Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Helping out the Pope

Expanding his remit from commenting on how many copies of Susan Boyle's album has sold, HMV Smartking Gennaro Castaldo has now taken to offering advice to The Pope. If Benedict thinks he is infallible, he should find out how infallible Gennaro is.

Castaldo considers that The Priests were outselling the Pope's own record this week:

But there is hope for The Pope, according to Gennaro Castaldo of HMV, who advises his Holiness to keep at it and perhaps appeal to the masses next time.

"This is The Priests' second album, and they have a pretty decent following which crosses over into the mainstream," he said.

"It makes an ideal Christmas gift for many people while The Pope's record, 'Alma Mater', on the other hand, is a bit of a one-off recording, and has quite specialist appeal."

The Pope is believed to have spluttered a bit at this, and was still muttering 'I've played the bloody Yankee Stadium' as he tumbled to the ground.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Pope plans pop push

It's not entirely unprecedented for an announcement of a Christmas release of stuff by the serving Pope to be flagged up as a potential festive number one: after all, there's a lot of Catholics, and if they all go out and buy a record by the Pope, their heft alone should get it to the top of the charts, right?

It never actually happens.

Well known is the current Pope's opposition to rock music - it's Satanic, he reckons, and he's one of those people who has to pretend he believes in Satan like there really is one, so that's quite serious. Perhaps he'll be prepared to put in the hours to defeat rock in the Christmas charts, then. You know, popping up on Jonathan Ross' sofa; doing a couple of liturgies in session with Marc Riley, that type of thing.

Hating rock must make it hard for Benedict to find a label, though? Who's putting this one out?

Oh. Geffen. So, rock music is a force of Satan infiltrating the world's youth... but, hey, happy to work with the people who distribute it nevertheless. Nice to see moral certainty still as solid as ever at the Vatican, isn't it?

Meanwhile, the Times calls on an expert to provide a quote which straight-facedly pretends Benedict is in with a chance of the number one slot:

A spokesman for HMV said: “Besides a sizeable Christian community that will be interested in this recording for reasons of faith, it could potentially also tap into a wider audience drawn to its spiritual and calming content, especially in these rather turbulent social and economic times.

“Albums of monastic chanting were quite popular when they came out a few years ago, and just last year a CD of hymns and sacred arias by The Priests made it into the top ten - so there is definitely a market out there for religious-based content.

“A precedent was set by Pope John Paul II, whose voice was featured on the Abba Pater recording of prayers and meditations, which made it into the top 100 in March 1999.

“Coming out so close to Christmas this album could well prove a popular purchase among shoppers looking to for an ideal gift for their gran or aunt, although His Holiness Pope Benedict may well have to compete with the likes of Jay-Z, a rumoured Robbie Williams release and Susan Boyle for the Christmas No 1.”

An HMV spokesman? Has Gennaro now become like Yahweh himself, a name that cannot be uttered?

Vatican forgives Lennon

Catholicism has decided it's time to forgive John Lennon for saying that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus:

Semi-official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has run an article forgiving the late Beatle John Lennon for a controversial statement he made in 1966, when he claimed that his band were "more popular than Jesus".
[...]
The article said that Lennon's comments had been, "Showing off, bragging by a young English working-class musician who had grown up in the age of Elvis Presley and rock and roll and had enjoyed unexpected success."

I can't claim to be a theologian, but isn't the point of Christianity meant to be that forgiveness is unquestioning and more-or-less built-in to the whole concept? Shouldn't the Pope have forgiven Lennon as soon as he uttered the words anyway? The whole turning-the-other cheek thing?

It's also a bit odd that the Vatican is trying to pass Lennon's remarks off as the hotheadeness of a working-class youth. Let's leave aside the whole 'coming from a nice middle-class part of Liverpool and going to art college' as disqualification from claims to being working class, and instead return to Lennon's words in the Evening Standard back in 1966. Whatever you might want to think he said, Lennon wasn't having a pop at Jesus, but at the established church, and his words weren't braggadocio from a young guy with eyes full of Elvis but actually quite considered. Presumably this is why it's taken over four decades for the Vatican to come up with a response: had it engaged with Lennon at the time, it would have had a hard time making a case.

Oh, Madonna, you are so shocking

Let's hope that this is the last Madonna world tour for a while - at least long enough for her to think of something new. Because if she's so out of ideas she's reduced to trying to generate attention by shouting 'poo, willy, wee' ("by dedicating Like A Virgin to the Pope") while playing in Rome.

Amusingly, even the Italian press couldn't seem arsed to work up a froth about it:

"At the Roman leg of her tour, Madonna didn't miss the opportunity for a provocation that will certainly be discussed," Corriere della Sera said on its front page.

Almost certainly. Unless a dog runs past the window with a ham in its mouth, or Wolf from Gladiators gives an interview or something more interesting happens.

Pope versus Pope

The current Pope, never one to be confused with a children's performer, has grunted his disgust that the last Pope, the one that everyone liked, shared a stage with Bob Dylan:

Pope Benedict says that he “doubts to this day whether it was right to let this kind of so-called prophet take the stage” in front of the Pope. He admits that John Paul did get across a spiritual message that was otherwise largely “ignored by the entertainment industry”.

This has tied us in a bit of theological knot, here. Because the Pope is infallible, so to question the Pope must be heretical. And yet here's another Pope, suggesting the Pope was fallible. So, since the current Pope can't be wrong, the previous Pope must have been wrong. But the previous Pope couldn't be wrong, so the current Pope must be.

Unless, you know, it's all a load of old tosh that old guy gets to be always right simply by rising to the top of an organisation. There is that possibility.

Still, if Ratzinger thinks that Dylan is bad, he should try that Bryan Ferry covers album. Now, that is unholy.