The new Pope has been in the news recently; many people (including a large number of Protestants) regard him as a breath of fresh air. Joseph Hoffman (an Oxford scholar) disagrees. After much searching, Hoffman found the new Pope's personal prayer, tucked away in an obscure corner of the Vatican website:
Lord, make me an instrument of political persuasion:
Where there is pomp let me feign humility;
Where there is skepticism, sincerity;
Where there is tradition, anything that looks new and comes in white;
Where there is certainty, relativism;
Where there is light, gray;
Where there is doctrine, opinion.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
Do as be seen to be doing;
Change things as to pray for changes;
Be Pope as to be one of the boys who happens to be Pope;
Teach anything clearly as to listen to absolute drivel from nincompoops in ten languages, including Chinese, and pretend to take it seriously.
For it is in pretending that we are convincing,
It is in forgiving everyone anything that we look good,
And it is in chucking it all up in about eight years, more or less, that I am saved...
[
Joseph Hoffman's blog can be found here]
