Bye-Bye Benedict XVI

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, a k a Pope Benedict XVI, waves goodbye

I hope you do as you promised and retire to a life of quietness and prayer in a monastery. I am so looking forward to learning what really brought about this sudden, unexpected and almost unheard of turn of events.

Who Would Kiss Ratzinger?

The clothing retailer Benetton today pulled an advertisement in it´s "Unhate" campaign showing the homophobe Pope Benedict XVI kissing Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed El-Tayeb, imam of the renowned al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, after the Vatican threatened legal action "to protect the pope's image".

I could actually have understood if the sheikh had protested vehemently but who still thinks it can hurt Ratzinger´s  reputation to be seen kissing a grown man with a full beard? (Deleted sentence)

Way to go, Benetton, the lack of any sense of humour in the Vatican has already made this campaign an unrivaled success.

UPDATE:
After reading Eddi´s comment I thought it might be helpful in seeing the comic in the picture of the pope and the sheikh to see it in the full context of the Unhate-campaign so I have added the rest of the ads below.

Chancellor of Germany - President of France

Paramount Leader of the Peoples Republic of China - President of the USA

President of the Palestinian National Authority - Prime Minister of Israel

President of the USA - President of Venezuela

Supreme Leader of North Korea - President of South Korea

Stupid Git #3

Joseph Ratzinger, a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI, is of course in a completely different league compared to my other choices. 

From his exalted position as the head of the largest church he has the possibility to use the powers granted to him for good, modernization and reconciliation. Instead he seems to be pulling, pushing and whipping his church back several decades or even centuries.

I accept the argument that his work is to preserve the faith as he sees it, but that cannot mean he has to alienate everyone else while doing so.

Ratzinger has enraged the Muslims by calling Islam "evil and inhumane". He has infuriated the Jews and the Europeans by revoking the excommunication of bishops who deny the Holocaust. He has angered the whole world by not allowing his subordinates to report cases of sexual abuse and pedophilia to the civilian authorities or to discipline priests involved in these crimes. 

With all that on his conscience it means little that he cannot accept homosexuality as something natural or gay marriages.

The fact that he has accepted the use of condoms in all sexual relations - not only the sex industry workers - "as a lesser evil than passing HIV onto a partner" is the only good thing he seems to have done so far.