Merry Christmas... except for you 'manipulators of nature'

I have to admit it: every time Herr Pope Benedict XVI opens his mouth, I rejoice that I am an Episcopalian and proud of it.

The latest useless drivel coming from the pontiff was a focused rant about marriage equality in his Christmas message from the Vatican. This was the second time in a week that the pope has decided to make LGBT people into the scapegoat for what ails the world.

In his Vatican Christmas address, the pope made reference to marriage equality as an attack on the traditional family, and once more, denounced LGBT people:

“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being... They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves... The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.”

That's right. Apparently, the biggest threat to world peace is the possibility that the French and the British will approve marriage equality just as other European countries and nine states in the United States have done. This will not do for a pope who has been inadequate in responding to the problem of child molesters in the Roman Catholic Church, and wants to crack down on American nuns because they work on feeding the poor and clothing the naked rather than crusading against the LGBT community and ending access to abortion. Da nerve!

Love, and the expression of love between two people, is the biggest threat to world peace and destroying families? Really? Somebody needs to open a window for this man, and quickly!

There are lots of snide and cutting things I could say about the pope and his misguided message at a time of joy, peace on earth and mercy mild. But I am instead going to note with sadness that he looks a lot like the drawings of Ebenezer Scrooge that I remember from our family copy of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." His insensitive, boorish, belligerent, and meaningless message of fear and loathing are more evidence that he has the heart of that old bastard Scrooge, which makes him a very bitter and pathetic single old man in a fancy dress. Perhaps he will receive three visitors in the night on Christmas Eve. One can hope for a miracle.

Or we can just ignore him, and go about our business. Much as he thinks he's got sway, the scandals of the Roman Catholic Church in recent years have greatly undermined the pope's authority.

And then there's that whole thing that went down in the 16th century which freed so many of us from ever caring what the pope says or does. Ever.

Merry Christmas, Benny. I look forward to seeing more ex-Catholics arriving in the Episcopal Church in the new year.