For laughs and/or contemplation, I just wanted to post my one and only John Paul II experience. As anti-clerical, anti-church, anti-catholic, anti-religion, agnostic, and a general all-around SOB as I am, I can't believe how choked up I am over the passing of that old Pole. Life is strange.

The closest, physically, that I've ever gotten to the Pope was at Sauna Guaiba in Porto Alegre - the equivalent of Rio's 4x4 or L'Uomo, at least it was back then, 1985 or so. One fine day I walk in to get some "relax" when I notice that right behind the front desk there is a big, framed blessing from the Pope:

"The Supreme Pontiff, His Holiness John Paul II hereby confers the blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ upon SAUNA GUAIBA HOUSE OF THERAPEUTIC RELAXATION"

..or some words to that effect in fancy type, with a lithograph rendering of the Pope and a nice gold frame. Naturally, I ask the manageress, "WTF?!? How the hell did you get a blessing from the Pope?" Very simple, the Diocese needed to raise money for the Pope's visit to Porto Alegre (he came in 1980, I think), so they printed out hundreds of these "blessings" and whoever wanted one for their business bought one and had their name put on it. Then when the Pope came to town, he blessed the whole stack of these papers and there you go, John Paul II - albeit inadvertantly - blessed a whorehouse.

Now that I knew about them, I started noticing these blessings all over the place - restaurants, the auto-parts shop I used, the paint-supply place, etc - but I can't help but wondering what the Pope would have thought if he KNEW that he was blessing a whorehouse. Somehow, I think he would have blessed it anyway, after alll he was all about reaching out to every corner of the world....

Viva il Papa!

BS

I seem to recall reading somewhere that nuns used to do tricks on the side in order to raise money for their mission. When Hamlet told to Ophelia to "Get thee to a nunnery" he was not suggesting she lead a celibate life; nunnery was slang for brothel.