I am proud to say that I have never personally mooned anyone from the altar of the Sistine Chapel. Nor have I ever hurled onto a crucifix. I have never felt moved to get drunk and mack out in the back pew of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Or encouraged a stripper to “work that pole” in the Vatican.
I have always striven to show the world’s religious monuments and icons (even the heretical ones) a measure of respect and reverence. Which is, apparently, less than I can say for the Dublin Wax Works in Ireland, which has inherited possession of the original 1970’s Popemobile and is about to begin renting it out for proms, stag parties and bachelorette binges.
Okay, granted, as a non-Catholic, there is something fun about the thought of sitting on a throne in a giant glass bubble, wearing a big hat and gold dress and throwing condom wrappers (with no condoms inside) at the throngs as someone drives me down a parade route. After all, there’s probably a three hour minimum and you gotta get your money’s worth.
But that is where I draw the line. I mean, it’s the Popemobile. Anything more than that is just bad taste.
Flashing your t**s at passing cars? Unseemly. Screaming the Louisiana fight song out the hermetically sealed windows? Vulgar. Losing your virginity in the back seat? Ironic, and a little hilarious…but indelicate.
No, I would treat the Popemobile with the esteem and veneration such a hallowed object deserves. I would use it to drive my Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and Jewish friends to the site of the New Inquisition (sponsored by Red Bull), where they would be tortured for believing something other than the Catholic faith.
Just like Pope Innocent IV did.
Good times.