A convention of social networks like Twitter/X is to tag the ‘#’ symbol (the ‘hash’) in front of a string of alphanumeric characters — usually a word or phrase (without spaces), i.e. a ‘hashtag’. Hashtags denote messages which have a common theme. Social media platforms aggregate these making it easy for users to locate topics of interest.
#LordsPrayer is an imagined hash-tagged conversation between God and the current Catholic Pope Francis. The inspiration was the Pope’s call at the end of 2017 for one line of the English version of the Christian Lord’s Prayer to be amended. The Pope’s contention was that the translation from the Latin original was faulty in that the line “And lead us not into temptation” implied that it was God that leads humanity to sin. The pontiff suggested that “do not let us fall into temptation” was a more accurate translation from the Latin (which in turn was translated from ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic). In the #LordsPrayer satirical fantasy version of events, God exacts vengeance upon humanity by elevating a divisive celebrity from a reality TV show best known for his bombastic personality and employment of social media — rather than qualities of leadership — to the US presidency. It could never happen of course.
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Verse
God says to Francis, “I just can’t win
They make me responsible for all their sin
“Lead us not into temptation” I hear them pray
So I’m to blame when from good they stray
When we both know it was the one cast out
Who drains their conscience of any doubt
I really do sometimes despair
The way I’m treated is just not fair
And so; I’ve given them an Apprentice star
Who I know will go much too far
I suspects that he works for the other side
He’s so full of hubris and narcissistic pride”.
“Let me fix this Lord” Francis then did declare
“From your Apprentice star please the people spare
For that mortal doesn’t even read
Unless it’s in his Twitter feed
And, he has such restricted views
Declaring all else to be fake-news
And he takes pride in being so rude
Showing no reflection, just responds to mood
And so Lord, I’ll fix your prayer
Just call the Apprentice up your stair
Or cast him down to the other one
Who’ll strike a deal, he won’t find fun”.
Postscript
This piece of satirical whimsy by Dada de Dada was published elsewhere in 2017 when the current US President Elect was Leader of the Free World v1.0. The wheel of political fortune has turned yet again and so — in November 2024 with Leader of the Free World v2.0 soon to be a revenant — it felt timely to also resurrect #Lords Prayer; this time with the Latin subtitle ‘editio revenientis’ (edition of the revenant).
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