If First Impressions are Lasting Ones . . . . . .

If this guy keeps this up, The Gadfly might have to seriously reconsider an invitation from a couple of decades ago to convert to Catholicism:

(Reuters) - Pope Francis said in the first peace message of his pontificate that huge salaries and bonuses are symptoms of an economy based on greed and inequality and called again for nations to narrow the wealth gap.

In his message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, marked around the world on January 1, he also called for sharing of wealth and for nations to shrink the gap between rich and poor, more of whom are getting only "crumbs".

"The grave financial and economic crises of the present time ... have pushed man to seek satisfaction, happiness and security in consumption and earnings out of all proportion to the principles of a sound economy," he said.

"The succession of economic crises should lead to a timely rethinking of our models of economic development and to a change in lifestyles," he said.

Francis, who was named Time magazine's Person of the Year on Wednesday, has urged his own Church to be more fair, frugal and less pompous and to be closer to the poor and suffering.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/us-pope-economy-idUSBRE9BB0EH20131212?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews


Rest assured that the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) remains The Gadfly's one and only chosen deity, and that is stated whilst fully acknowledging The Gadfly's penchant for frequently assigning divine attributes to the angelic Agave plant, from which this heavenly product is culled.

But what The Gadfly truly finds amazing about this Pope is that even after he publicly called in to question last week the morality of idolizing capitalism at the expense of human compassion and dignity and was instantly attacked and labeled a Marxist by American conservatives, he comes back this week and emphatically doubles down on his words.  If you ask The Gadfly's humble view, that is, quite frankly, the equivalent of telling Rush Limbaugh and the Fox "News" toadies to go take a flying fucking leap in to Lake Kiss My Holy See Ass.

Yep -- thar's definitely a new Sheriff in Vatican Town.  And this Sheriff ain't taking no shit from anybody - least of all a bunch of sniveling, right-wing fascists.



----TFG