AdamSmith

The gay man who got a surprise call from the pope: ‘I would like to give you a hug’ By Dan Zak October 2 at 6:16 PM The Washington Post Yayo Grassi, left, and his partner, Iwan, meeting with Pope Francis at the Apostolic Nunciature on Sept. 23. (Marisa Marchitelli) Yayo Grassi’s phone rang in early September. “Is this Obdulio?” said the caller, using a nickname given to Grassi 50 years earlier by a high school teacher. “Who is this?” said Grassi, spooked. “Who else calls you ‘Obdulio’?” “Only one person,” Grassi said, “and I’m not going to talk until you identify yourself.” “This is Jorge Mario Bergoglio,” the pope said, using his given name, according to Grassi. “I would like to give you a hug when I go to D.C.” That hug — between the leader of the Catholic Church and a lifelong friend who is gay — came Sept. 23 at the Apostolic Nunciature during the pope’s first visit to the United States. Grassi put on a bright-blue checked blazer, brought along his boyfriend of nearly two decades, and embraced his former teacher in a sunlit parlor of the Vatican embassy. This quiet meeting came to light Friday, after the Vatican — responding to questions about the pope’s meeting with Kim Davis, the controversial Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to approve same-sex marriage licenses — clarified that hers was only one of many “brief greetings” within a larger audience on his visit to the Vatican’s embassy. [Pope Francis met with a same-sex couple the day before he met with Kim Davis] “The only real audience granted by the pope at the Nunciature,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, head of the Holy See press office, “was with one of his former students and his family.” That student was Grassi, 67, and that family was his boyfriend, Iwan. The embassy visit lasted about 15 minutes and consisted mostly of pleasantries. “We have taken up too much of your time,” Grassi said, after the pope blessed three of Grassi’s friends and asked them to pray for him, in Spanish in a video of the pope's visit. “No, by God,” the pope said, “thanks for coming by.” He then hugged Grassi, kissed his boyfriend twice on the cheek and said goodbye to the group. Grassi and Francis first met in their native Argentina, at Inmaculada Concepción high school in Santa Fe, where the future pope was a teacher. On Friday afternoon, a few hours after CNN broke the news of his papal audience, Grassi was cooking Argentine-style beef tenderloin at his home in LeDroit Park in Northwest Washington. His cellphone and land line were ringing off the hook. A team from ABC News was at the door in the rain, but Grassi politely shooed them away. The caterer had to prepare a dinner for 25 at the Phillips Collection by 4:30 p.m. But he was willing to chat for a couple of minutes about a friendship that he considers sacred. It began in 1964 and 1965, when Bergoglio taught Grassi Argentine literature and psychology. “He was an extraordinary teacher and a great mentor,” Grassi said, turning off his buzzing iPhone and lighting a Dunhill cigarette. “He kept pushing my horizons, to oblige me to keep looking. He asked me to put on the skin of my fellow man, to feel their pain.” Grassi’s mother used to cook gnocchi for Bergoglio when he visited the family home in Parana. Grassi, who learned to cook from his mother, has operated his own D.C. catering business since 2005. Before that he was the director of catering for the National Gallery of Art. Grassi moved to the District in 1978 and lost touch with his teacher until 2008, when then-Cardinal Bergoglio granted him an audience in Buenos Aires. Bergoglio became pope five years later, and Grassi reached out to Francis ahead of his first trip to the United States. A meeting was planned for Sept. 23. When news broke this week about Davis’s visit, Grassi decided to speak out. “Although I didn’t know any details, I knew immediately that [Francis] had nothing to do with this, that this was arranged by other people without telling him the real character” of Davis, Grassi said in his kitchen, checking on the tenderloin. “I received, from friends of mine, a lot of quite disturbing mail, telling me that: ‘This is your pope, look what he did,’ and ‘He’s a coward.’ And my defense is, we don’t know anything. Just wait until things come out. And I’m extremely pleased that I was right. And I never had any doubt that I was right.” The Vatican was far less definitive, and it described the meeting as a routine visit between friends. Grassi, Lombardi said, “had already met other times in the past with the pope” and asked to introduce “several friends to the pope during the pope’s stay in Washington, D.C. As noted in the past, the pope, as pastor, has maintained many personal relationships with people in a spirit of kindness, welcome and dialogue.” The Vatican on Friday similarly played down the significance of the Davis visit, which opponents of same-sex marriage had hailed as validation of their cause. The Vatican said the meeting was initiated by the papal embassy — not Francis himself — and was not meant as an endorsement of all of Davis’s actions and views. In 2010, when Francis was still a cardinal in Argentina, Grassi read media reports that his former teacher had condemned the country’s legalization of same-sex marriage. So he sent a long e-mail to the cardinal expressing his disappointment as a gay man. “I stood firm on my position,” Grassi said of what he wrote. “And I ended the e-mail saying: ‘Don’t think it was easy for me to write this e-mail, but I had to do it. And I think it was the right thing to do because 40 years ago you taught me I had to do it.’ ” The cardinal — who as pope would respond, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay priests — responded that his words had been cherry-picked and twisted by the media, according to Grassi, and that the reported sentiment was not true. “He wrote back to me, telling me, first of all, how sorry he was that he had hurt my feelings, that he had hurt me,” Grassi said. “One of the things he said on that e-mail was that ‘I want you to know that in my work there is absolutely no place for homophobia.’ And I think that’s what I want people to know.” With that, the alarm for the tenderloin began to beep, and it was back to work. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-gay-man-who-got-a-surprise-call-from-the-pope-i-would-like-to-give-you-a-hug/2015/10/02/41c9f65e-6927-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html

