Satan 666 Revisited

It's time to return to our semi-regular feature "Who Is Satan on Earth?" The latest news from Rome tells us that Pope Benedict (or Eggs, as INOTBB likes to call him) has the answer, and what's sad is he couldn't keep his predecessor Pope John Paul II away from the Anti-Christ. It seems that then-Cardinal Ratzinger nearly flipped when Pope John Paul invited Bob Dylan to take part in a Papal concert in Bologna. (Tellingly, Joseph Ratzinger did not opt to be Pope George Ringo I.) The UK Times on line reports:

The Pope’s chief aide, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was so appalled at the prospect of the pontiff sharing a platform with the “self-styled prophet of pop” that he tried his utmost to stop the spectacle. The Pope overruled him.

The cardinal, now Pope Benedict XVI, says in a book to be published next week that while he agreed with his predecessor on most matters, he did not share his liking for pop music. “There was reason to be sceptical, and I was,” Pope Benedict writes in the book, John Paul II, My Beloved Predecessor. “Indeed, in a certain sense I still am today.”

[...]

Pope Benedict has said that rock music is the work of Satan and last year he cancelled the fundraising Christmas pop concert at the Vatican, which under John Paul II had run for 13 years. He may have been wary of a repeat of the 2003 concert, when Lauryn Hill called on Church leaders to “repent” over sexual abuse by clergy, or 2005, when Daniela Mercury, the Brazilian singer, was dropped from the show in case she promoted the use of condoms to prevent Aids.

Pope Benedict is known to favour Mozart and Bach, and was always unlikely to enjoy chatting – as Pope John Paul II did – with singers. He opposes the use of guitars during Mass, telling priests that “the liturgy is not a theatrical text, and the altar is not a stage . . . It is important not to become merely actors in a spectacle.”

Now, as anyone who sat through folk masses in the late 60s and early 70s knows, keeping guitars out of the church is probably a good thing. But I don't think that's what Cardinal Ratzky-Watzky had in mind. Indeed, through the magic of the internets, INOTBB has discovered that the Pope's antipathy towards Bob Dylan goes way back--if you listen very carefully, you can tell there's a slight German accent to the man who infamously yells "Judas!" at Dylan for turning electric, a moment captured on bootlegs and finally on Live 1966. Indeed, further research shows Pope Eggs has no Dylan on his iPod after The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

Finally, one must not doubt Pope Eggs when he talks about the Devil. After all, he's known him intimately, having been part of his Boy Scouts back in his early days....