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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Pope's new camera
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Simon
Editor
# 1
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Posted
Joke submittted by Ariel:
The Pope woke up early one morning with a huge erection. Thinking that it wasn't very Catholic, he tried to get rid of it. Unfortunately, walking around the room, thinking about the Bible and even getting some fresh air on the balcony all failed to soften him up. With only one option left, he sat down on the balcony and did what needed to be done.
Later, he was walking around Rome when a man with a camera approached him. "Hello, Mr Pope," the man said. "Six o'clock this morning, on the balcony, I think you know what I'm talking about."
"I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean," the Pope replied.
"Oh, I think you do," the man retorted, "and 50 thousand will buy you the camera."
Worried and confused, the Pope paid up and took the camera.
Back in the Vatican, one of the Pope's aides asked about the camera. "A chap in town sold it to me for 50 thousand," the Pope explained.
"50 thousand?!" exclaimed the aide. "Wow, he must have seen you coming."
[ 15. July 2005, 09:15: Message edited by: Simon ]
Poll information
This poll contains 2 question(s). 95 user(s) have voted.
You can't view the results of this poll without voting.
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Eternal memory
Posts: 3787 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2001
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
I enjoy puns, and found this one mildly amusing. I think the joke would be funnier if the pope had not been on the balcony - masturbating in open view can give a hint of wanting to be seen or of mental problems, which are not implied as far as I can see.
The joke is not hilarious, but would have a ready understanding amongst celibates. The attempts to, as it were, diffuse the energy in other ways first are universal - and I doubt that anyone today frets over releasing the tension as being a sin, though all but the very young once were taught it was very grace. An intellectual pope like Benedict would know there was far more with which to be concerned.
Naturally, we all know that the photographer could have received more than 50,000 Euros for the photograph... Benedict clearly paid off before it occurred to him that the photographer was unlikely to really have a useable picture in the first place. Religious are well known (by any and all people looking to 'con' them) to not only be innocent but to have been taught from the earliest days of 'formation' that 'bad example' is very dangerous - I can see many Religious paying the 50K if they had it!
[ 13. July 2005, 11:58: Message edited by: Newman's Own ]
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I discovered this on the internet and it was two days before I decided to submit it. Call me prudish if you want but I found this in very poor taste and considered it offensive. Obviously the idea that the Pope would masturbate on a balcony is ludicrous and improbable and not to be taken seriously, but I found it offensive that anyone would even suggest it. This joke could have been told about any celebrity really but no, as usual, they had to choose someone in holy orders who is sworn to celibacy and make him out, literally, to be a wanker.
This came across to me as deliberately malicious, even, in some way. I also thought the sexual nature of the joke was crude anyway and whoever was the subject of it, I'd still have found it tasteless. However, I was curious to know what reaction it would elicit from my fellow shipmates so in the end I submitted it.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I get the sexual meaning of "he must have seen you coming" but don't get the "normal" meaning.
I think I might enjoy the joke if I did.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Zeke
Ship's Inquirer
# 3271
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Posted
It's something you say when you think somebody has been cheated--that the person who swindled him "saw him coming" that is, saw him approaching and decided he looked like an easy mark.
[think I made it a little clearer]
[ 14. July 2005, 05:49: Message edited by: Zeke ]
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No longer the Bishop of Durham
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If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? --Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 5259 | From: Deep in the American desert | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Personally I find puns based on the word "come" to be a bit lame. They're too easy to make, and I don't like the idea of having to watch myself for double entendres every time I use the word.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Boreal
Shipmate
# 9550
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Posted
The thing is, this joke could have been made about anyone who didn't want to be seen masturbating. It didn't have to be the Pope. It isn't particularly a commentary on celibacy (since, of course, under STRICT RC doctrine, onanism isn't permitted either), it is just a bad pun.
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I think that God, in creating Man, somewhat overestimated His abilities. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 376 | From: Deepest, eastest Maine. | Registered: May 2005
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strathclydezero
# 180
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Posted
It would have to be either the pope, or a pentecostal leader to be able to afford the 50 thousand for the camera though ...
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All religions will pass, but this will remain:
simply sitting in a chair and looking in the distance.
V V Rozanov
Posts: 3276 | From: The Near East | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
I'd heard a similar joke about a vicar masturbating in the bath, and then being charged £100 by his window cleaner. A visitor later congratulates him on keeping his (large) vicarage in good order and asks how much he pays to have the windows done. Same punchline. Better, because more believable (but probably less offensive to fans of the Pope).
This version of the joke got off to a bad start for me with the Pope thinking that it isn't Catholic to get an erection, but it is, apparently, ok to wank from the balcony into St Peter's square. I've just checked the Catechism, and no, that's not the official Catholic position.
I don't insist that jokes always have to be doctrinally accurate, but 'explaining' the Pope wanking by saying he disapproves of erections assumes that the audience is either dense or has an utterly mistaken view of sexuality. It would have been better just to have started the joke with "the Pope is having a wank when ...". You don't need to explain why. Everyone in the audience with working genitals already knows why.
[ 14. July 2005, 10:36: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
This joke is tasteless, and I'd never repeat it -but reading the last comment made me see that one big flaw in the OP is that the pope thinks it is 'not very Catholic' to get an erection. Obviously, Catholics get them as naturally and often as anyone else - and no one would think otherwise.
Celibates are not taught that erections are not Catholic - but often deal with arousal by seeking to turn the mind elsewhere. I realise now that I just assumed that implication, and missed the stupid "not Catholic to have an erection."
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Personally I find puns based on the word "come" to be a bit lame. They're too easy to make, and I don't like the idea of having to watch myself for double entendres every time I use the word.
So, you don't crack up every time you're in a group setting and people start singing "Church in the Wildwood"? ("Oh come, come, come, come, come to the church in the wildwood...") Or do you just not attend those sort of gatherings?
Allegedly, on a week when I was absent, a minister in my home church preached on the text "Even so, come, Lord Jesus" and included an extended-mix five-minute-meditation on the word "Come" ... "What a beautiful word it is ... COME!" etc which had the more juvenile-minded members of the congregation in stitches. I would have been rolling in the aisle had I been there, trying not to catch anyone's eye. All of which is to say, the "coming" pun is the best part of this joke for me.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
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Posted
What Mousethief said. The language is too obscure and that frustrates me.
It's just a stupid "joke". It's not worth reading, is it?
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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Posts: 5032 | From: Easton, Bristol | Registered: Aug 2002
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
Is it permissible to giggle, and still be deeply offended?
Just curious.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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HenryT
Canadian Anglican
# 3722
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PeteCanada:
Is it permissible to giggle, and still be deeply offended?
Just curious.
That's why there are two different ratings in the poll.
(I think there should have been a third one "How long ago did you first hear this" with decades attached. This one I heard in the 1970's, for example.)
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"Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned" P. Henry, 1788
Posts: 7231 | From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | Registered: Dec 2002
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Thurible
Shipmate
# 3206
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ophthalmos:
What Mousethief said. The language is too obscure and that frustrates me.
I didn't find the joke particularly amusing, though it elicited a small smile. However, I don't understand what is obscure about the language.
As to your being frustrated, I hope that was a deliberate joke.
Thurible
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"I've been baptised not lobotomised."
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