Opinion: Heaven on wheels
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What would Jesus drive? Who knows? But the Vatican knows how Christians should drive—that’s right, carefully.
A new Vatican document titled ‘Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road’ contains, yes, Ten Comandments for safe driving. Here beginneth the lesson:
I) Thou shalt not kill. II) The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm. III) Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events. IV) Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents. V) Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin. VI) Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so. VII) Support the families of accident victims. VIII) guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness. IX) On the road, protect the more vulnerable party. X) Feel responsible towards others.
This Decalogue for drivers may be infallible, but it isn’t exhaustive. I would expand the list to make room for an Eleventh Comandment (‘Exchange insurance information’), a Twelfth Comandment (‘Don’t go 55 in the passing lane’) and, for cell-phone addicts, the Thirteenth (‘Thou shalt shut up and drive’).
There’s more to this document, by the way, than the Top Ten List. It also includes a section titled: “Pastoral Ministry for the Liberation of Street Women”!
Finally, a note to conspracy theorists: The Vatican issued its rules of the road on June 19, only a day after the U.S. Supreme Court—which has a Catholic majority—unanimously ruled that passengers in cars are protected by the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment. Coincidence? Or maybe St. Christopher, the patron of travelers, really existed after all.