The head of the world's largest male-dominated church has decided his words are made of gold. The Burning Taper blog reports that the Vatican recently announced that everything the Pope writes will fall under copyright law, including encyclicals like the one expected later this week. Not only does this apply to all future writings, but they claim it's retroactive for the last 50 years! Everything written by those Beatle-named Popes (John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul VI and John XXIII) of the last half-century are included. O-bla-dee O-bla-da!

Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, has been called God's rottweiler. His previous job (1981-2005) in the Vatican was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith... formerly called the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition. Yes, that Inquisition. The same folks who brought the world roast-heretic and rack-of-man. They just got around to taking the word "Inquisition" out of their gang's name in 1908.

In November, 2005 the new Pope visited a sick child in a Rome hospital, and reportedly scared the bejeebers out of the poor lad. The Vatican played this down, saying the Pope was dressed all in white, that perhaps the child thought he was a doctor. Or maybe the kid thought the Pope was a ghost!

A bill for 15,000 Euros has been sent to a Milan publishing house that printed 30 lines from Pope Benedict XVI's speech to the conclave that elected him. They came up with the figure by demanding 15% of the cover price of the booklets that were sold, plus 3,000 Euros in "legal expenses."

Have Jesus's words — isn't that what the Pope is supposed to be sharing? — become another commodity? I thought Christianity was about finding Christ in your heart. Oh, wait... that was Gnosticism and Catharism, Christian heresies that previous Popes burned people at the stake for talking about. Shhh!

So, maybe, the Pope IS broke... or at least morally bankrupt. I guess he can go back to selling indulgences, too.

Pope Benedict XVI | Christianity | Vatican