Antipopes
When is a door not a door? When it’s a jar.
The same seems to be true of popes. Catholics believe the pope is infallible. So, what happens when the pope errs? Well, since the pope is incapable of doing that, that person must not be a real pope (logical geniuses these Catholics are). Yes, believe it or not, in history there have supposedly been individuals who have risen to post of pope who are not really popes. These “imposters” are referred to as antipopes and are considered to be agents of the devil. There have been around fifty of them in history and they occur with a frequency at a little under twenty percent of the time.
Now at the time, these antipopes were considered to be the real popes. Only years after they died did the church and later popes decide they sucked and chose to name them “antipope” retroactively. Additionally, fringe Catholic sects like the one Mel Gibson belongs to and those who reject Vatican II also think the current popes including John Paul II and Benedict XVI are antipopes.
The existence of the antipope may seem weird, but this sort of this is actually quite common.
After Hayes and Bush II became president, there were a number of individuals who called these elections unjust. I seem to remember quite a few “Not My President” T-shirts around. Additionally, children often refuse to refer to their deadbeat biological parents or new stepparents as “mom” or “dad”.
Why this resistance? Well, just as Catholics irrationally believe in the infallibility of pope, Americans irrationally believe in the honor of the president and humans irrationally believe in love of the parent. The American is beat into him that presidents are great men by movies, school, society and the actions of past men who have been president. Children with parents also have “love them!” beat in by society, but also have biological issues forcing them to love them as well.
God forbid we believe that a pope can be fallible, a president be unhonorable or a parent be unloving! No, that would be too complicated. Instead, people stereotype and hold the term true. Real Americans are patriotic, thus a protester must be un-American. Murderers are not men, but monsters and they aren’t just pants, but Dockers.
Perhaps we should call Hayes and Bush II antipresidents. A bad parent or a step-parent could be an antimom or an antidad. Good workers are occasionally replaced by antiworkers and good police officers are sometimes impersonated by anticops. Antigirlfriends hold the position of girlfriend but are mean and deprive their boyfriends of sex.
Or we could think of people as individuals. Whatever.
(If you didn’t like today’s blog or any other, please consider them antiblogs)
The same seems to be true of popes. Catholics believe the pope is infallible. So, what happens when the pope errs? Well, since the pope is incapable of doing that, that person must not be a real pope (logical geniuses these Catholics are). Yes, believe it or not, in history there have supposedly been individuals who have risen to post of pope who are not really popes. These “imposters” are referred to as antipopes and are considered to be agents of the devil. There have been around fifty of them in history and they occur with a frequency at a little under twenty percent of the time.
Now at the time, these antipopes were considered to be the real popes. Only years after they died did the church and later popes decide they sucked and chose to name them “antipope” retroactively. Additionally, fringe Catholic sects like the one Mel Gibson belongs to and those who reject Vatican II also think the current popes including John Paul II and Benedict XVI are antipopes.
The existence of the antipope may seem weird, but this sort of this is actually quite common.
After Hayes and Bush II became president, there were a number of individuals who called these elections unjust. I seem to remember quite a few “Not My President” T-shirts around. Additionally, children often refuse to refer to their deadbeat biological parents or new stepparents as “mom” or “dad”.
Why this resistance? Well, just as Catholics irrationally believe in the infallibility of pope, Americans irrationally believe in the honor of the president and humans irrationally believe in love of the parent. The American is beat into him that presidents are great men by movies, school, society and the actions of past men who have been president. Children with parents also have “love them!” beat in by society, but also have biological issues forcing them to love them as well.
God forbid we believe that a pope can be fallible, a president be unhonorable or a parent be unloving! No, that would be too complicated. Instead, people stereotype and hold the term true. Real Americans are patriotic, thus a protester must be un-American. Murderers are not men, but monsters and they aren’t just pants, but Dockers.
Perhaps we should call Hayes and Bush II antipresidents. A bad parent or a step-parent could be an antimom or an antidad. Good workers are occasionally replaced by antiworkers and good police officers are sometimes impersonated by anticops. Antigirlfriends hold the position of girlfriend but are mean and deprive their boyfriends of sex.
Or we could think of people as individuals. Whatever.
(If you didn’t like today’s blog or any other, please consider them antiblogs)
posted by American Dilettante at
3:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home