A PAPAL MANDATE

 “Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;
 The glory, jest and riddle of the world”:
 So Alexander Pope once summed us up,
 And any thinking person would say, “Yup,
 He’s nailed us there, nor have we learned since then
 To act more sanely and behave like men
 Not children with no sense of consequence:
 Bone headed, narrow minded, dumb and dense.
 But now, so much more powerful, we must
 At last outgrow our envy, pride and lust,
 And all the rest of our inherent errors
 Endangering confused, wayward wayfarers.
 Perhaps with this analysis by Pope
 We’ll rectify our ways—our only hope.

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