Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism. They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness." Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.
"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said. "Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist."
The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet.
The devil is faith.
I read that as "Pope's exorcist squids will wage war on Satan," and thought well hell, jwz's worlds have finally collided.
I misread the very same thing.
Needs more furries.
That would be pretty awesome, actually.
The Roman Cthulic Church.
One of the randomly selected comments I got:
Maybe I could do it. Casting out demons. I worked as head barman in the Dog & Duck and I was forever casting out drunken devils on saturday night.
- Bren, London
That's the creepiest fucking Pope in history, and there have been some creeps.
I can't help but automatically superimpose blue lightning from his fingertips.
He's pretty creepy, but the creepiest in history?? I'm not sure. There have been some major contenders for that honorific.
I'm going for looks, mind you. The dude looks more stereotypically Satanic than Rob Zombie, and poor Rob is trying. Of course, go back before the 20th century and we have to rely on illustrators being honest; there are some grumpy lookin dudes but none of those great Benedectian Glares. Pius 'Ratface' VIII ain't gonna win no Nice Old Man contests. Pope Pius 'Mr Bean' VII also could use a serious case of the dignities.
Perhaps also I fall victim to the Amplification of the Present. We can consult a Pope Expert after lunch.
You seem to be overlooking some prime choices from the time when there were two popes (or more). When you got to be pope by killing your father (who was then the pope) and marrying your mother. There's a lot of hard core creepy there, with behaviors that were Questionable before the old testament was spoken, much less written.
This guy isn't significantly more whacko than various men who've nearly been elected to Leader of the Free World, never mind several who have, in the last quarter century; he's sure nowhere close to the creepiest Capo of the Catholic Church.
(Edited for punctuation only.)
I demand that Bill Sienkiewicz produce a line of Pope Trading Cards.
There are more than enough to make quite the collectible card game, but the real fun happens in the 11th to 15th centuries "anno domani".
AH! The Desired Pope Expert.
Please rank popes by creepiness. Use both sides if necessary.
Alexander VI and Paul III spring to mind (and easy searching) as gossip worthy (see also, "nepotism"), but the days each of the (western) Schism and the Inquisitions made for creepier stories I can't be bothered to go dredge up in detail right now (involving the more prurient, Oedipus-complex tidbits).
This falls in the rather large Venn diagram swath of my liberal arts education on whose retention I'd rather not still be wasting as many brain cells as I am.
What end of the creepiness scale is occupied by the Pornocracy?
That's in a sector of the graph discontiguous with my liberal arts education's sector.
I dunno, Rob's looking pretty normal these days (if you consider long hair on a guy normal, of course). Marriage made him whipped, or something. ;-)
It's not the long hair that gets me, it's the Peter Frampton shirt.
I was going to photoshop that picture into him throwing the goat, but that seemed redundant.
indeed...
He still looks like Darth Sideous to me.
I swear, this Pope wants us all to live in the '50s. The 1250's.
The good news is that he's an old man who will probably die soon. But he'll likely be replaced by another retarded old man. I never thought they'd make me miss John Paul II.
The good news is that he's an old man who will probably die soon.
What is it the US government keeps saying? "Castro can't live forever"?
True. And so far, he's outlived most of his contemporaries.
That's why they're working on transplanting his head onto a robot's body. Look for RoboCastro by the end of the year.
He headed the Inquisition (I am not making this up). You have no idea how much he wants us to live in the 1250s.
I didn't expect a sort of ASD 87 0as * @#)R NO CARRIER
Well, y'know, this is pretty much standard fare for the Daily Mail - if these stories didn't exist they'd make 'em up to keep the readers happy. It's good that they illustrated the story with a picture from The Exorcist too, since I was, like, totally unclear on the concept, or something.
And that is indeed an awesome hat.
In further moves intended to restore the dignity and majesty of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict intends to revive the practice of issuing indulgences, and reintroduce the rubber chicken to the mass.
He really does look a lot like Emperor Palpatine.
Is it just me, or does that rolled-back eyes thing make him look possessed?
Maybe this will take the world's focus off American stupidity for two minutes.
So you read the quoted section and you think "what the hell, really?", and then you follow the link and discover this report comes from the Daily Mail...
Oh well never mind.
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=84797
The guy is losing his marbles quicker than I expected... Neeext! ;-)
I wonder if they pinned his ears out to make sure the hat would stay up on his head.... it takes some big ears to hold up that sort of hat.
His crucifix staff is SO Blair Witch...
well, except for what looks like silver plating.
It's glaringly obvious in this clip as to why they gave this guy the reins to the LOTR trilogy.
According to the List of Popes, pope John XXI was killed in the collapse of his SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY!
I strongly suspect that Warren Ellis has been editing Wikipedia. Either that or he has been going back in time and altering our history.
John XXI was that rare thing, a good pope. Liked children, disapproved of war, had previously been a physician, left all the boring stuff about running the Catholic church to someone else, and yes, he was rather enthusiastic about this natural philosophy stuff. Proof that no matter how carefully you word the advertisement for the job, some inappropriate people will always apply, and then there's the danger that they'll get it.
The Church of England still has exorcists - I knew a guy who'd been one for a while. They apparently rotate them out after a couple of years, because the job does Weird Stuff to your head.