\u2026sends me the following with the caveat, \u201cThis is my brain on port\u201d:<\/p>\n
PARIS \u2013 (PEANUT) France\u2019s First Lady said that the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s teachings had left her feeling \u201cprofoundly seculare,\u201d departing from her post\u2019s traditional religious neutrality to accuse the Pope of \u201cdamaging\u201d countries in Africa with his stance on birth control. <\/p>\n
The daring Italian-born former supermodel and B-list popster risked enraging France\u2019s fifteen believers and other Catholic hordes by declaring that the Pontiff\u2019s proclamations showed that the Church needed to \u201cle evolve\u201d.<\/p>\n
In March, the Pope sparked controversy while on an Africa tour by nonsensically saying that the AIDs pandemic which has crippled the continent and killed millions \u201ccan\u2019t be resolved with the distribution of condoms; on the contrary, there is the risk of increasing the problem\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy said: \u201cI was born le Catholique, I was baptis-ehd, and in America I could have said I was ze altar girl, but een my life I feel profoundemot seculare.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI find that ze controversy coming from ze Pope\u2019s message \u2013 albeit distorted by le media \u2013 ees very damagique.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Afrique it\u2019s often Church people who look after seeck people. It\u2019s astonishing to see la differance between ze theory and ze realite, for le Church ees not realite, only people who luuuuuvvvv-ah, ees realite.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think eet\u2019s time le Church started evolvique on thees issue. As one holding a License in Sacred Theology and a Ph.D. een immunologique, and as one who has modeled for Givenchy, Dior, and Versace, I can speak authoritativle on thees.<\/p>\n
Zee Church presents le condome as le contraceptif which, incidentally, ze Church forbeeds, although it is zee only existing protection against la mort,\u201d she told Les Femmes de la Redditione de la France, the women\u2019s magazine. <\/p>\n
The comments will cause Mr Sarkozy embarrassment in a country where, despite a concept of secularism that makes America\u2019s \u201cseparation of church and state\u201d look like the camp meeting in Inherit the Wind, a majority of the population was born Catholic, baptised, and if they had been raised in America could say they had been altar girls or boys.<\/p>\n
Sauce Veloute, a constitutional historian said: \u201cIt\u2019s unprecedented for a first lady to criticise the Pope. Charles de Gaulle\u2019s wife was very Catholic and would never had taken up position, remaining very discreet. But then, she did not model for Guess? and de Gualle was a French man, perhaps the last one, and so the problem did not arise. The same was true of Bernadette Chirac, who, although married to a socialist, also did not model for Karl Lagerfeld.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my view, there is a certain obligation to keep counsel when one is the trophy wife of a head of state, such comments are not opportune. Given her public position the effects of her comments risk carrying more weight than just the personal views of Carla Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy. Besides, the move is passe \u2014 it is damaging to her image as a singer that she condemns the Pope, years after all the A-List stars have done so. Why, even Sinnead O\u2019Connor has condemned the Pope, and she only sings in a Galway pub after closing time. Carla\u2019s late outspoken-ness does not exactly make her the guitar-playing barmaid in Casablanca.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Sarkozy wrote in a 2005 book The Republic, Religions and Surrender: \u201cI acknowledge myself as a member of the Catholic Church,\u201d even if his religious practice was, he said, \u201cperiodic, especially near election time, like America\u2019s Catholic politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Mr. Sarkozy visited the Pope in Rome shortly after his election in 2007, he left his then girlfriend Miss Bruni-Enthoven \u2013 a single, unmarried mother, just like the Virgin Mary \u2013 in Paris to avoid \u201cle embarrassment.\u201d Sources close to the Sarkozys say the decision was sparked by fears that the Pope in Rome would have ordered the child to be kidnapped and baptized. The Pope in Rome\u2019s predecessor, Pius IX, provoked world outrage when he kidnapped Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish child, from his family for the same reason.<\/p>\n
After becoming one of Mr. Sarkozy\u2019s wives last year Mrs Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy has campaigned against the spread of Aids in Africa, unlike the Pope, who many believe wish to see the disease continue to spread. The Pope\u2019s stance against the use of contraceptives in Africa was roundly criticised in France \u2013 including by many Catholics, who were baptized, and might have said they were altar boys or girls if they had been raised in America. Some 43 per cent of them wanted the Pontiff to step down, according to one poll. <\/p>\n
