible and their passion to punish people who were born in the wrong place or make them feel uncomfortable.

"How," asks Benedict XVI, "did we arrive at this interpretation of the 'salvation of the soul' as a flight from responsibility for the whole, and how did we come to conceive the Christian project as a selfish search for salvation which rejects the idea of serving others?"

Not in a world where heretics burn believers at the stake.

Pope, Bush Bond

Despite stiff-necked media harrumphing about the President at the Vatican this weekend, it can reliably be reported that His Holiness, Benedict XVI, was totally taken with Bush’s warmth and informality.

Far from being offended at being called “sir,” the Pope was charmed by reminders of his days as a college professor when German frat boys nicknamed him “Ratzy.”

Vatican bureaucrats anonymously quoted about the President’s “invincible ignorance” were not within earshot when His Holiness responded jocularly, “Call me Ben or XVI, and I’ll call you W or II.”

The President promised the Pope to bring Vladimir along on his next visit so the three of them could share some laughs over non-alcoholic brewski.