Is the Pope ever gonna LEAVE???

[SoCalDem]

I am so tired of seeing mass, on every freaking channel..(or at least it seems that way)..

There ARE religious channels...LOTS of them..

Cover him when he speaks at the UN or visits the White House...but all this churchy stuff is creeping me OUT...


now I will don my flak jacket and try to evade the sniper-esque barrage of swingy smoke-filled thingies thrown at me:)

[Justitia]

1. LOL - you must be reading my mind! -eom

[kevinbgoode]

2. Well, it would be a great time for someone to trot out the McSame

spiritual adviser's attitude that Catholicism is the great whore. . .

[jwirr]

3. Oh, yes, I would like to hear the Pope's answer to that one!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. WHAT????

Who doesn't love an old guy in a dress, muttering and swinging smoking things around?

You're going to Hell. I bet you are. Uh-huh.

[SoCalDem]

5. You forgot about his cool shiny red slippers

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. I didn't forget,

but I was just trying to practice some restraint. You've effectively quashed that effort, and now I'm forced to admit that I suspect he's wearing a red garter belt under the dress.

Now, I'm going to Hell, I bet. Uh-huh.

[SoCalDem]

8. Aisle or window? I'll save you a seat

(I am assuming that I am older and will get there before you)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

10. I'll take aisle

I'll make sure the drinks don't pass us by........

[SoCalDem]

11. We'll have to charge you $10 extra

:rofl:

and another $5 if you want ice in those drinks

[Tangerine LaBamba]

13. In Hell,

real women don't need ice ......

[CTyankee]

22. He has a lacy thing he wears under his skirt. I've seen a picture of it.

It was when he was coming down some stairs and had lifted his skirt so as not to step on it. Yup, red shoes and a lacy slip! I just found out he's got a leather maker up in Bolzano or some northern Italian mountain village, who makes these shoes for him and him only.

I love it. It's so...Italian!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. No, no, no, no

Maybe he's a Mormon? I mean, don't Mormon women don their "garment" when they get married?

He's German. I'm Italian. I'd never be caught dead in those red loafers. Besides, I thought they were Gucci.

You're going to Hell, too, I bet. Uh-huh.

LET'S HAVE A PARTY!!!

[CTyankee]

25. Naw, I didn'tmake up the red shoes thing. It was on the tee vee.

Actually, I LOVE the Italians (I'm heading to northern Italy in 3 weeks!).

Betcha this pope has more lace than you do! Certainly more than me, that's for sure.

Yeah, let's have a dress up party. I have a gay friend who loves to dress up as a pregnant nun...

[SoCalDem]

28. My son's headed for Italy too (mostly Florence)

he went to college there and is getting married may 24th.. They are taking a Greek Isle cruise for their honeymoon and spending a week in Italy at the end.. Not too shabby, my son.. a month long European honeymoon :) She's a lucky young woman to have such a thoughtful husband :)

[CTyankee]

33. Wow, so you'll be going to a wedding in FLorence?!! How cool is that!

I was there in 06 and loved it. Am going back for a longer time as soon as I can.

This gig is in Turin, Bologna and Venice. I've been doing research on restaurants and places of interest all day today.

I'll bring back a full report to DU!

[SoCalDem]

37. The wedding is in Norco, CA

:)

[CTyankee]

39. Oops, sorry. I've got Italy on the brain today, for obvious reasons.

I need to take a week and just go to Tuscany, tho. Of course, I'll need another week to go back to Venice, too. The art in those two places is just overwhelming.

One of the things about my upcoming trip that so interests me is the new art scene in Bologna, in a former manufacturing area of the city. Plus, of course all the students.

Travel is the only thing that saves me from despair over the whole Democratic primary season. It has just been a madhouse, IMO. We've gone collectively nuts...

[Tangerine LaBamba]

56. Tuscany

If Lucca is on your itinerary, good for you.

If it's not, try to visit it. One of the most beautiful places in the world, with the nicest people you could hope to find. And they LOVE Americans.

[CTyankee]

68. Oh, Lucca! I went there in 06 on a train from Montecatini!

Fabulous! Walled city, marvelous food. What a magical little town it was! Yes, I was enthralled and I tell everyone to go to Lucca. I was especially charmed to learn that the Lucchese were so rich back in the Renaissance that they had eggs that they put in their pasta dough, thus giving them golden yellow pasta!

It's stuff like that that makes me LOVE the Italians! They know what's important in life!!!!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

71. Lucca, part two

Some friends of mine live in a 15th century villa up on one of the high hills overlooking Lucca. They've restored the place because they're VERY wealthy. It's been featured on TV shows and in magazines all over the world.

