For Those Of You Who Doubt Your Faith

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In Roman Catholic news, the new Pope is being asked to suspend Limbo. What is Limbo, you ask? Well, it's that state between Heaven and Hell where babies who haven't been baptized go. Having never been in Limbo myself I would have to say that it's eternal mediocrity. Nothing is fantastic nor is it really shitty.

Okay Michael, you probably wouldn't bring stuff like this to our attention unless something about it was stuck up in your craw. What is it this time?

It's the whole notion of the Pope suspending something that's supposed to be part of God's design. Ultimately it comes down to a question of just how much authority over the infrastructure of the universe does the Pope have. Apparently since there is a movement to have the Pope suspend Limbo it would suggest to me that he can arbitrarily suspend other states for the human soul.

Why not suspend Hell?

This kind of reminds me of that question that gets asked of God by people who are having a crisis of faith. Namely that question is: Why does God let bad things happen to good people? As somebody who is, by and large, agnostic it makes me feel somewhat vindicated to know that the answer to that question was another question: Why does the Pope let bad things happen to good people?

Or maybe there are too many people who believe the Pope has more power than he actually does. Let me state, for the record, the Pope is a human male and controls the universe as much as any other human male.

That is to say that if Heaven and Hell and Limbo exist it doesn't really matter what some guy with a miter and lots of grey hair has to say about its existence.

Doesn't it bother anybody in the Roman Catholic church that you can just start a petition to have parts of your religious tradition stricken from the record arbitrarily?

Maybe I'm missing the point on this one, but if something's been taught throughout the history of your religion why would you just up and decide to change it? That really doesn't do much to instill a sense of faith in the institution. It's like admitting that you were wrong. If you can be wrong about this one piece of the puzzle what's to say that you aren't wrong about other facets of your belief system?

I'm just saying is all.