Senator Al Franken was on a talk show with Jerry Falwell several years ago, and Falwell said that his studies had convinced him that the Antichrist was alive then, and was a Jewish male. Franken asked him, “Is it Marvin Hamlisch?”
That’s a bizarre report. They tell you what he put in a postscript, but not what he put in the body of the letter? What gives?
Based on such an inept report, it’s hard to know what’s going on here, but I’m going to hazard a wild guess. Francis wants the donation returned because he thinks Macri is an unsavoury character who is making the donation it to buy some respectability or plausibility, and he thinks on either principled or pragmatic grounds (or both) that the foundation is better off returning the donation than accepting it - it comes at too high a price.
The postscript is just a pithy way of repeating that Macri carries a whiff of grapeshot - the figure of the donation that he has chosen to make has an unintended but ironically apt repetition of the number used to symbolise corrupt wordly power in the Revelation.
There is nothing in what the Guardian actually quotes from the letter (which is very little indeed) to justify the claim in the first paragraph that the pope wanted the donation rejected because the amount offered included the digits “666”.
669 = “It’s two 6’s and a 9. I was bluffing” – Bill Hicks
This is brilliant! 
(but I wonder how many fundies would get it)
Let’s not go off on a tangent.
Regards,
Shodan
Marvin Hamlisch died for my sins.
Amazing that R-O-N-A-L-D/W-I-L-S-O-N/R-E-A-G-A-N would care about some numbers being 6/6/6. Should have felt like coming home to him.
Maybe Nancy’s astrologers and their non-Christian occult magic told them it was a bad thing.
They should have Just Said No. After all, if you Just Say No to prophecy, prophecy won’t come true.
From what I hear and read here, it’s more likely he doesn’t like Macri.
Relationships between our new neo liberal government and the church’s new neo-peronist pope are not good.
It’s 2…2…2… more inches than they get in bed.
Topeka KS zip codes begin with ‘666’. I always thought that was appropriate, what with the Phelpses and all.
Westboro Baptist Church: 66604 to be specific.
No Social Security number starts with 666.
At least, that’s what they want you to think.
(OK, the first part is true, the second I made up. Or have I stumbled upon some grand conspiracy?:D)
I’ll bet retailers love “666”, given the number of times I, while working a register, saw people react to a total of $6.66 by buying an additional item to change the total.
(Okay, I didn’t see that total very often, but every time it came up, the customer added something to their purchase, specifically to change the number.)
Didn’t I read years ago that a newly discovered papyrus had the number as 616?
I seem to remember it coming up on QI as well.
I don’t think there’s anything “newly discovered” about it. The very earliest manuscripts of Revelation have 616, but 666 starts to show up pretty early also. Irenaeus made one of the earliest Latin translations, and he chose to use 666 rather than 616, though he knew of both versions. His translation was influential, and his choice probably accounts for why 666 turned up in the majority of later translations.
616 corresponds to the name of Nero Caesar when rendered in Hebrew characters, 666 to the same name rendered in Latin characters. Presumably the scribes/editors/translators who preferred 666 did so because they expected their readership to be more familiar with the name in Latin, and therefore would find 666 easier to decode than 616. With this kind of thing, you need to strike a balance between intelligibility and plausible deniability.
There’ve been jokes for years (at least since he was elected president) about how he’s the Antichrist because of that. Well, he’s not alone. My name also has 6 letters in each of the three names. But no one’s ever called me the Antichrist. I’m severely disappointed…
Well, have you survived a mortal wound? Or stood in the place of your fathers and rejected their teachings?
Actually, those may be attributes of other figures in the Apocalypse, but they are indeed Reaganesque.
Fred Phelps used to have a radio broadcast, and one thing he always mentioned was the zip code of Topeka. I happen to share the zip code of the WBC!!!
Oh, and the mascot of Washburn University of Topeka is “Mr. Ichabod” It comes from Ichabod Washburn, whom the school was named for. “Ichabod” means “the glory of God has departed” Fred thought that was another sign of the evilness of the city he lived in.
Now I want to go out and buy something worth $6.10, as the local tax would make it $6.66.
The real controversy is all about 665.999…
Wilson was just his mother’s maiden name and doesn’t count.
The real Anti-Christs are Barack Hussei Nobama and his 3rd-term stand-in whose maiden name was Hilary Dianne Rodham.
Lyndon Baines Jonson was another Anti-Christ, though he tried to hide it with a silent H. The Devil will do tricks like that.