Last year, they got a 19 million dollar offer (that's $19,000,000), sight unseen, from a German zillionaire who had seen pictures of their place in a magazine.

I asked them if that price included the furnishings. Linens. The cats.

They turned him down.

It's here: http://www.agardeninlucca.com/

[CTyankee]

72. Lovely! It reminds me that Giacomo Puccini had his villa and garden outside Lucca.

Also, the house in which he was born is right in Lucca. I wanted to visit it but it was closed for renovation when I was there in early November, 2006.

A wonderful life indeed in Lucca...

[Tangerine LaBamba]

34. Coincidence?

I AM a pregnant nun!

No, not really. Although I am told I had a great-grandmother who used to run around in a nun's habit and who ended up living with a Catholic priest. Nice to know it runs in the family.

Have a splendid Italian holiday, as if there were any other kind. The dollar sucks right now, but that won't stop you from having a wonderful time .........

[CTyankee]

41. Thank you! Mind if I call you Tang?

Well, if you're Italian you know what I mean. I think they all get intoxicated with the religious stuff and it's all nice now and pretty innocuous. That's how I see the Pope's get-up, the lace and the red shoes. Kinda sassy, doncha think?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

49. Call me Tang, sure...

Just don't call me late for dinner.

Ahahahaha. I slay 'em.

I think the Pope's wardrobe is a lot flashier than the long dresses worn by the women on the FLDS compound in Texas. Makes me think.

We Italians get all worked up over opera and anything beautiful. I think the oldsters dressed up the priests so that they were easily identifiable when they showed up in their villages, intent on molesting their sons. Sort of a fashion Distant Early Warning System, if you get my drift.

[CTyankee]

50. Oh, yes about the Italians! Any people who would design a pasta

after a woman's navel cannot possibly be anything but wonderful!

[SoCalDem]

53. Hey.. Italians love the human body..look at all the marble they abused, honoring it

:rofl:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

55. Yeah, well, but,

that's only because we got tendinitis from abusing ourselves.

[Individualist]

38. Now if someone can get him to just click his heels three times...

[bushmeister0]

63. Those are Cheney's hands, right?

[Junkdrawer]

6. He was promised 5 days of air time for helping to elect Bush...

..or so it would seem..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3182884&mesg_id=3182884

[Zynx]

30. B.S. That is so much nonsense.

[Junkdrawer]

35. The 5 days I made up...helping Bush's election is a matter of record...

President Bush treated his final visit with Pope John Paul II in Vatican City on June 4, 2004, as a campaign stop. After enduring a public rebuke from the pope about the Iraq war, Bush lobbied Vatican officials to help him win the election. "Not all the American bishops are with me," he complained, according to the National Catholic Reporter. He pleaded with the Vatican to pressure the bishops to step up their activism against abortion and gay marriage in the states during the campaign season.

About a week later, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a letter to the U.S. bishops, pronouncing that those Catholics who were pro-choice on abortion were committing a "grave sin" and must be denied Communion. He pointedly mentioned "the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" -- an obvious reference to John Kerry, the Democratic candidate and a Roman Catholic. If such a Catholic politician sought Communion, Ratzinger wrote, priests must be ordered to "refuse to distribute it." Any Catholic who voted for this "Catholic politician," he continued, "would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion." During the closing weeks of the campaign, a pastoral letter was read from pulpits in Catholic churches repeating the ominous suggestion of excommunication. Voting for the Democrat was nothing less than consorting with the forces of Satan, collaboration with "evil."

In 2004 Bush increased his margin of Catholic support by 6 points from the 2000 election, rising from 46 to 52 percent. Without this shift, Kerry would have had a popular majority of a million votes. Three states -- Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico -- moved into Bush's column on the votes of the Catholic "faithful." Even with his atmospherics of terrorism and Sept. 11, Bush required the benediction of the Holy See as his saving grace. The key to his kingdom was turned by Cardinal Ratzinger.

...

http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/blumenthal/2005/04/21/tk/

[Breeze54]

42. That's was Republican Catholics...not Dems!

Can Kerry Carry The Catholic Vote?

Despite Woes With Church Leaders, He May Win Rank-And-File

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/politics/main618886.shtml

snip-->

Kerry’s experience shows he knows how to win the Catholic vote. In his 1996 re-election to the Senate, Kerry faced a difficult challenge from Massachusetts’ sitting governor, William Weld, and many pundits predicted a Kerry defeat.

