Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Washington DC's Capital Metro wanted to encourage pilgrims to use the transit system for the papal visit starting today and it thought a bit of marketing humour might not go amiss. After all, Benedict XVI once wrote: "I'm not a man who constantly thinks up jokes. But I think it's very important to be able to see the funny side of life and its joyful dimension and not to take everything too tragically." So, the Metro came up with the Mass Pass and this video.

What a clever piece of work. Notice the magazine the Metro passenger is reading? It's Car and Pontiff, with a cover photo of the popemobile. The reader addresses the bobblehead Benedict and asks (in Latin) about the location of his vehiculum, before turning to the last page, which has an ad about taking the train to the papal mass. "Thank Heaven for Metro," the man intones. But the presence of that bobblehead displeased the archdiocese of Washington mightily and it went into Protest Mode. The Metro caved in quickly and the ad was pulled. Pity. It's important to be able to see the funny side of life, as someone once said.