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Scandal: The Pope Poops In a Port-o-Potty

Scandal: The Pope Poops In a Port-o-Potty

Last updated on: March 27, 2017 at 2:13 pm by Mary Pezzulo

Scandal: The Pope Poops In a Port-o-Potty 2017-03-27T14:13:23-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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I wouldn’t expect much from a site calling itself “Novus Ordo Watch.”

Well, I take that back. I would expect foaming-at-the-mouth nonsense, and that’s just what I got.

My attention was drawn today to a short, un-credited article in Novus Ordo Watch, which I’m linking to for citation purposes but I don’t expect anyone should actually read. It’s neither enlightening nor entertaining. The article provides both a video and a photo of reporters swamping around our Holy Father Pope Francis, who is barely visible in the crowd, as he ducks into a red port-o-potty for a minute. He didn’t wave to the crowd as he entered and exited; he just stepped in. The only way I could tell it was His Holiness was that I could see his zucchetto.

Apparently, this is horrendous scandal. According to Novus Ordo Watch:

Yes, we all have to take care of business at some point, but there’s a discreet way of doing it and then there’s the Francis way: During his trip to Milan, Italy, today, “Pope” Francis decided to use a portable toilet in front of rolling cameras, presumably to once again demonstrate to the world his great “humility.”

Um, that’s one way of interpreting it. Maybe the Pope just had to go. He’s an old man, and sometimes old men have to go.

Francis is no dummy. He knows that such a thing — in front of reporters and countless people with cell phones that record audio and video — will be front-page news the next day and within seconds all over the internet. One can only imagine the indecent remarks that will accompany the images.

What an utter public humiliation of the Papacy! Not that the man is actually the Pope, but that doesn’t matter in this case — virtually everyone believes him to be, and this is what does all the damage to the Papacy in people’s minds.

Public humiliation of the Papacy? What could you possibly mean? He didn’t lift up his cassock and take a dump on the sidewalk, he went to the bathroom. Quietly, without drawing attention to himself. What is the scandal here?

I’ve never been to Milan, so I can’t exactly provide you with a map, but I don’t see any McDonald’s or convenience stores in that short video clip– none of the places an old man could step inside and use the public bathroom, if he didn’t want to use the port-o-potty. And he did not draw attention to himself in any way. I guess he could have slipped off his zucchetto hat to disappear into the crowd, but unlike never using a port-o-potty, never being bare-headed in public actually IS a tradition for the Holy Father. It apparently dates back to the days when monks and friars were tonsured– the skull cap known as a zucchetto was to cover the tonsure and give bishops, cardinals and the Pope an added sign of dignity.

Maybe there’s some other tradition I don’t know about, and that’s what’s gotten Novus Ordo Watch so up-in-arms, but I doubt it. If it turns out that there’s some kind of Ceremonial Papal Diaper, made of red embroidered silk and available only from certain thousand-year-old Italian haberdasheries, worn before Vatican II and then abandoned by everyone except Pope Emeritus Benedict, I will print this blog post out on thick paper and eat it. And then I’ll need to go to the potty.

And what kind of “indecent” remarks would be made about such a non-incident? Other than the ones being made in Novus Ordo Watch’s rant, I mean? Most people over the age of six don’t make poop jokes when they see someone duck into a port-o-potty. If seeing someone go into the bathroom spurs you to make indecent remarks, I think you should probably be kept in a daycare while your Mommy and Daddy are at work, because you shouldn’t be in public and certainly not writing articles. It’s just a port-o-potty. Grow up.

The Sebach brand, which is the company that made the portable toilet, will now be able to advertise its product as “the Pope’s toilet”, and comedians all over the world will have a field day cracking jokes about the Papacy and (what they think is) the Catholic Church.

As always, you can thank Frank!

THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WILL HAPPEN. Product Placement: very un-Papal. And nobody ever called Pope Benedict “Papa Prada,” either. Oh, wait.

As for comedians having a field day, the only one I know of so far is me, making fun of you. Not making fun of a man in his seventies who had to go to the bathroom while traveling in Milan. That’s not good comedy. My only sentiment toward the Holy Father is being sorry for him having to use a port-o-potty, and hoping he had hand sanitizer. That’s what decent people do when an old man has to go. They don’t make poop jokes and they don’t bewail the scandal of the old man going to the potty in spite of the risk of poop jokes. They get the man some hand sanitizer.

For crap’s sake, Novus Ordo Watch. And I do mean that literally. For crap’s sake, get a life.

(image via Pixabay)

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