In the end, Kerry walked away with a seven-point victory, due at least in part to his support among Catholics. According to a CBS News exit poll in that election, Catholics made up 50 percent of Massachusetts’ voters, and they voted 53 percent to 43 percent for Kerry.

In the presidential primary elections this year, Kerry showed a similar ability to attract Catholic votes, at least among Democrats. For example, in the nine Super Tuesday states that voted on March 2, Kerry won 62 percent of the Catholic vote, according to CBS News exit polls, running 10 points better among Catholics than he did among all voters.

His performance among Catholic voters in earlier primary contests was similarly strong.

Looking forward to the general election, Catholic voters seem open to a challenge to President Bush. According to a CBS News/New York Times Poll in late April, only 40 percent of Catholic registered voters said they approve of the job Mr. Bush is doing as president, while over half reported disapproval. In contrast, 47 percent of all registered voters approve of Mr. Bush’s performance, as do 53 percent of Protestant voters.

Catholics seems specifically dissatisfied with Mr. Bush on the election’s two most important issues – the economy and the war in Iraq. Only 34 percent of Catholic voters in the April survey said they approve of the way Mr. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, compared to 41 percent of all voters. In addition, 58 percent of Catholic voters feel the war in Iraq was a mistake, while only 48 percent of all voters feel that way.

On the economy, only 38 percent of Catholic voters said they approve of the way Mr. Bush is currently handling it, compared to 45 percent of Protestant voters and 40 percent of all registered voters. And Catholic voters are not much more optimistic about the future of the economy under Mr. Bush – only 22 percent feel the economy will improve if Mr. Bush is re-elected.

Whether Kerry can capitalize on Catholic voters’ dissatisfaction with Mr. Bush remains to be seen. One looming question is Kerry’s relationship with the Catholic Church itself. Kerry has taken criticism lately from members of the Church hierarchy for political positions that run counter to the Church’s, most prominently his support of abortion rights.

His problems with the Church may not affect his potential with its voters, however, as these voters themselves take positions antithetical to Catholic doctrine.

According to CBS News exit polls, in the 2000 presidential election 55 percent of Catholic voters voiced support for abortion remaining either mostly or entirely legal – a number virtually identical to that of voters at large.

Even on the year’s hot moral wedge issue – gay marriage – Catholics do not appear automatically predisposed to the Church’s position. According to a CBS News/New York Times poll in March, Catholics are actually more supportive of gay marriage or civil unions than are most Americans – 64 percent of Catholics said they support either gay marriage or civil unions, compared to 54 percent of all Americans.

It seems that Catholics are in play in this election, as in past elections. Among registered voters in the most recent CBS News/New York Times poll, Catholics were leaning in favor of Kerry, choosing him over Mr. Bush by 46 percent to 40 percent, when asked whom they would support if the election were held at this early stage.

More...

---------

The '04 election was stolen.

[Junkdrawer]

43. Bush increased his margin of Catholic support by 6 points from the 2000 election...

The article you cite (from May 2004) speculates that Ratzinger's efforts may not work...

Look, at the very least, Ratzinger's letter gave Rove (or whomever stole the election) the needed cover for the theft.

Remember the meme that the Media used the days immediately after Bush's 2004 "win"?

"Bush won out over Kerry with the Values Voters."

[Breeze54]

44. You are leaping and bounding... and "Values Voters" ARE the RW!!!

:crazy:

You keep ignoring that the Election of 2004 WAS STOLEN!!!

I wouldn't doubt Rethug Catholics crossed over but they would have anyway.

I don't think Pope Benedict wields that much power.

Catholic Dems seem to always, in high numbers, support the Dem candidates.

[Junkdrawer]

45. I'M leaping and bounding??...Weren't you the one who insisted I was wrong...

because, after all, Ratzinger didn't become Pope Benedict until AFTER the election?

[Breeze54]

46. You are talking about rethug voters to try and make your case.

It's not working... at least for me.

No, you kept saying the Pope endorsed * in 2004.

I said Pope Benedict wasn't the Pope then and he wasn't.

You are the one that then referred to Cardinal Ratzinger.

[Junkdrawer]

47. Nope. I always referred to him as Ratzinger. Read for yourself...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3182718&mesg_id=3182785

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3182750&mesg_id=3182886

[Breeze54]

9. One more mass at NY Stadium and he flies out at 8 PM est....

Hang on! :D

[malaise]

12. Hahahahahhaha

He's on at least 15 of our channels. Hubby's watching deadliest catch on Discovery.
I'm marking papers and planning to watch the Alaska week special later until Tracey Ullman's State Of The Union starts at 10.00 on Showtime.

