Revolution and Religion

"May our children be like Che." That's what Fidel Castro said when the remains of everyone's favourite doomed revolutionary were returned to Cuba. I will admit to being something of a devotee ( I even have a plush Che doll ) and I can't help running up to young folks on the street to make sure they know who the guy on their T-shirts is. I'm fond of "saints with rifles" ( I'm also a huge Malcolm X fan ) - somehow their willingness to support their views with armed resistence strikes me as more human than the dreamy practicioners of passivity and the travellers of the moral high ground. Paradoxically, Che was willing to execute deserters and prisoners while claming that a revolutionary can only be motivated by the highest form of love: the love for all humanity. In his own words: "I am the complete opposite of a Christ. I fight with whatever arms I have at hand for what I believe in and I try to destroy my opponent rather than letting myself be nailed to a cross."

I'm not Catholic - in fact, I'm normally quite hostile to organized religion in general - but, I couldn't help but perk up and take interest in the papal elections of last year. They went with the German guy, but my hopes were riding on Cardinal Francis Arinze. I was surprised to learn that, if he ever gets to wear the mitre and the Ring of the Fisherman, Arinze will not be the first African Pope - he will be the fourth! How do you get to be Pope anyway? Well, in a nutshell, you must garner two-thirds of the vote in the College of Cardinals. An interesting fact I discovered was that many different sizes of papal garments ( all manufactured by the same Italian family of clothiers ) stand at the ready depending on who ascends to the Papacy. When the bells of St. Peter's ring and all those people bow their heads to you, you don't want to be feeling a little tight in the trousers.