Output Stream of Consciousness

I can only be civil for so long.

*sigh* Pope Ratzi is getting the troops back in the ready for the War On Satan.

UPDATE: The director of the Vatican Press Office is denying Father Gabriele Amorth's report:

"Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession.”

Were The Exorcist and Constantine documentaries instead of the entertaining movies we thought them to be? Is he going to lay the blame for interest in the occult on Harry Potter? Apart from already condemned them once?

"It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly," wrote Cardinal Ratzinger.

Back to the original article again:

The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet.

Rock music!? Holy crap, he's resurrected his "vehicle of anti-religion" name-calling of rock music from back when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and kicked it up the notch he really wanted to, hasn't he? Satanic sects? I remember that stupid, sad "Satanists around every corner" phase the Western world went through. Of course they found some on the web in Italy:

"Satanic Sect Found Operating on Web, 7 Italians Involved"

Catania, Italy - The postal and communications police in Catania have uncovered a satanic sect which was operating on the Internet. Seven people have been charged with religious vilification, two of them minors. They come from Liguria, Piedmont, Sardinia and Emilia Romagna. One of them was born in Agrigento. The internet site was first picked up by Fr. Di Noto's Meter Association, on the new "On-line Police Commissioner's Office".

There will always be deluded folks in cults, "Satanic" or otherwise. Retreating into mythology and treating these as "real" manifestations of devil power is absurd. Members inculcated into bad rituals are deluded and should be treated the same as any other cult members whose cult has gotten dangerous. At any rate, Ratzi is likely to overestimate the appeal of such cults by a fantastic margin, especially given belief in "rock music" being some sort of gateway drug.

Exorcisms, too, hmm? We're going to end up with a lot of mistreated mental illness cases in the pursuit of the imaginary strawfiends this Vatican is explicitly setting up.

I really miss Pope John Paul II. This current pope is an atavism in the most pejorative sense of the word.

Our Catholics are mostly sane, Ratzinger, including many I know and love. Please don't drag them down into your delusions.