If it gets really bad, try the Weather Channel. :rofl:

[SoCalDem]

16. I used to love the weather channel, but their "Dr Marie"

and her Sunscreen warnings masquerading as 15 minute informercials make me retch.. and we never seem to see OUR weather...

disclaimer.. probably because we have very little actual WEATHER

[malaise]

19. LOL

It's still better than watching Popey.

[earth mom]

14. I can't stand religious propaganda either BUT that the pope is hanging around is no doubt

pissing * & Co off big time. :evilgrin:

[momster]

15. Longer than Reagan's Funeral

Fish and visiting dignitaries stink after 3 days.

[SoCalDem]

18. Make that 3 hours (when you're talking about TV)

:rofl:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

24. Reagan's funeral

wasn't as long as Gerry Ford's Farewell Tour.

I fully expected him to rise up again after the third day, but, no, they just kept schlepping him around. The guy got as many Frequent Flier miles dead as he did when he was sort of alive.

[Breeze54]

26. Bill Graham was on TV for 9 days and does it every year!

:crazy:

"Billy Graham Special on ABC: Chasing Happiness-

Beginning March 1st - 9th, 2008 & throughout the week..."

http://www.billygraham.org/TV_Index.asp?QR=163

This is the pope's first visit and only a six-day trip.

[bushmeister0]

60. OMG, that's still going on isn't it? At NPR at least..

[GoneOffShore]

17. I heard that Brother Boomerang of Forgiveness

Of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Outrage is heading for your house right now.

[SoCalDem]

20. Good.. he can change the cat litter for me :) n/t

[Breeze54]

21. It's only on 2 channels here in MA...

One is a Spanish channel and the other one is a UHF channel

and it just ended anyway! I think that's it!

[spanone]

27. i'm poped

[Zynx]

29. If you bothered to look at his schedule you would know that he leaves today.

[Ikonoklast]

31. I'm Just Here To.....

Pope On Your Thread!

[Subdivisions]

32. I started the week as an agnostic. Now I think I've

reverted back to the Catholicism of my extreme youth.

Naaaahhhhhh!

[SoCalDem]

36. Dominos vo biscum..et cum spiritu tuo

That's about all I remember from my Catholic days..

or at least it sounded like that..

[Canuckistanian]

54. My father can beat your father at DO-MIN-OS

That's what I remember.

[Fox Mulder]

40. He's just a man and everyone is acting like he's god or something.

Give me a break.

I'm sick of seeing this shit. Did you see all the security around him? How come the Dali Lama didn't have that much security? Oh, that's right. He's not Christian, so he doesn't matter. :sarcasm: :eyes:

[DesertRat]

51. Because he's not just a religious leader, he's a Head of State.

Show me any Head of State without a large security detail.

[moondust]

48. Pope-a-thon rulez!

:rofl:

[scarletwoman]

52. You think you're tired of it now -- wait 'til he dies and they do the big Vatican funeral.

I am also going to hell, of course.

[Generic Brad]

57. We should rename CNN the Catholic News Network

Every time I pass that channel they are either showing him saying mass or covering some other aspect of his visit. They don't give this kind of coverage to any other major religion.

[Breeze54]

58. Why?" They pander to the RW Evangelicals a lot more! n/t

[tishaLA]

59. DICK CHENEY IS INTRODUCING HIM?????

Sorry for the all caps, but DAMN. I can't even type now as I hear Darth talk about him being an agent of peace. Like he'd even know what one looks like.

[Harry Monroe]

70. Don't you think the Pope would know if the Antichrist was standing next to him

I mean wouldn't the Pope notice such things being an emissary of God and all that??

[bushmeister0]

61. You have to leave some money in the tray first.

[JerseygirlCT]

62. Worse right now: watching Cheney make long adoring speeches

about Ratzinger. A two-fer.

I put on HGTV. Better than that duo.

[bushmeister0]

64. Do Darth wears black and the storm troopers wear white, but they're still evil, right?

[JerseygirlCT]

69. Can't say I'm a fan of either

Both pretty awful people, IMO.

[annabanana]

65. I guess they're going to stay with him until the plane takes off. .. . n/t

[bushmeister0]

66. Can't he just fly without a plane? He is God's CEO on earth or something, isn't he

[SoCalDem]

67. exactly. what good is being pope if you can't get celestial teleportation

in the contract:)