Pope Benedict loves an umbrella (click here). And his latest Encyclical makes some interesting points.
"Rain is God's way of watering his garden. But is also his way of testing our good nature and our spirits. The design of the umbrella cannot simply of come about by accident or through man's ingenuity alone. It is too perfect. It must have come as part a divine masterplan."
Interestingly, the umbrella has played a significant role in the Catholic Church over time as the following passage from TS Crawford's invaluable Brief history of the umbrella highlights.
"A mosaic in a church in Rome suggests that the Roman emperor Constantine presented a ceremonial umbrella to Pope Sylvester I in the fourth century. Four hundred years later, Pope Paul I bestowed on a German ruler a bejewelled model, probably around the time that the original Utrecht psalter was compiled, depicting David with an umbrella."
Me, I have no great love of the Catholic (or any other) church. But plenty of people do so and if the Pope thinks gamps are cool then all the better.
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