Vatican says that cell phones and Internet are bad for the soul

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In yet another slide into both irrelevance and absurdity, the Catholic Church is now against "excessive" cell phone and internet use, claiming that it's harmful to one's spiritual life.

In a way, that's quite absurd ("souls" don't really exist and however annoying your Bluetooth habits are, you can sleep easy knowing that you're only harming the peace of those around you and gradually turning yourself into a mindless gabaholic) and untrue (in the US, Jesus is our Facebook buddy).

But on second thought, it does make some sense. The Catholic Church is an organization that (desperately) needs the attention of its members and every Sunday, and their Mass services compete with all other ways people could spend their time. (I heartily recommend sleeping in) People who are doing other things aren't attending Mass and therefore aren't getting brainwashed getting their weekly dose of Jesus. So naturally, it's in their best interest for such organizations to prohibit competing activities (which is one of the wonderful reasons why drunks can't buy alcohol on Sunday). To sum it up: more iGod = less God.

But the funny thing is that on this issue, I don't think they've quite figured out how to keep their story straight yet (unlike rock music, condoms, atheism, and enjoying sex) :

“Nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture,” he told a recent assembly of the Synod.

However, Pope Benedict has embraced many aspects of modern technology in order to convey the Catholic message to a young, tech-savvy audience.

Hilarious. So they like it when it spreads the meme but don't like it when it hurts the meme. Gee, who could've seen that coming?

Bonus! Moment-of-zen style picture:



Awwww. He's pretending to have a job that's valuable and useful.