Bergoglio's Beam

To what shall one compare this generation, in which even Jesuitical casuistry is not what it once was? The chief salesman for one of the world's most venerable fake-news outlets has denounced fake news, comparing it to the "false and alluring arguments" of the serpent in Eden; from which it is sadly apparent that the Pope, like so many true believers, has an embarrassing tendency to skim his Bible. In tempting Eve, the serpent makes two statements: that eating the forbidden fruit will not cause Eve to die, and that it will give her the divine attribute of knowing good and evil. Both statements are perfectly true; the liar in the story is God, who told Adam that he would die on the very day he ate the fruit. Having eaten the fruit and survived the tyrant's hissy-fit, Adam lived some nine hundred years; and being omniscient, God must have known when He warned Adam that His warning was false. Given the degrees of responsibility involved, the slanders of a pack of unscrupulous journalists and social-media mobsters are by comparison a mere mote in society's eye.