Betting On The New Pope

Originally posted by BrianH@Apr 20 2005, 05:53 PM
Finally, St Leger, whose real name, I have discovered, is St Leodegarius:

blindness, eyes, eye disease, eye problems, sore eyes, millers

Not a horse in sight and it seems to me that his various patronages are more suited to the stewards than the forum...
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Maybe they just can't spell milers.

Or maybe Steve has an appropriate patron saint for dosage.
 
Brian has done outstanding work compiling a shortlist of eligible paatron saints. Using a Postdata-style technique, it seems to me St Eligius has the most to offer:

agricultural workers, blacksmiths, boilermakers, cab drivers, carriage makers, cart makers, cartwrights, clock makers, coin collectors, craftsmen, cutlers, farm workers, farmers, farriers, garage workers, gas station workers, gilders, gold workers, goldsmiths, harness makers, horses, horseshoe makers, jewelers, jockeys, knife makers, laborers, locksmiths, metal collectors, metal workers, metalsmiths, miners, minters, minting, numismatics, numismatists, precious metal collectors, saddle makers, saddlers, sick horses, taxi drivers, tool makers, veterinarians, watch makers, wheelwrights
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To truly represent all sides of racing, Honest Tom might want to see "bent feckers" on the list, but maybe "sick horses" and "coin collectors" will be enough for him, as it is for me.

Here is the opening couplet of what I would hope might become the Forum hymn:

The much revered Eligius, he was ever so relig-i-ous,
He oft lost money on a horse but never once used language coarse.

Over to you...
 
This saintly soul of chance egregious, beloved of his thronging legions,
Was first among the brightest sparks to use tic-tac signals in St Mark's.
 
He praised each weekend's congregations for the size of their donations.
They would have gone to help the poor - if Ruby had not hit the floor.
 
As coffers dwindled down to pennies Eligius took to munching Rennies,
Until one day up went a groan - St. Paul's was sponsored by Fred Done.
 
Yes, terry, St Michael: patron saint of long-distance flights, long-distance emergency phone calls, long-distance handicaps, long firms, long-odds shock winners, and the Queen - long may she reign.

St Derek: patron saint of inept presenters, ill-timed questions, embarrassing longeurs, cringeworthy flattery, faux bonhomie, fawning bonhomie, general bonhohohomie, and redundant references, particularly to the Prince of Wales (Gawd Bless 'im).

St Lydia: patron saint of tragic clothes styles, pudding-basin haircuts, endless inane giggling, endless pontificating, endless analysis of irrelevant data, endless expounding of learned data, and endless interruptions of co-saints.

Any more saints?
 
Returning to the Pope - his recorded opinions made pretty grim reading in the Guardian today . Though many of the quotes were rather old some of the more recent were frankly rightwing politics dressed up as doctrine .

What seems shocking is that he can denounce " relativism " and then in his 2004 directive to the US bishops apply exactly the same relativism to pronounce that abortion and euthanasia are worse than war and capital punishment .

What is the Catholic Church's position on abortion for women who have been raped?
 
On a related topic did anyone see that a stain on a wall in Chicago is being treated as a miraculous manifestation of the Virgin mary . Anyone read Francis Wheen's book on the retreat of reason . How Mumbo Jumbo conquered the world.

I am beginning to wonder if the Enlightenment ever happened .

Here's the synopsis - heartily recommended

An entertaining, impassioned polemic on the retreat of reason in the late 20th century. An intellectual call to arms, Francis Wheen's Sunday Times bestseller is one of 2004's most talked about books. In 1979 two events occurred that would shape the next twenty-five years. In Britain, an era of weary consensualist politics was displaced by the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, whose ambition was to reassert 'Victorian values'. In Iran, the fundamentalist cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini set out to restore a regime that had last existed almost 1,300 years ago. Between them they succeeded in bringing the twentieth century to a premature close. By 1989, Francis Fukuyama was declaring that we had now reached the End of History. What colonised the space recently vacated by notions of history, progress and reason? Cults, quackery, gurus, irrational panics, moral confusion and an epidemic of mumbo-jumbo. Modernity was challenged by a gruesome alliance of pre-modernists and post-modernists, medieval theocrats and New Age mystics. It was as if the Enlightenment had never happened. Francis Wheen, winner of the George Orwell prize, evokes the key personalities of the post-political era -- including Princess Diana and Deepak Chopra, Osama Bin-Laden and Nancy Reagan's astrologer -- while charting the extraordinary rise in superstition, relativism and emotional hysteria over the past quarter of a century. From UFO scares to dotcom mania, his hilarious and gloriously impassioned polemic describes a period in the world's history when everything began to stop making sense.
 
THE STAIN ON THE WALL

Lab tests have shown that the stain is made up of Urine.Seems that a regular game of "who can wee furthest up the Wall" has been taking place there for years.

Several thousand different wee stains were found,with hundreds of chemical variations.

DNA testing is now taking place with the blood from the shroud used as a contra indicator.

Reuters 21/04/2005
 
Originally posted by krizon@Apr 21 2005, 11:35 PM
Yes, terry, St Michael: patron saint of long-distance flights, long-distance emergency phone calls, long-distance handicaps, long firms, long-odds shock winners, and the Queen - long may she reign.
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.....and Marks & Spencer.
 
I have not been able to post this week due to problems in my Pc that are now over.


My opinion is :
the Catholic Church has chosen the best possible one for this moment.

He is a man with a lot experience, in an old age and with a privilage head and very cult.
I agree with him in 3 points completely
His fight against comunisn
also against the moral relativism
and is against Turkey in the European Union.


I dont go to church but the people who does it must be very happy about the reaction of the laicism and left winged sectors.


About this one being a Pope of the last century and not this one I can not disagree more, there some princicles that can not change with the time and there are things the Catholic Church will no be able to accept never.

About the use of preservatives ,I dont know how there can be a problem with this, if you dont follow the church instructions of only going with your wife, why are you not going to use them?


This man is the right one for this moment and lets see what he does in coming years.
 
His fight against comunisn
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That was relevant back in the dark ages where this Pope belongs. I see Spain are allowing gay couples to marry, something this Pope would never recognise.
 
Originally posted by Gearoid@Apr 22 2005, 04:55 PM
I see Spain are allowing gay couples to marry, something this Pope would never recognise.
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This is the most conservative action our radical prime minister has made in 12 months in the goverment.
 
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