No, no, not the pope's mum

You insult my mother, I punch-a you face

The pope. Head of the Roman Catholic Church, and, apparently, not someone to mess with. Turn the other cheek? Not likely. That’s for hippies and wets.

“Asked about the attack that killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo – targeted because it had printed depictions of the prophet Muhammad – he said: “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.

“There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity … in freedom of expression there are limits.””

That’s from the Guardian. It printed it deadpan. It left me wondering “have I missed the point entirely? Am I reading something into that that isn’t there?”

I couldn’t understand why the piece didn’t criticise the pope in the slightest. Wasn’t he saying:

“Those Charlie Hebdo people? Had it comin’ to ‘em”?

Thankfully, there were more in-depth articles to come, which confirmed that I still had a grip on the language, if not on the more philosophical, political, and theological arguments surrounding the statement. Many of them echoed the questions that had immediately come to mind. Some answers were provided by the additional information that the pope had said, pointing to an aide, “he insults my mother, do I not punch him in the face?”. There you have it. Don’t insult the pope’s mum. He’ll punch you in the face. Don’t mock the religiously afflicted, or they’ll visit with machine guns.

Oh. And never tell me this god bullshit is anything other than a very negative force.

Borrowing from the later articles, this is, approximately, what I was thinking:

·         Does he really mean that if you take the piss out of these people, you deserve everything you get? After all, what else can you do with people who believe some bloke ascended to heaven on a wing’ed horse? A word of warning, our political establishment, people who sit in power telling us what to think and what to do, believe in wing’ed horses. Vote? Only when My Little Mermaid stands for the La-La-Land Party.

·         What faith can you and can’t you insult? Are there a big four like in football? Islam, roman catholicism, orthodox jews, and…er…Jedi Knights? Is there a Premiership, with the Mormons mid-table and the seventh day adventists fighting relegation? Is a one-man faith equal to one of the mass-delusions?

·         What if faiths fundamentally disagree? (There was a quote somewhere about how, if the major religions ever put down their theological arms and agree about something, that’s bad news for everyone). Taking this point further, what if my faith demands that I take the piss out of yours? What if my faith demands I undermine the dignity of yours? What if I believe it’s pretty worthless an existence unless I can deride you for believing, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that someone can come back from the dead, and the earth’s only a couple of thousand years old? Pythonesque, that is: “What’s that there?” “A rock” “How old is it?” “Several hundred thousand years old” “How old is the earth” “A good deal younger, naturally”. There’s echoes of “It’s only a flesh wound, I’ve had worse” there.

·         Isn’t this stuff the ultimate proof that, however much they spout on about love and peace, religion is all about hate, war, violence and conning the vulnerable?