An Open Letter to Pope Benedict

Dear Your Holiness,

Tonight, I forgive you for the way you treated Galileo.

I sit before my monitor, snow coming down, Winter Storm Watches issued and re-issued and updated, rivers rising, mercury dropping, and I’m waiting for the lights to go out.

The trees crowd the powerlines, here, and the snow can pile up on the branches and snap them off and they knock out the power. I’m up a narrow little valley, not built on seven hills, and my city is not eternal. My house was built in 1965.

Anyway, I’ve already lit my candles, so if the lights go out, I’ll at least be able to see my way to the bathroom.

It’s the candles that I’m writing about. They’re the long burning prayer candles that you get in Mexican groceries. I have six of them; two plain, two with San Martin Cabbelero, one Nativity, and one where the label is peeling off, but I like to think it’s Saint Francis. (St. Francis was always my favorite saint. I think people should be nicer to animals, don’t you?)

It does not escape me that without you, God, St Peter and all the Catholics down in Mexico who come up here and open groceries, I would not have those candles, and I would most likely spend the greater part of this evening in the dark. (Please curb your inclination to see that metaphorically; it is only to be taken for it’s literal meaning.)

So I just thought I’d drop you a line and tell you how much I appreciate the candles. Sorry I haven’t been more in touch lately. Anyway, in “light” of all of this, I guess I can forgive you for what you did to Galileo.

But could you please be a bit nicer to gay people?

Your devoted acolyte,

Frank