It’s nearly two weeks since I last posted. I didn’t set off with the idea of leaving it that long, but it just crept up on me. I have actually written a couple of long posts about world events, but they depress me, and if they depress me they aren’t going to cheer anybody else up. We know the world is changing, and, to paraphrase Emperor Hirohito in 1945, not necessarily to our advantage. We don’t need to keep telling ourselves this, and if we do, we have plenty of people to do it.

The world, as it stands at the moment . . .

Tch! There I go again.

 

Actually, the most interesting thing to happen recently has been the election of the Pope. There was talk of an Asian Pope or even a black Pope, but they went for a white American Pope. It wasn’t a surprise, particularly as the American Catholics had been promising a billion dollar donation if the “right Pope” was selected. However, in the manner of these things, God, working through his devious and scheming Cardinals (I’ve never trusted a Cardinal – they are always bad news when they appear in history, or the Three Musketeers) has come up trumps with this choice. I doubt that the million dollar donation will be made now. (Yes, I did wonder about my choice of idiom there, but it seemed appropriate).

May I draw your attention to the Papal Bull of 1570 – Regnans in Excelsis. It caused quite a stir in its time and, as far as I know, could be repeated. Papal Bull, by the way, is what the Vatican calls them, it is not, despite modern usage of the word bull, a derogatory term.

I tend to leave the Catholic Church alone, as long as it leaves me alone, but I will point out one thing. While the discussion was going on about whether the next Pope might be black or Asian, there was one guarantee – he wasn’t going to be a woman.

I will now trust in Hemingway’s iceberg theory and stop writing.