we have a papa

Dear George
I imagine you would’ve been one of the backers of Joe Ratzinger as the leader of your strange organisation, as he’s by all accounts a hard-line conservative, as I believe are you. The choice doesn’t surprise me, nor does it particularly interest me personally. I seem to recall he saw himself as a defender of the ‘true faith’, and if that meant limiting his cult to the really truly true believers, so be it. I’d be most happy of course if this meant reducing it to a cult of one, and then he dies, but I don’t think he’ll quite manage that in the handful of years left to him. Anyway, youse guys are all too shrewd to nibble away too much at the hand that feeds you, eh?
It rather amuses me that he was reported in the news this morning as having said, only a few years ago, that the other Christian denominations were ‘deficient’. Of course the Anglicans and others are making light of it all in their congratulations and encomiums, but it’s largely irrelevant to me. My own view accords more with one St Teabag, regular commentator over at the raving atheist, whose views I will quote here, with due corrections:
…what is the real difference between catholics and protestants? Some piddling variant in a story that is entirely unbelievable to those who were not brainwashed as children. If any religion has an intrinsic truth to it why is it so rare for non-religious people to become religious after thinking about it for a while? And by the same token, why are people who were brought up in some faith rejecting religion in such large numbers? I'd call it retarded, but that seems a bit unfair to the retards, most of whom are afflicted through no fault of their own.
I wouldn’t put things quite so stridently or unkindly, but the above is an indication of the confusion and exasperation we atheists feel when confronted with something so patently irrational, which yet holds such sway upon this tiny planet. I too felt the need to let off steam among my fellow unbelievers, and I posted this comment …
My guess is that pope joe will last till he's ninety-three at least. He looks v hale and hearty for a seventy-eight year old, a real never-say-die alpha type - so another 15 years of same old same old, only older, which is all right by me, it just means that by the end of it this cult will be more irrelevant and risible than ever, and in the mean-time we'll get fifteen years of free belly laughs at pompous pontifical pronouncements.
However, I take matters more seriously than this. Your church must be fought with the greatest weapon we humans have in our armoury, reason. By reason, I hope, it will finally be defeated.