I’m reading that as that this happened in Ecuador.
That would be a tragedy.
For a couple of days before they replaced the sign.
Can you imagine the lines at that store to get one of their hamberders in honor of the blessed event?
I admit, I snickered.
Probably not the way Versalle wanted to be remembered, but it’s certainly very operatic.
There was also a performance of Gounod’s Faust in Melbourne where the actor playing Mephistopheles, Frederick Federici, was descending through a trap door signifying his return to Hell at the end of the opera. Like Versalle, Federici suffered a massive heart attack during the descent and died. That, as they say, is show business.
We know he wasn’t a boxer else he would have been ready for a cross.
I snickered when he told me. And that’s why i got (and deserved) a lecture on how upsetting it was to my friend, who had a “great seat” and all too good a view of it.
Although, from the distance of a few decades, that’s not a bad death. Doing what he loved until the end. Far better than living in a coma for months or years after a major stroke, for instance. (Which is looking to be the fate of a square dance caller who was supposed to call at an event I’m running in 2 weeks, so it’s on my mind.) I don’t know how old the priest was, but in a couple of years, his family may see it the same way. Taken by his God in a moment of Grace.
If I were a relative, I would come to that conclusion.
I saw this reported in the New York Times and realized no newspaper would be reporting this if it weren’t notable for its irony. So there’s a tacit implication we might get a chuckle out of it.
It’s just too good a story to let it pass by any news outlet. That’s also why we have a 128 posts thread about it.
ETA: to make it clear, I meant “good story” in the sense of getting clicks and selling copies for the outlets, I personally don’t feel good about the death of an innocent person, ironic death or not.
As a kid in the 60’s & 70’s I had a zillion Archie comic books. I remember one where Reggie pulled something on Archie and was running away and ran right into an open manhole. Two kids nearby were like “did you see THAT? He didn’t even touch the sides!”
I’m a Deist, not an atheist. And I think what happened was horribly tragic. Yet I imagine the Jesus going “STFU” I didn’t die for this horseshit!"
Can it be horrible and kind of funny at the same time?
No? Fuck you. This is the Pit.
I completely get some finding it funny, especially a subset of those with antipathy to institutional religion. The laughing hilariously watching someone die bit?
It is funny to that person and that person has to be a horrible sick fuck …
Sure, nobody’s denying that. If a filmmaker was making a satirical comedy about random catastrophe and divine retribution or whatever, showing a priest getting fatally clocked by an immense crucifix while officiating at Mass could be (in its way) hilarious.
And sure, that pointed absurdity doesn’t just vanish simply because the incident was real instead of fictional.
Real vs. fictional does, however, significantly change the affect of somebody gleefully gloating about how much they laughed while watching footage of the incident.