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For the New Pope

Recently David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial board asked readers to say what they would do if they were the new pope. Hardly to my surprise, he didn't publish my response. Perhaps you will.

If I were the new pope I would begin with a long list of apologies.

I would apologize for burning to death millions of "witches" for failing to renounce their pre-Christian religions as the Church consolidated its hold over Europe.

I would apologize for driving all the Muslims and Jews out of Spain save those Jews who renounced their religion and adopted Catholicism.

I would apologize for torturing and killing "crypto-Jews" who had purportedly not truly renounced Judaism and still practiced it in secret.

I would apologize for murdering and torturing Anabaptists, Catharists, Protestants, and other heretics.

I would apologize for stymying the whole development of science and free thought, until their impetus was irresistible, by persecuting those who discovered new perceptions and theories to explain nature.

I would apologize for suppressing life-affirming pantheistic perceptions within the Church that link God with Nature, and for enforcing a punitive dualistic theology on those who know that it is nonsense.

I would apologize for terrifying children with a vision of eternal hellfire.

I would apologize for blessing the instruments of war and lending theological legitimacy to every imperialist and nationalist bloodbath in Europe.

I would apologize for being Francisco Franco's right arm as he crushed the Spanish Republic and killed ten of thousands of opponents.

I would apologize for being the largest single interest group opposing effective birth control and helping to bring on an era when only genocide and AIDS will be able to stop the population explosion's relentless rape of the planet.

I would apologize for presenting to the Church's incredulous followers a religion not backed by an esoteric wisdom but presenting something that is merely neurotic, fear-driven, patriarchal projections upon the universe

I would then go to the grave of Giordano Bruno, a mystic immolated by the church, and leave a wreath on top of it to symbolize a new era.

Last, I would plead with Matthew Fox to forgive the Church for expelling him for his pantheism and beg him to consider being the new pope in my stead.

--John Coelho