The dried blood of San Gennaro, has been kept in a crystal vial in the cathedral of Naples for centuries. It periodically liquifies as it did when Pope Francis recently visited Naples (an organized crime capital). The Neopolitan bishop at once took the vial from the pope's hands, turned it this way and that, proclaiming that a liquification miracle had happened.
Judge Judy says that you can never bring into the courtroom "what a person was thinking." OK. But having watched and listened to Pope Francis for two years, I'm going to venture he wasn't thinking about San Gennaro's blood while the bishop held up the vial and led the applause. Francis might more likely have been thinking about...
- The blood of Gaza's 844 bombed civilian deaths
- The blood of the Downs Syndrome boy aborted; the little girl unwanted
- The blood of the mafia-murdered
- The blood shed by the child-victims of corporate desire
- The cold-blood of haters
- The shed blood of enslaved boy-soldiers
- The life-blood drained where the Church has become moribund
- The solidified blood of politicians and leaders who fail to legislate for the common good
- The bloody ground beneath the new-martyrs murdered by terrorists
- The blood of the rich nations dried up by greed and indulgence
- The anemic blood of Christians who content themselves with externals, superstition and non-reflection
- The malignant blood of those who reap huge profits at everyone else's expense
- The dirty blood of those who are so eager to send other people's sons and daughters into war
- The poisoned blood of those who believe death is the solution to the nation's problems
