Weekly Shot #12
Pope Francis The Clueless
I love 60 Minutes. That little ticking clock gets my heart pumping like the true nerd that I am. It might be the last piece of mainstream media that I still look forward to without a semblance of complete disgust. So when I saw that Pope Francis would be the star of the latest episode I was pretty excited. There is nothing like listening to the head of a religion, donned in white, talking down to people as if he actually has a direct line to God and wasn’t just voted in by other Bishops. The hubris is inherently funny.
As is tradition, the interviewer asked him questions about the state of the world (mainly the wars in Ukraine and Gaza). He started his answer by saying “all ideology is bad”, which is laugh out loud funny coming from someone who is the head of a very specific ideology called Roman Catholicism. The interviewer asked if he could help negotiate peace in these places. He replied, “All I can do is pray.” Well, Pope, your prayer has been a massive nothing burger. You either suck at praying, are not praying hard enough, or *gasp* do not have a direct connection with the Almighty.
I don’t remember when the Pope (who is Argentinian) had to speak on American political issues like immigration at the southern border, but here we are. It’s not shocking that the Pope is pro “open boarders” but he did sneak in a couple solid jokes about how the Irish brought whiskey to America and the Italians brought the mafia. This surely had the Far Right nut jobs looking at the television like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
The Pope’s joke made me laugh out loud. It sounds like something you might find in a Hell or Hangover post. If the Pope can make off color ethnic jokes then I feel free to do so going forward.
He went on to say that people nowadays have been taken over by indifference, that we don’t care enough about the suffering in the world. His exact words were, “There are so many Pontius Pilates on the loose out there.” I’m not sure what world he is living in because the amount of people who won’t shut the fuck up about every “issue” they see in the world is never ending. Clearly the Pope isn’t on Twitter.
But where my jaw actually dropped is when, at the end of the interview, in attempt to shed some positivity, he said he believes that “all people are fundamentally good”. I almost spit out my drink. If this isn’t a direct call to allow priests to marry and have children I don’t know what is. Only someone who has never had children can go through life with this veil over their eyes. Assuming the pleasantness and good nature of the human heart is something only people without children could possibly believe. Any parent knows this couldn’t be further from the truth.
When my daughter wakes up from her night’s sleep she has this look in her eye that says, “How can I possibly fuck up my parent’s day?” You can tell her for the hundredth time that biting, hitting, and spitting are all bad things but her “fundamentally good” brain keeps doing those things. Toddlers have no concept of good or evil, just thoughts of chaos and madness. There is a reason that parents are needed to raise children. It’s because children are not born inherently good. They are just an amalgam of base human functions (eat, sleep, shit) trying to figure out what they can and can’t get away with.
If us humans were born genuinely good my job as Dad wouldn’t be necessary and neither would the Pope’s. Seriously, what the fuck would the Pope do if everyone was just getting along? If there was no internal struggle? If we we’re all nice people causing no harm in the world? Sounds boring to me. Also, impossible.
I’m reminded of the Solzhenitsyn quote : “The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart.” For every time my daughter shares her food, she throws it three times. For every time she hits, she hugs. The job as a parent is to guide your kids towards the good as much as possible knowing the evil is still there, in them and you, because you are both human. So no, Pope Francis The Clueless, we are not inherently good, but we try, which seems to me like the whole point.
P.S. – I’m currently on a very bumpy flight. I would ask the Pope to throw up a prayer for me but am afraid it would have the opposite effect. Maybe me writing this is the reason for said turbulence. If so, I apologize to all passengers unluckily on board with this sinner.
P.P.S. – Maybe letting priests marry and have children could kill two birds with one stone. Bird 1 - Understanding human nature. Bird 2 - Not rampantly molesting children. But what do I know?
Loved this weeks shot!! Cheers 🥂