Ratzinger and Dylan

So Ratzinger is going public with his view that rock music in general, and Bob Dylan's music in particular is the work of Satan. Apparently Mozart and Bach are fine but music that includes guitars and political protest are not. Of course, Mozart and Bach wrote astonishingly beautiful music and Ratzinger is perfectly entitled to prefer Mozart and Bach to Bob. But there is a distinction between one's personal taste, and one's pronouncements as pope and spiritual leader of a billion people. (I wonder whether Ratzinger appreciates The Magic Flute and other Mozart works based on Mozart's masonic values?) But to suggest that modern music is universally immoral or valueless is simply ignorant prejudice. This about sums up the way the Roman Catholic Church is going - what was once a haven for good sense is rapidly becoming more absurdly reactionary than a fundamentalist cult in 1960s Alabama. There is nothing that I can say that will make Ratzinger appear more ridiculous than he has made himself appear.

For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Dylan - 'Chimes of Freedom'