the pope wears a dress and so do a lot of intelligent women

I work for the Franciscans and in their nursing home today  elderly people were walking around with black marks on their foreheads. No, the hygiene program needs no reviewing
 because  today  is Ash Wednesday, the Catholic version of Day of the Dead,  Dia de los Muertos.   All good Catholics, and some not so good, trot off to church and have ashes smudged on their foreheads and if that were not enough, the priest mumbles, "Remember man that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return" to each recipient.  Who wants to be reminded of that process?
 I have a problem with the pope's religion.  It's bad enough I wasted all that time in school memorizing lists of saints' names when I could have been learning more geography and then there's that rule about women not allowed in high management positions and don't get me started on that other issue involving thousands of broken children.

My father left the Catholic church when I was eighteen.  They sent me to Mass every Sunday and I spent the time swinging in the park waiting for the hour to go by.  And then it was Viet Nam and a young  guest priest gave the sermon. He had long hair and a beard and he gently told the congregation that war was wrong, this war was wrong, and we must work towards peace.  Afterwards in the parking lot all the rich Republicans were furious that this hippie had used church time to talk about peace and bringing soldiers home.  My father listened and decided this was not the place for him.  He did not agree with those fat cats and what better place to talk of peace than a church pulpit. He shopped around for another denomination during the next few weeks and then decided his time was better spent working the newspaper crossword puzzle on Sunday morning.
I have difficulty believing in a personal god, someone who monitors whether I tithe or not.  If there was an energy source, a pre-big bang system  that made the decision that life should be, yes, I can do that, and on that note Einstein and I agree. Man, this kind of stuff really bugs me.