Joke With The Pope - Dumbing Down The Papacy

Vox Cantoris pointed this out.  Vatican Radio has launched a hare-brained stunt called "joke with the pope", ostensibly to raise money for charity.  I thought we had gotten past the selfies and clown-noses.  But no, there are some who think the trivialization of the papal office is still worth a few yoks.  They don't care that in making light of papal dignity, they thumb their noses at hundreds of saints and even martyrs who occupied St Peter's chair; or perhaps they do and that's the whole idea.  All in the name of charity of course.

This idea seems to have spewed forth from the Pontifical Mission Societies.  If they think this gimmick will further the Church's mission of saving souls, it's no wonder that Church membership is plummeting world-wide.  This pope-joke thing has "the pope's comedy cabinet".  From the webpage we can see that Conan O'Brien is one of them.  A look at the wikipedia article reveals that O'Brien was "ordained" a minister by the "Universal Life Church Monastary".  In that "office" he performed a same-sex mowwidge.  Is this the sort of progressive loon that this Vatican Radio touted nonsense allows to select "papal jokes"?  I can only imagine that others in this "papal comedy cabinet" are similarly inclined.  This whole thing is itself a macabre joke.

Hey!  Here's a radical idea!  Instead of "joke with the pope", how about "pray for the pope"?  One could keep the charitable aspects while honoring (instead of denigrating) the papal office.