2005-04-07 - Shut up about the damn pope, already:

The pope, the pope, the pope! Everyone's yapping about the damn pope. He was so great, he was rad, he was kind, blah blah blah.

Doesn't everyone remember that he was an embarassing dinosaur most of the time? He was pro-life, he opposed birth control including CONDOMS (WTF) and he was conservative even by catholic's standards. He hated gays and lesbians, and had a negative view of women. He only recently pardoned Galileo, and agreed that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun, and not vice versa. When confronted with widespread sexual abuse against children at the hand of priests and other catholic figureheads, he turned a blind eye. People are leaving the Catholic church at an alarming rate because of archaic beliefs and, more importantly, the denial of sexual abuse.

He recieved a lot of criticism on these issues while alive. But as soon as he died, people were falling all over themselves to say how incredible and inspirational he was. Uh, no. No, not even close.

In light of his death, I was hoping for some media outlets to question the need for maintaining the papal tradition in this day and age. I would at least have expected some discussion as to his outdated practices, extreme patriarchal believes, and denial of facts.

At least after tomorrow, when he is buried, I can (hopefully) stop hearing about the pope every time i turn around.