Can Catholicism Survive "PappaRatzi"?

If Pope Benedict (a.k.a. PappaRatzi) stays alive long enough, he can potentially do to the Roman Catholic Church what George W. Bush did to the Republican Party. It’s not that Benedict is the worst pope in church history. He’s certainly not that. It’s just that he’s manifestly stupid in a time when papal infallibility has been reduced to nothing but a joke, and modern media makes sure that everybody knows it.

First, he shot his own foot by backing Bishop Richard Williamson in spite of Williamson’s denial of the Holocaust. What made this particularly lame, even by papal standards, was the Pope’s claim that the word “Holocaust” was misinterpreted in the whole sordid mess. Here’s the thing. Benedict grew up in Nazi Germany and served in the German army to defend Nazism, so he was in a perfect position to know what the “Holocaust” meant— both as a word, as well as the world’s best known episode of genocide.

Now Benedict has gone to Africa and told the people there that condoms are sinful. In South Africa, one person in six has HIV. For people of child bearing age, the number is one in four. During the last 25 years, since HIV transmission has been well understood, only the use of condoms has proven effective in reducing HIV in third world populations where anti-retroviral drugs are not readily available. Now, Benedict wants to see an end to that. This is the last thing Africa needed— a senile, celibate, irrelevant old fool representing a body of more senile, celibate old fools known as Cardinals— all claiming to speak for God. Can Catholicism get any more pathetic?