I immediately wanted to whip out my purple editing pen to debulk it. This, in turn, led to my musing about the fuss that would ensue. Some cleric would undoubtedly get twitched about my edits and then I'd have to explain that everyone's work, even the Holy Father's, benefits from copy editing.
To make this point, I'd wonder out loud if we know for a fact that the final Ten Commandments are the same ones Moses smashed when he saw what the ancient Israelites had been up to in his absence (Exodus 32). Maybe between the time Moses went berserk about the Golden Calf and went back up Mt. Sinai, God had tweaked either wording or ordering. Maybe Moses had some thoughts of his own during those forty days and nights without eating bread or drinking water (Exodus 34:27-28).
And maybe I'd go so far as to wonder out loud if Moses' face was "radiant" (Exodus 34: 29) because, after forty days and nights without physical sustenance, he needed protein and hydration. This would, of course, be wandering way off point -- something I'm working on, quite unsuccessfully, I should add.
I'd then have to explain that my musings fall within Judaism's fine tradition of midrash.
Guessing that no one in the pope's press office would have the patience for that, I decided dwelling on the title of our Holy Father's message was not worth the hassle. And so it came to pass around 11:30 PM last night, that I swapped my purple editing pen for a yellow highlighter and kept reading.