Check is in the mail.

Yes, precisely: serves us flaming lefties right. So to speak.

Hmm. VATICAN CITY (AP) The Vatican on Friday distanced Pope Francis from Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who went to jail for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, saying she was one of dozens of people the pope greeted in the U.S. and that their encounter "should not be considered a form of support of her position." http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pope-francis-kim-davis-vatican-statement-not-support

Not exactly a joke, but anything by ol' Ben... The Drinker's Dictionary is a list of 228 "round-about phrases" to describe drunkenness, published by Benjamin Franklin in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1737. Franklin considered drunkenness a vice, and his intention was to ridicule inebriation in order to promote temperance. This list was meant to expose euphemisms and ‘weasel-words’ of drinkers who would rather use any expression besides flat-out saying someone was drunk. “Drunkeness is a very unfortunate Vice…it bears no kind of Similitude with any sort of Virtue, from which it might possibly borrow a Name; and is therefore reduc’d to the wretched Necessity of being express’d by distant round-about Phrases…understood to signify plainly that a man is drunk.” – Benjamin Franklin A note from Mr. Franklin: “The Phrases in this Dictionary are not (like most of our Terms of Art) borrow’d from Foreign Languages, neither are they collected from the Writings of the Learned in our own, but gather’d wholly from the modern Tavern-Conversation of Tiplers. I do not doubt but that there are many more in use." The Drinker's Dictionary A He is Addled, He’s casting up his Accounts, He’s Afflicted, He’s in his Airs. B He’s Biggy, Bewitch’d, Block and Block, Boozy, Bowz’d, Been at Barbadoes, Piss’d in the Brook, Drunk as a Wheel-Barrow, Burdock’d, Buskey, Buzzey, Has Stole a Manchet out of the Brewer’s Basket, His Head is full of Bees, Has been in the Bibbing Plot, Has drank more than he has bled, He’s Bungey, As Drunk as a Beggar, He sees the Bears, He’s kiss’d black Betty, He’s had a Thump over the Head with Sampson’s Jawbone, He’s Bridgey. C He’s Cat, Cagrin’d, Capable, Cramp’d, Cherubimical, Cherry Merry, Wamble Crop’d, Crack’d, Concern’d, Half Way to Concord, Has taken a Chirriping-Glass, Got Corns in his Head, A Cup too much, Coguy, Copey, He’s heat his Copper, He’s Crocus, Catch’d, He cuts his Capers, He’s been in the Cellar, He’s in his Cups, Non Compos, Cock’d, Curv’d, Cut, Chipper, Chickery, Loaded his Cart, He’s been too free with the Creature, Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap, He’s Chap-fallen. D He’s Disguiz’d, He’s got a Dish, Kill’d his Dog, Took his Drops, It is a Dark Day with him, He’s a Dead Man, Has Dipp’d his Bill, He’s Dagg’d, He’s seen the Devil. E He’s Prince Eugene, Enter’d, Wet both Eyes, Cock Ey’d, Got the Pole Evil, Got a brass Eye, Made an Example, He’s Eat a Toad & half for Breakfast. In his Element. F He’s Fishey, Fox’d, Fuddled, Sore Footed, Frozen, Well in for’t, Owes no Man a Farthing, Fears no Man, Crump Footed, Been to France, Flush’d, Froze his Mouth, Fetter’d, Been to a Funeral, His Flag is out, Fuzl’d, Spoke with his Friend, Been