I caught this bit of wonderful irony: "Pope calls for worshipers to remember 'essence' of Christmas", just before Santa rolled in last month and left it kicking around my browser through New Years.

 

I love that Pope Benedict XVI called on his followers to embrace the "essence" of Christmas while turning away from "the superficial glitter" of the holiday while wearing clothes made of gold and carrying a gold scepter encrusted with diamond and rubies after unveiling a huge (23 feet tall, 82 feet wide) elaborate nativity scene. The cognitive disconnect would be funny if the guy wasn't the leader of a religion with billions of adherents.

 

Thanks to Redditor electronics-engineer for pointing out the particulars of the story.

 

 

Are you on Twitter? Follow me (@sheagunther) there, I give good tweets.

 

And if you really like my writing, you can join my Facebook page.