More Fun From Rome -- Anti-Semitism Is Saintly

As if trying to keep Spain a theocracy instead of a true democracy wasn't bad enough, the Pope beatified two highly controversial figures, moving them that much closer to sainthood.

The lucky winners? (They're not exactly in rarified company, since PJPII has cranked out saints during his papacy at an indecent pace.)

1. Emperor Charles I -- the last Austro-Hungarian emperor and a man whose troops under his command used weapons of mass destruction -- poison gas -- during WWI. His miracle? (You gotta have a miracle to get to sainthood.) The not-so-dignified act of healing a Brazilian nun's varicose veins! Why a nun would be praying to Emperor Charles I to cure her varicose veins remains a mystery.

2. The lovely 19th century German mystic Sister Anna Katharina Emmerick -- she's the lunatic (almost literally) whose madly anti-Semitic descriptions of the Passion of the Christ deeply inspired...you guessed it, Mel Gibson. Not to mention lots of other fanatics who have called for the destruction of the Jews and used her rantings to back that up as religiously inspired. Her miracle? Presumably Mel Gibson's bank account.

Slobodan Miloscevic -- there's hope yet.