Yesterday’s tripe from the Vatican:

“The Paris-Dakar, a race which many classify as a sporting event, in reality has very little to do with healthy competition,”

“The trail of blood which grows longer from year to year on the route of the race instead underscores the undeniable component of violence that lies behind every attempt to export Western models to human environments and ecosystems that have little to do with the West,”

These statements were in response to the death of bike racer Elmer Symons during the Dakar rally. An annual event that tests the strength, courage, endurance and even the mortality of every entrant. Every competitor is well aware of the merciless history Dakar has and they choose to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

What the hell does the Vatican have to do with motorsports? Well, they have a long history of trying to squash motor racing, because well…who knows. Maybe they haven’t won the war on premarital sex, so they feel the need to fight agaist other primal endeavours.

Hypocrisy flows freely.

In the Fifties, the Vatican sought on many occasions to ban the sport of auto racing. A fabulous account of this can be found in Brock Yates’ biography of Enzo Ferrari. Any time a driver or spectator died, the pope spoke out against the evils of racing. Enzo Ferrari and his sport were a black mark on society, yet I don’t see a papal frown in the photo above. Nor on the one below for that matter.

For more views on this lunacy visit Full Throttle and Jalopnik