Remember how the answer to any obviously yes question used to be, “Is the Pope Catholic?”  Use that at your own peril now.

It appears that the Pope may be just incidentally Catholic.

He’s rankled the REAL Pope.  Who has taken it to the Cardinal.  The Pope’s latest comments about Christianity vs. Capitalism have upset some folks.

Ken Langone, the Pope of Hammers

At issue is an effort to raise $180 million for the restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York being spearheaded by billionaire Ken Langone, the investor known for founding Home Depot, among other things.

Langone told CNBC that one potential seven-figure donor is concerned about statements from the pope criticizing market economies as “exclusionary,” urging the rich to give more to the poor and criticizing a “culture of prosperity” that leads some to become “incapable of feeling compassion for the poor.”

Langone said he’s raised the issue more than once with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, most recently at a breakfast in early December at which he updated him on fundraising progress.

And what did Langone whine to the Cardinal about?

“I’ve told the cardinal, ‘Your Eminence, this is one more hurdle I hope we don’t have to deal with. You want to be careful about generalities. Rich people in one country don’t act the same as rich people in another country,’ ” he said.

Oh yeah, rich people in America are way different than foreign rich people at getting camels through the eye of a needle.  To begin with, very few rich people in America have camels.

Cardinal Dolan

Langone rips off his workers for billions of dollars and then tosses a million to a restoration project to get his name on a church, just like Jesus said to do.

I cannot wait for Langone to make his plea of calling sacrificing the poor just “one more hurdle” to Jesus.  I’ve heard from moneychangers in the temple that Jesus has a bit of a temper.

And shame on Cardinal Dolan if he didn’t say, “Hey, Langone, kiss my funny red hat.”

I would have said that and I don’t even have a funny red hat.

Damn Hippies lining up for some of that marijuana.

Do you know what surprised me?  There weren’t more people in walkers and scooters.

The good news:  You can go to Colorado and buy pot.

The bad news:  You have to stay in Colorado to smoke it.  You cannot bring it home with you.

Let me tell you why they should let priests have s-e-x.  It would put them in a much better mood.

Robert J. Robbins at Our Church of the Saviour in Manhattan arrive on the scene last September.  Up until then, the church had rang their bell twice a day, at noon and then again 6:00 pm.  All was well.

Rev Robbins, however, decided that the bells should be rung hourly following a hymn from 8:00 am until 8:00 pm.

The neighbors complained.

It even made the New York Times.

“It’s so drilled into my head that, even when it’s not ringing, I still hear it,” said Tamara Kozlakowski, whose apartment is directly across the street from the church’s tower…”

It was deemed a bit much because the bells aren’t really bells, they are an electronic sound.

Rev. Robbines, however, saw things differently.

The pastor had not responded to neighbors’ requests to scale back the bells but had made his defiance plain in church newsletters, calling neighbors’ complaints “anti-Christian.”

The anti-Christians responded …

…a former concertmaster with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in Minnesota, said the bells were “like a torture” for his partner, who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer and is being deprived of crucial rest time during the day.

Mr. Tecco said he had been keeping a tally, which as of Friday approached 1,500 renditions of the “four-verse-hymn” that is tolled.

And an anti-Christian church member also responded …

A woman who lives in a building next to the tower and who is a member of Father Robbins’s congregation, said she, too, had told the pastor that she found the bells intrusive and largely unnecessary.

“He told me the message of the bells is that God is calling us to be better people,” she said.

So, the day after the New York Times article hit the newspaper with all the neighbors complaining, a miracle happened.  The bells magically rang all night long.  The whole damn night.  Nobody in a six block area got any sleep.  It was a miracle and obviously a sign from … uh, God?

After being contacted about the ringing by a reporter, Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, contacted Father Robbins about the nighttime ringing. The pastor, Mr. Zwilling said, called it a mechanical error and was apologetic about the disturbance it caused.

Nobody believes that.  Nobody.

So here’s the bottom line, I honestly believe that Rev. Robbins would be a much nicer person if (1) he would listen to God calling him to be a better person, and (2) he got laid occasionally.

But that’s just my guess and I’m pretty sure I’m right.

Thanks to Rick for the heads up.

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