Ben Nelson

I was hoping-- when I saw her in the video below-- that Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was finally going to confess she had gotten drunk at a congressional St. Patrick's Day party a couple years ago, puked in the lady's room and then snuck out without cleaning up, only to then cower in fear that her crazy colleague from southern Ohio, Mean Jean Schmidt, had slipped in the vomit and ruined her dress. But no, it was just about persuading God to help Republicans keep people from getting healthcare.I spent nearly the whole day yesterday, starting at 8:30 AM, in the Vatican. It was wonderfully uplifting. I've been there several times before, but never with an art historian nor with any kind of a guide. This time my docent, Sarah, took me through the vast art collection-- or at least a part of it; it would take weeks to see it all-- and helped me understand that most of the popes had more to do with commissioning and collecting art-- and in the Baroque Period, primarily as propaganda-- than they did with anything remotely spiritual or even "religious." Glorifying their noble families' names-- it wasn't until 1978, with the election of John Paul I as the 263rd pope, that a man not of aristocratic family ascended to the papacy; he was murdered after 33 days-- was the name of the game for many; temporal power was what it was about for even more.Sarah went to Catholic school when she was a girl, which, I assume is where she lost her religion and became, I'm guessing, an atheist. She was happy to repeat all the phony baloney Vatican propaganda as we traipsed through the museums, the Sistene Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica , assuring me, when I pressed her, that none of it was remotely true. But the art was so inspiring and... divine. Look at that wonderful Pietà by the then 23 year old unknown Michelangelo above! It's breathtaking. (If you can't make it to Rome, there are authorized duplicates at the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Poznań, St. John's Cathedral in Bundang, Korea, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Brasília, Brazil, St. Mary's Parish, Spring Lake, MI, St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, Cathedral of Our Lady of Refuge in Matamoros, Mexico, the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis and at St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie in Yonkers, New York.)Somehow I doubt many people look at this sublime work, or the authorized copies, and think about how healthcare for American families must be derailed by God's intervention. But then I've never met deranged religious fanatics like Jim DeMint (an admitted member of the DC-based religio-fascist cult called The Family ), Sam Brownback and Michele Bachmann. The Founding Fathers had, though, which is why they took such pains to erect a wall between Church and State, a wall these fanatics are determined to tear down. They very much want religion-- particularly their inauthentic religion to have a hand, to put it mildly, in public policy so it can be used the way authoritarians have used religious hocus pocus since the beginning of history. Sometimes we lose track of how much less bad Democrats like Obama,and even Rahm Emanuel are than Republicans. Now, please, watch Rachel Maddow put this all in context while I go tour the fabulous Colosseum , a place where a wall between church and state was never contemplated.Sarah didn't bother to walk over herself but she encouraged me to take a peek at the glassed-in open casket of Pope John XXIII who died in 1963. Popes are usually buried downstairs but this one is supposed to be an example of incorruptibility so he's hanging out upstairs where he's hard to miss (under the wax that encloses his body). It's macabre. Yogandanda, who's at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, was certified incorruptible before he was embalmed in 1952. Anyway, the current head of the Church announced today that he's movin' twopopes, John Paul II and Pius XII-- but not John XXIII-- along the road to sainthood . Like the current head of Catholics, Inc., the non-incorruptible Pius XII, was a detestable Nazi stooge. By pairing the loathed Nazi pope with the loved JP II, Benedict probably hoped there wouldn't be as much of a stink. Next stop for these two is beatification.And... the healthcare reform bill, now mutated into an unrecognizable form as one conservative lackey after another threw a tantrum and was placated, looks like it has the requisite 60 votes to overcome the GOP filibuster. Nelson feels the ability for backward, racist states to opt out of abortion coverage for poor women is good enough for him.

Labels: Benedict, Brownback, Catholic Church, church-state separation, DeMint, health care reform, Michele Bachmann, Pope John Paul II, Rachel Maddow