The other day Pope Benedict XVI got a whole lot of people upset with him for saying, among other things, that Protestant churches aren’t really churches. He said they’re karaoke bars.

Ha, that was me having fun all by myself again. What he said was Protestant “organizations”, or “dealies”, “do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church.” So they can’t be called churches “in the proper sense”. If you don’t have a constitutive element of a thing, you can’t be that thing.

This is quite clear. So if you don’t have a constitutive element of a trucker, such as a truck, say, you can’t be a trucker. Or if you don’t have a constitutive element of a world leader, you can’t be a world leader. You can be a factional leader. Or, if you have a truck, you can be a trucker. But not a world leader.

Some popes, like the last one, just seem to be angling for a Nobel Peace Prize every step of the way, until we frankly get sick of them. I know I was. And some popes, like this one, are refreshingly free of that Nobel Peace Prize-groveling taint.

I mean, who needs world ecumenical leadership anyway? If you’re going to have a church, shouldn’t you think it’s the best damn church ever? Even all the way to Hell? I mean, if not, what’s the point? Pope Benedict doesn’t owe the Protestants any favors.

So I don’t go along with these people who say Pope Benedict XVI is being divisive. I think what he’s saying is just something on the order of, “You’re baby is uglier than my baby. Ha, ha, look at your ugly, ugly, baby! How can you stand having such an ugly baby? I’d drown that baby if it were my baby. DAMN, that is one butt-ugly baby!” What’s wrong with saying things like that?

I’ll tell you who’s being divisive. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki is being divisive.

Let’s say I’m at a party with my wife. Not a current wife or any wife I’ve ever had, but a “wife” for the sake of illustration. Let’s say she says we should leave the party while I’m just getting my groove on, if you know what I mean. I’ve only had, say, two beers. I’ve only flirted with two or three other women. I’ve only once done my patented, guaranteed-to-win-comments lap-dance. Just getting STARTED. And she says, “It’s time to go home, HONEY” with that Nancy Pelosi-ish emphasis on the honey that means it was time to go before I ever got here.

Let’s say my wife and I are having it out over this, and I’m saying, “Oh, no I’m NOT leaving,” and she’s saying, “Oh, yes you ARE,” over and over again, and let’s say the host of the party comes over and says, “It’s alright, Dr. Browning, we won’t mind if you two leave early.”

You see what that is? That’s divisive. He’s about to be punched.

OK, maybe that illustration was too abstract. Let’s try this. I’m having my soldiers duke it out in some foreign country with, um, belligerent sectarian factions, and I’m telling my people back home that I can’t pull my troops out to safety because they have a mission to complete, and this jerk comes over and says, “We can handle this. You can go, anytime.”

That is divisive behavior unbecoming of a puppet.

In fact I would go so for as to say that man lacks a constitutive element of puppethood. He is not a proper puppet at all. How am I supposed to milk this conflict to the advantage of my friends while using it to distract the American people from the way I am ruining their country, if the so-called Prime Minister won’t back me up?

What kind of satellite are we running there?