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Impeach the Pope

By Robert S. McElvaine
Professor of Arts & Letters, Millsaps College

Enough! No–Too much!

Amid all the justified outrage we all feel at Bernie Madoff and the AIG bandits, let us save some intense outrage for Pope Benedict XVI.

After insulting Muslims by declaring in 2006 that Muhammad had brought “things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,” after reiterating  in 2008 that the subject of the ordination of women is not even open for discussion and declaring that anyone involved with the ordination of women will be automatically excommunicated.

After lifting in January of this year the excommunication of Holocaust-denier Richard Williamson, now Benedict XVI opens a visit to Africa by telling the people of a continent decimated by AIDS that the distribution of condoms “increases the problem” of the spread of AIDS.

I am a Catholic and the idea that such a man is God’s spokesperson on earth is absurd to me.

There are, of course, no provisions in the hierarchical institution set up, not by Jesus but by men who hijacked his name and in many cases perverted his teachings, for impeaching a pope and removing him from office. But there ought to be.