Pope Pines For Purer Past

You'd think a smart guy like Pope Benedict XVI wouldn't succumb to spouting tired, fantastical "good 'ol days" crap. But then you'd be wrong of course.

He says the Church is "dying." Exactly how so, Benny? Pining for the time when we were all so faithful that we burned people alive? Or marched off to kill Muslims? Or made Jews wear yellow hats? Now every history, no matter what of, is going to have its warts, but the idea that we're slowly slipping into sin and evil is just pure nonsense. People have always been exactly as sick and depraved as they are right this second.

Even more shockingly dumb is this:

Benedict he said the "joy" at the growing numbers of churchmen in the developing world is accompanied by "a certain bitterness" because some would-be priests were only looking for a better life.

"Becoming a priest, they become almost like a head of a tribe, they are naturally privileged and have another type of life," he said. "So the wheat and the chaff go together in this beautiful growth of vocations.

What a compelling grip of the obvious this pontiff has. I suppose this little theory of his wouldn't explain all those Irish priests who were ordained while the Emerald Isle basically starved in the late 1800's/early 1900's. Because, you know, things were so much better back then.