Friend Me

In an uncharacteristic show of compassion, I’ve decided to skip my usual bashing of the conservative talking heads - Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg are handling that duty this week. If you didn’t get to see them kicking Glen Beck’s ass on “The View,” you should Google it.

And while you're online, hop on Facebook and friend the Pope. Yep, Pope Benedict, emboldened by the success of his YouTube channel, is now doing the whole social networking thing. Unfortunately, you can’t poke or super poke the Pope, and he won’t accept any Mafia Wars invites either. He doesn’t even have a lil' Green Patch – what a loser.

What he does have is Monsignor Paul Tighe, the secretary of the Vatican's Social Communications department. Padre Paul is overseeing Benny’s foray into cyberspace, and what he’s lined up for you is more than a dozen "virtual postcards" with pictures of the Pope that you can download and send to your friends. Aside from the potential for Hi-larious photoshop hijinks it's pretty boring, really.

What I want to see is the Pope’s updates. It would make my day if I logged onto Facebook and on Benny’s wall it said, “Prada didn’t send me new loafers – totally excommunicated!”

Where are the Pope’s picture galleries? I want to see pics of Benny and three cardinals, throwing up the Vatican gang signs, with the caption, “me and my boys in Mexico – I was sooo faded when they took this…”

And what about his profile? Does it say, “in a relationship with Jesus Christ” or just, “it’s complicated”?

The thing that actually pisses me off about this is the fact that back in January, old B-16 put out a press release about “obsessive Facebook use.” He warned that “"obsessive" virtual socializing can isolate people from real interaction and deepen the digital divide by excluding those already marginalized. “

Riiight... So, you mean like the same way the Church has tried to marginalize homosexuals, and people who believe in birth control, and people who think that giving folks the tools to deal with HIV in Africa is a good idea? Those kind of people?

He went on, urging internet producers to ensure that their content respects human dignity and the "goodness and intimacy of human sexuality." Yeah - ‘bout that... how would he know? What exactly does a celibate priest know about sex, and why have people been listening to them on this topic for centuries? Taking sexual advice from the Pope is like asking a blind guy if your socks match. Stop it – it doesn’t make sense and it never has!

If Benedict does know anything about sex, I really hope that shows up in his picture gallery. I hope chick on Spring Break tags him in a photo with the caption “What happens in Cancun, stays in Cancun.”