at an Indian Feast. G He’s Glad, Groatable, Gold-headed, Glaiz’d, Generous, Booz’d the Gage, As Dizzy as a Goose, Been before George, Got the Gout, Had a Kick in the Guts, Been with Sir John Goa, Been at Geneva, Globular, Got the Glanders. H Half and Half, Hardy, Top Heavy, Got by the Head, Hiddey, Got on his little Hat, Hammerish, Loose in the Hilts, Knows not the way Home, Got the Hornson, Haunted with Evil Spirits, Has Taken Hippocrates grand Elixir. I He’s Intoxicated, Jolly, Jagg’d, Jambled, Going to Jerusalem, Jocular, Been to Jerico, Juicy. K He’s a King, Clips the King’s English, Seen the French King, The King is his Cousin, Got Kib’d Heels, Knapt, Het his Kettle. L He’s in Liquor, Lordly, He makes Indentures with his Leggs, Well to Live, Light, Lappy, Limber. M He sees two Moons, Merry, Middling, Moon-Ey’d, Muddled, Seen a Flock of Moons, Maudlin, Mountous, Muddy, Rais’d his Monuments, Mellow. N He’s eat the Cocoa Nut, Nimptopsical, Got the Night Mare. O He’s Oil’d, Eat Opium, Smelt of an Onion, Oxycrocium, Overset. P He drank till he gave up his Half-Penny, Pidgeon Ey’d, Pungey, Priddy, As good conditioned as a Puppy, Has scalt his Head Pan, Been among the Philistines, In his Prosperity, He’s been among the Philippians, He’s contending with Pharaoh, Wasted his Paunch, He’s Polite, Eat a Pudding Bagg. Q He’s Quarrelsome. R He’s Rocky, Raddled, Rich, Religious, Lost his Rudder, Ragged, Rais’d, Been too free with Sir Richard, Like a Rat in Trouble. S He’s Stitch’d, Seafaring, In the Sudds, Strong, Been in the Sun, As Drunk as David’s Sow, Swampt, His Skin is full, He’s Steady, He’s Stiff, He’s burnt his Shoulder, He’s got his Top Gallant Sails out, Seen the yellow Star, As Stiff as a Ring-bolt, Half Seas over, His Shoe pinches him, Staggerish, It is Star-light with him, He carries too much Sail, Stew’d Stubb’d, Soak’d, Soft, Been too free with Sir John Strawberry, He’s right before the Wind with all his Studding Sails out, Has Sold his Senses. T He’s Top’d, Tongue-ty’d, Tann’d, Tipium Grove, Double Tongu’d, Topsy Turvey, Tipsey, Has Swallow’d a Tavern Token, He’s Thaw’d, He’s in a Trance, He’s Trammel’d. V He makes Virginia Fence, Valiant, Got the Indian Vapours. W The Malt is above the Water, He’s Wise, He’s Wet, He’s been to the Salt Water, He’s Water-soaken, He’s very Weary, Out of the Way.

You know, I wonder what we thought we could expect of him. He is Catholic, and Pope, after all. I welcome whatever good he can bring to humanity. As for the rest -- the broad social tide is turning in our favor. My personal view is that organized religion is an Iron Age mode of thinking and perceiving that, the sooner we are shed of it and the many shadows it casts on our thinking, feeling, social organization and so on, the better.

"Does the Pope shit in the woods?"

My thoughts and hopes for him and a good outcome.

True of course.

One of those not-jokes.

Admirably Lovecraftian rhetoric!

Just the usual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronomicon

For those like me whose skies will be overcast tonight, here's how to watch the lunar eclipse. Supermoon Lunar Eclipse Rises Tonight: Watch It Live in Slooh Webcast https://www.yahoo.com/news/supermoon-lunar-eclipse-rises-tonight-watch-live-slooh-110441890.html