Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

Exposing religious lunacy for more than half-a-century

Was Ratzinger hit on the head with an ornate hammer to make sure he was dead and not just asleep?

The Vatican today planted emeritus Pope Benedict XVI in three coffins because he was dead. We know he was beyond feeling pain because he didn’t cry “ouch” when he was hit on the head three times with a fancy ceremonial hammer.

But do we? Catholism is so full of grisly ceremonies and bloody imagery that people are rarely surprised when they read of this nasty death cult’s appetite for outlandish ju-ju.

Some, however, do take the trouble to sort fact from fantasy. After the tweet below appeared on Twitter Google Trends reported a tsunami of people checking its veracity.

Truth or Fiction yesterday took up the issue, and retrieved a Guardian article from 2003 that reported that:

After the pope dies, an event confirmed when a senior member of staff strikes him on the forehead with a silver hammer and calls his baptismal name to make sure he is not just asleep, the cardinals will gather within a fortnight in the Vatican to deliberate in great secrecy on the choice of his successor.

However, the paper later said in its Corrections and Clarifications section that the Vatican insisted that this is “a myth.” And the Vatican, as we all know, never lies.

Sickening tributes

On a normal day I have either the BBC or LBC playing in the background in order to keep abreast of world news but I found it impossible to listen to either on New Year’s Eve and the day after because off the endless flow of fawning tributes being paid to this monster by people ranging from King Charles III to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

In a tweet, Sunak said he was ”saddened” to learn of the death of Benedict XVI. He wrote that the late Pope was a great theologian whose 2010 visit to the UK “was an historic moment for both Catholics and non-Catholics throughout our country.”

That made my blood boil. That costly visit was hardly a resounding success, as The Guardian reported:

Day three of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain and it was a day for protests and anti-papists under bright blue skies in central London. Around 10,000 people took to the capital’s streets for a Protest the Pope rally and march against what the organisers called “papal intolerance” and to condemn the state funding of the visit.

They came in red cardboard papal hats scrawled with the words ‘bigot’ and ‘homophobe’ and carrying placards, rainbow flags, pledges of atheism and balloons made of condoms. One giant banner showing the Pope carrying a swastika was later taken down after offending many of the protesters, who went as far as complaining to the police officers lining the route of the march to Downing Street.

The emptiness of theology

The Head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, whom Ratzinger met during that visit to Britain, described him as one of the greatest theologians of his age and said throughout his life and ministry Benedict strove to direct people to Christ.

Richard Dawkings pictured eight years ago when he delivered a “Despise Theology” lecture at the Oxford Union.

All this blather about what an accomplished theologian Ratzinger brought to mind an article by Professor Richard Dawkins, above, headed The Emptiness of Theology published by the Center for Inquiry in 1998. In it he concluded:

The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything.  What makes anyone think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?

Today the media were at it again—this time making a song and dance about The Ratz’s funeral, and I guess it won’t be long before they start speculating as to whether the evil old bastard will be fast-tracked sainthood.

• If you spot any typos in this piece, please email me at freethinkered@aol.com. Use this address to send me links to stories you believe would fit well on this site.

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Barry Duke

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4 responses to “Was Ratzinger hit on the head with an ornate hammer to make sure he was dead and not just asleep?”

  1. Stephen Harvie Avatar
    Stephen Harvie

    He was a man who cared more about the reputation of the RCC than stopping the wholesale rape of children – that should be his epitaph.

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  2. Broga Avatar
    Broga

    The fawning of King Charles, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Prime Minister and a variety of other creeps is based on obvious fiction. And yet they still shame themselves by pandering to the RC Church. What their behaviour reveals is their lack of independent thinking which exposes them as dupes of the Vatican. There was a chance here to assert themselves, to reveal some moral courage and, most of all, give some moral leadership.

    Benedict V1 is described as a “great theologian” and I assume this means he is knowledgeable about the contents of the bible in all their detail. That knowledge means he knows of the many contradictions, the cruelties and the absurdities in the bible. He knows that much of the bible is contradicted by history. Even he, the presumed believer, could not have lived his life in accordance with God’s biblical requirements. In short, his “great theology” was an exercise in deceits and deceiving his followers.

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  3. Malcolm Dodd Avatar
    Malcolm Dodd

    This is an email I sent to fellow atheists on the day that the Rat died.

    The Rat has died aged 95; two days before, hundreds of millions were ordered to pray for him. They were likely praying for his survival when they should have been praying for the removal of this monster who – was a member of the hitler youth, acquiesced to child sexual abuse by a ‘mere’ 5% of clergy, enforced the RCC policies that create abject poverty, advocated strict birth control abstinence, advocated non-abortion in all circumstances, supported the female suffering inflicted by the nasty Albanian Theresa … etc, etc … all-in-all, the world is a better place now that the Rat is rotting in hell with his predecessors.
    What miracle will be conjured-up (and how quickly) to secure his sainthood?

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  4. Broga Avatar
    Broga

    Why did they pray for Benedict? The reason is that where religious belief is concerned the faithful have been conditioned to block all ideas, facts or sentiments critical of their beliefs and the priests who convey them. The survival of religious belief depends on this and so the attitude is ingrained into the faithful. Their minds are mesmerised into believing and acquiring methods of believing.

    As an example, some years ago, I provided two obviously contradictory examples from the bible to a tiresome acquaintance who kept trying to convert ,me. My question to her was to tell me which was true as the other must be false. (She insisted that the bible was totally “God’s truth.) Her response was, “If you read the bible prayerfully you will see there is no contradiction.”

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