Mrs. Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy\u2019s statements have also renewed rumors of an affair with U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama recently invited Catholic students at Notre Dame, America\u2019s premier Catholic university, to \u201cevolve into beings who could walk past an abortion clinic with the same sangfroid they might have walking past McDonald\u2019s.\u201d Sources close to the couple said the timing was pre-arranged. Others note that during a state visit last year, Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy and Obama were reluctant to display their affection in public. \u201cLe bise is simply a custom of greeting,\u201d said one, \u201cbut they were awkward, almost as if they felt guilty about something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy\u2019s statements were met with unanimous agreement by the world\u2019s best and brightest. \u201cI have to agree with Carla,\u201d said American philosopher Ron Howard, whose book, A Mayberry Epistemology: The Evil Queen Bavmoda and her Illuminati and Are Trying to Kill Us All, was hailed as a major breakthrough by medical ethicists. \u201cI\u2019m surprised they didn\u2019t try to kill her. They tried to kill us, you know, when we were filming the documentary Angels and Demons. Would you mind not shaking hands? This is a germ-free zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy\u2019s remarks were also met with an invitation by the University of Notre Dame to accept the Laetare Medal at the university\u2019s 2010 commencement ceremonies. Established in 1883, the Laetare Medal was conceived as an American counterpart of the Golden Rose of Trebizond, a Pope-in-Rome honor dating back to the Knights Templar. According to the University, the medal has traditionally been awarded annually to a Catholic \u201cwhose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.\u201d <\/p>\n
Seeking to forestall controvery, the university\u2019s president, Rev. John Jenkins, who was recently maligned by nutcases for allowing President Obama to voice his personal opinion about abortion and most definitely not for giving Obama an honorary degree, said that the University\u2019s decision to honor Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy did not conflcit with the American Catholic Bishops\u2019 2004 statement, \u201cCrushing American Democracy by our Dark Allegiance to the Pope in Rome.\u201d The statement says, \u201cCatholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenkins said that the award of the Laetare Medal to Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy was based on a re-imagining of the statement \u201csupported by ZOIC studios and canon lawyers we got drunk, who advised us that it pollys only to Calics who . .. . . BWARRFGGHHH . . . explisly renize thority of shursh teaching annact . . . HIC . . . inopen defiance offit. Wheressa John?\u201d Under this interpretation, Jenkins said, \u201cCrushing American Democracy\u201d would not apply to Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy because she feels that she is profoundly secular. Jenkins also said that he has \u201crepeatedly and clearly\u201d whispered down the patristics section of the Hesburgh Library that Notre Dame does not support Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy\u2019s belief that the Church should le evolve.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the same reason,\u201d Jenkins said, \u201cwe plan to confer an honorary degree in religious studies on Rev. Matthew Fox. We at Notre Dame believe that our reputation is maintained in part by our discernment in bestowing honors, and Rev. Fox\u2019s contributions to religious studies, particularly by advancing the Techno Mass, mixing the old and the new, the pagan, the Christian, the Jewish and more, certainly furthers that goal.\u201d Jenkins added that Fox was forbidden to teach theology by then-cardinal, now Pope in Rome, Joseph Ratzinger in 1988 and that Fox was expelled from the Dominican Order in 1992, and therefore awarding him a degree also does not conflict with the American Bishops\u2019 2004 statement.<\/p>\n
In an apparent reaction to the controversy, but without mentioning Bruni-Enthoven-Sarkozy or Notre Dame, Msgr. Benedetto Caetani, a Vatican spokesman, read the following statement:<\/p>\n
For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: \u201cBehold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms\u201d and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: \u201cThe spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man.\u201d This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to Peter and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, \u201cWhatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven\u201d etc. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God, unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It would appear that the whole \u201cFrance: Eldest Daughter of the Church\u201d thing is so *over*.<\/p>\n