let’s discuss.

“Vatican Issues 10 Commandments for Drivers”
Official Vatican Site: “the Pastoral Care of Road Users” and the actual commandments (you have to scroll down to point 61)

In brief, for those who haven’t heard or don’t want to explore the links above: the Vatican issued what it calls its 10 commandments for drivers. They begin with, “thou shalt not kill” and include one I’d like to slap on the windshields of Hummers, “Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.” Most of the reports on the subject include jibes about the safety of roads in Italy along the lines of, “most of us are praying when we drive there anyway”.

Is this a sign that the Catholic Church is finally taking an interest in the lives of its 19th-century believers? Will the 10 commandments of internet be next? (Thou shalt not use it for pr0n? God ownz u?) Is this a publicity stunt to prove its relevance in a 21st-century world? Did the pope nearly get run over last weekend?

Many, many questions are dancing through my head right now, although mostly I’m just laughing. The “10 commandments of driving” is something you email around the office when you work at a dealership. It’s a joke. It’s something you run across on the internet, read through chuckling, and maybe link to your friends so that you can laugh together. It’s not something the Vatican actually does…

I’ve recently been exploring bicycling as a meditative process (just installed the “om” mantra on front & back wheels, turning them into prayer wheels; thinking about putting tibetan prayer flags on the back), I do carry a mala in my car for particularly bad days, and I have a buddha glued to my dash, so I’m not here to say that people would not benefit from seeing driving as a meditative practice. In fact, many of my family members start car trips with prayers, some even do the rosary while driving (recommended by the Vatican under article 60). I just really do find it amusing that, more than 250 years after the first horseless carriage (which gained popularity ever since), more than 25 years since the pope began to use cars himself, the Church finally gets around to tending to the pastoral care of its drivers.

I also find it to be very interesting that this was part of a broader discussion of the “street” including discussion of not just “road users” but also of “street women”, “street children”, and presumably street men, called by the Vatican, “tramps”. In fact, it makes a lot more sense as part of this larger pastoral directive than simply as a set of “commandments” where previously the only set Catholics had were from Moses. That, I believe, is a general commentary on the media, not the Church.

But, I find humor in most things the Vatican does these days, so…thoughts?