Video Tuesday: Frank the Hippie Pope

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Today's featured video is a from TheLutheranSatire series, a project of Hans Fiene, Pastor at River of Life Lutheran Church in Channahon, Illinois, and a frequent contributor to The Federalist.

It's very funny.

Any serious Catholic or Lutheran knows that there are fundamental differences between the two faiths (one of the quotes at the end of the video reminds us of this). But in general I think the video highlights the fact that faithful and orthodox Christians from different traditions are now united in many things, including unfortunately a growing annoyance and distaste (to put it mildly) for Pope Francis.

From this selfish Catholic's point of view, someone like Hans Fiene would seem to be good convert material. But of course, all Catholic apologists are working with a major handicap now. It's like that Kurt Vonnegut story where everyone is forced to be equal. The graceful dancers are strapped with weights and the beautiful people wear ugly masks. To me, the Catholic faith is the obvious default for Christians. It's the most logical and reasonable alternative, especially for students of history. So to compensate they have to hang a hippie pope around it.

For the fun of it, I've reprinted a few of the YouTube comments. You get a good sampling of opinions-including some from a few atheists. But as far as I can tell, the plurality if not the majority of the commenters on this one are Catholic.

I'm a Catholic and I found this immensely funny. Well done. 

I'm a serious Catholic, a lay Dominican, and I find the Pope's approach to media inquiry confusing and unsettling. What's with this? 

I'm a Catholic. This is hilarious.

Then there's the inevitable, it's-all-the-media's-fault soapbox crank:

I liked this channel until this video. Oh and it's not what Papa Francisco is saying, it's what the media is misinterpreting then feeding to our gullible society. 

By the way, why do so many of the it's-all-the-media's-fault people pull the "I liked you until..." thing? I've gotten that myself a million times. They're just like your bitchy ex-girlfriend.

Finally, there's this comment from someone who practically defines "charity":

I don't mind making fun of people who have unreasonable beliefs, but this is going a bit far. He may not be the best Pope we've had, but he's trying.

Oh, man, as much as I disagree, I just want to hug that kid.