"You're all afflicted with anagogical head lice!"
Now you too can attack the Curia the Pope Francis way! Choose one from each of Sections A and B below, and Voilà!
Section A Spiritual Existential Philosophical Numinous Mystic Conceptual Transcendent Ecclesiastical Devotional Asomatous Sacred Empirical Sanctified Metaphysical Transmundane Ineffable Paranormal Hermeneutic
"Give it straight to me, Doctor! Have I got gnostic housemaid's knee?"
Section B Measles Mumps Alzheimer's Schizophrenia Kleptomania Dyslexia Rabies Lumbago Boils on the backside Ingrowing toenails St Vitus' Dance Dreaded Lurgi Hypochondria Black Death Space sickness Lazar's Disease Clone-Killing Nanovirus Dragon Pox
A cardinal is rushed to hospital with seraphic laryngitis.
Now, you can talk learnedly at dinner parties about the problems of the Roman Curia. For example, "Mrs Pepinster, I've always said that the Roman Curia was afflicted by Numinous Ingrowing Toenails. How wonderful that Pope Francis is there to sort out the problem!"
Have long suffered from Mystic Dragonpox to my embarrassment. This news of a cure is a dream come true!
ReplyDeleteNot really. As Eustace Scrubb discovered, the cure can be worse than the disease
DeleteAs my friend said, "I didn't know I was sick until I saw a doctor."
ReplyDeleteIts time someone invented a high-tech digital double-duty hands-free headscratcher that would automatically reach to your head each time the Pope speaks. You, at least, will have a transcendentally well-massage scalp.
"The sickness of deifying leaders..."
ReplyDeleteIt is ironic that many of those who will applaud the Pope for this, like they do for everything, are those who have effectively deified him and created a sense of infallibility around every utterance.
Suffering an attack of Transmundane Disorientation after three bottles of Voll-Damm beer in a deserted bar in Ibiza town. Prolly leading to an attack of Advent Antiphonal Gout.
ReplyDeleteAn O Antiphonal attack of gout, for it is written
DeleteO Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapinque angularis
Something about an English Rabit with desirable ears
The "sins" the Pope refers to are always rather odd, rather out-of-the-way, often not sins at all, or possibly sins only in special circumstances. They are very subjective. They sound trite, in fact, like a secularist's pet peeves, rather than amything to do with offending God or the objective moral law. If he's Catholic, he keeps it well hidden.
ReplyDeleteI am truly delighted that, as a nurse with many years of experience, there is still so much for me to learn. However, I fear I will never catch up. But one can always try...
ReplyDeleteEach Curial official should have been invited to the front to check off which of the 15 sins they believed themselves guilty of -- as in the tiresome interview question on one's greatest weakness, surely there would be a self-diagnosed epidemic of working too hard -- a trite response, but one the question deserves.
ReplyDeleteOf course the smart Prefects would accuse themselves of glorifying their boss - it would take heroic virtue not to, after all! - and possibly another ingratiating moral illness, such as transmundane St. Vitus' Dance.
I'm guilty of monastic dyspepsia. Self-denunciations will be the order of the day soon, so I am getting in early. But I am not in the Curia! Does it still count?
ReplyDeleteOh the confusion...