May 11, 2014, No more Mr. Nicepontiff
Evil is alive and well in the form of... could it be... Satan? At least this is what some observers are gleaning from the commentaries of new "moderate darling" Pope Francis. There is a renewed interest in exorcisms, and the new pope (who, of course, might have some level of familiarity with evil himself from a prominent role in Argentina during "dirty wars" and other unpleasant periods there) likes to talk about the Devil... a lot. [Some accuse a Pope who has been a public relations boon to the Church thus far of risking all that goodwill by what they see as an unfortunate return to superstition... you think?]
Which, when you get right down to it, makes perfect sense. He won't talk about, oh, the atrocities going on in Argentina back in the day, or the present atrocities members of his own Church seem to have been committing, in the form of never-ending pedophilia scandals.
And so... when one is not willing to express any kind of, oh, introspection... scapegoats are wonderful-- and Old Nick is as good as it gets, being, you know, the embodiment of evil incarnate.
Seems to me Old Scratch is back in prominence (in Papal parlance and God knows where else) as many other things are going to hell: the post-cold War "unipolar" thing was hopelessly squandered by the alleged "good guys" (that would be "the United States") to make a few more bucks for Goldman and Grumman, a once-in-eternity opportunity to take an energy legacy in the form of easily extracted liquid petroleum which could have been used to set us up for sustainable prosperity was instead squandered to build out suburbia and make a few more bucks for Mobil and Morgan, and the most amazing educational and social advancement opportunities in the form of telecommunications (radio, t.v. and the 'net) were... you get it... commoditized in the most parochial, crass way imaginable.
And so, finding ourselves amidst the commercial detritus of decades of bad decisions (which have made us individually unhappy as we are isolated from each other, and from nature, or from any kind of common culture)... many will lash out in search of anything or anyone... and "Satan" or "the Devil" will do wonderfully. Eventually, of course, we might be able to replace "Satan" with "witches and heretics." No, I'm not accusing this Pope of defining those terms (as Churchmen of the past certainly have) to include Jews, Muslims, non-believers, old women with property, perhaps Protestants, and so forth... but, hey... stick around.
Not even that I expect any of the atrocities of the future (except for pederasty, of course) to emanate from the Church itself, but when you tell people that something "out there" is evil, and they can, you know, draw their own conclusions... just wake up... and smell the boiling oil.