Samantha Bee’s latest segment for The Daily Show — focusing on the Vatican’s recent condemnation of American nuns’ top priority (poverty relief, at the expense of politicking “social issues”) — serves as a nice addendum, I think, to my previous blog’s focus on the Church.
Of particular note is the featured ex-Mafioso’s description of how one must comport oneself in a hierarchical structure: “There’s a chain of command. It must be followed. Period.”
The reformed mobster mentions another governing principle of the Mafia that cannot help but recall the Vatican’s (Archbishop/Cardinal/Pope Joseph Ratzinger’s) shielding of thousands of pedophile priests over the decades: “Keep your fuckin’ nose clean. Mind ya’ business!” As Ms. Bee satirically observes, “he understands the code that the Vatican lives by.” (Ouch!)
But as I’ll explain in my next blog, this patently corrupt “code” is hardly restricted to priests and Pope Benedict (any more than it was limited to Paterno and Penn State)…
Next: A Striking Lack of Empathy, Part II: LIBOR, Iraq-Syria, and Us