zodiac19 Feb 2006

Here's a likely scenario:

Pope Ratzinger is probably aware that God isn't moved by human prayers. He does, however, know that God gives special chairs in heaven to people who pray for others. He therefore dupes the entirety of his congregation into believing prayer intercessions are meaningful ways to help others, and then counts on (1) his having helped many, many people into heaven, and (2) his own prayers, which are, possibly, only for his own salvation, to get himself into heaven as well. The only alternative, from his perspective, is simply to tell all his congregants to only pray for themselves or risk being seen by God as disingenuous self-promoters. In which case, no one gets bonus points, and even Ratzinger's own salvation is at risk, as he's helped no one particularly get salvation and he's a soddy Nazi crone.