you should make a topic named \"sage\'s controversy\":D:D:D

Well, I suppose that it\'s pretty easy to spend other people\'s money, isn\'t it? That\'s what makes being a pious Christian man as great as the pope so tough: you have to emotionally detatch yourself from your belongings and money and stuff.



Condensed, Mostly Accurate History Lesson:

One day, a long time ago, there was this group of people. They were the Hebrews, but for the most part they aren\'t important to this story. Then one day another group of chaps came along and formed Christianity, growing off of the same body of Hebrewism like a somewhat deformed second head. This upset the Hebrew people who then denounced the Christians, forming a new religion. In order to convey these religious beliefs to the stupid illiterate people of the Middle Ages, great stained glass picture windows were constructed and used to teach with. That part right there, it\'s important, as you\'ll see in a second.

A bit later, a crazy conqueror dude called Constantine came along and decided \"hey, this \'Christianity\' thing sounds pretty cool! I think I\'ll join up!\" (actually, he converted because his momma was Christian, but don\'t tell him I told you that.) Then, because Christians believed that there could be only one supreme ruler and jolly old Constantine sure as heck wasn\'t it, he tried to put a new perspective to it. After long sleepless hours and undoubtedly several bottles of alcoholic beverage, he made up a group of people called bishops to rule over different areas of his kingdom/empire/land. These people were to act as political and religious leaders, but mostly religious. The social ladder looked something like this:

Constantine-> Bishop-> Cardinal or something-> Town Priest-> Normal human beings

Then, after a long while of this, a group of bishops who were exceptionally intelligent and generally know-it-alls began to debate something: \"Should we use these huge stained glass pictures to convey our beliefs? People might start worshipping them as gods instead of... you know... God.\" So the Iconoclastic Something Or Other happened, dividing the religion of Christianity into the group of smart people (Byzantium and such) and group of illiterate, somewhat dumb people (Rome and others). The religion modded by Byzantium also is unimportant to this story, but the one from Rome is more relevant. It\'s name was Roman Catholicism, and that\'s where the \"Roman\" part came from.

In order to make everything flow easier, the Bishop of Rome decided to move himself up a peg, to take the title of Pope, and all that jazz. The hierarchy now looked like this for Roman people who were ruled religiously by the ex-bishop:

Constantine(possibly)-> Pope-> Bishop-> Cardinal or something-> Town Priest-> Mortal souls

That\'s how the Pope got his job. However, as was stated above, the title of pope was then as much a political spot as it was a religious one. The Pope had to raise money from peeps, and how better than with religion? Thus he began handing out indulgences and relics and stuff for money, raising an army and a whole bunch of other political stuff. Later, other deformed heads started to pop out of Roman Catholicism in protest to paying for repentence (such as Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc. etc.), but that\'s another story.

Anywho, the general gist is that from a purely historical standpoint, the title of Pope was as much political as religious until way later in history. Religiously, I dunno, since I\'m not Catholic. All in all, I don\'t see the importance of the pope, but I suppose he has done a rather large amount of good things, and should be commended for it and may he rest in peace eternal. Amen. Or something.

It\'s just because I love you Sage.