Pope Alert - New Wheels

The Pope held his first general audience today in Rome, but that is hardly the news of the day. No, the biggest papal story of this lovely spring day is how the Pope got to St. Peter's: "Benedict arrived in St. Peter's Square in an open-topped jeep-like vehicle surrounded by security guards." That's right, he's been Pope for like 8 days and he has already ditched the Popemoblile.

Personally, I think this is a PR mistake of catastrophic proportions for the Church. Think of it this way, we were all understandably upset when Val Kilmer took over for Michael Keaton in Batman Forever, and even more so when they ditched the real genius for George Clooney in Batman and Robin (and please don't even get me started about the Christian Bale nightmare that is about to be released upon us all). Thing this was, though, as many times as the actor changed, he still had the Batmobile so he was still Batman - heck, throw Jonathan Lipnicki in the Batmobile and I'll probably buy him as the Dark Knight, but put Michael Keaton in a minivan and he just isn't Batman. I just don't know if I can look at a guy riding around in something other than the Popemobile and think of him as the Pope.

I'm not sure the Church can deal with this kind of dramatic recasting of one of its biggest stars at this point in time. Mass attendance is down all over the US and Europe and now they take away the Popemobile, this does not bode well. Sure each Pope likes to put his own stamp on the Church, but come on...I mean, did anybody watch the Dukes of Hazard for Bo and Luke (or Vance and Coy for that matter) - no, you watched for Daisy and the General Lee....The Catholic church doesn't have a Daisy** and now the Pope is ditching the General Lee for a frickin Fiat SUV!! Not good times....




**Sure Arinze is a looker, but he doesn't have the legs to pull off jams, much less cut-off jean shorts.