Weekend at John-Paul's

I'm not Catholic, so what I'm about to say is probably going to sound really insensitive. But what's the big deal about the Pope? All last week it was all over the news that he was in the hospital and having trouble breathing. No kidding. He's like 400 and has Parkinson's Disease. He can barely move, speak, or presumably do much of anything else. Why is it such a surprise?

I'm not exactly sure what the Pope does, but it would seem to be that someone in that condition couldn't fulfill the responsibilities of such a high profile job. Can the Pope retire, or does he have to die first? The extent of my knowledge about the papal process consists of the last 20 minutes of Eurotrip, and it didn't really get too in-depth.

Personally, I think the Pope's been dead for a while, and they just rig him up with a Weekend at Bernie's kinda thing for his appearances. I mean, Catholicism is one gigantic religion, and I've heard they put the Pope like, slightly lower than God in the hierarchy of holiness. If they were to find out that guy died, it'd be devastating.

Something about that doesn't sit right with me. At the end of the day, the Pope is just another old guy. He's no closer to the ear of God than anyone else in the world. And when people start elevating a religious figure like that, it looks to me like they're getting dangerously close to idolatry. But like I said, I'm not Catholic so I probably don't get it.