You know what? I love being a geek. I own it and accept it and you can’t make me turn my back on my nerdy brethren. It’s who I am and I like it that way.

You could say I have geek pride. And never have I been more proud to be a pencil-pushing, D&D-playing geek than when I read this: Pope to change D&D cosmology

An excerpt:

These arguments don’t go down well with Timmy Livingstone, a 14-year-old from Sacramento, Caifornia, who discovered the game with his friends last summer. “The Pope can’t take away Limbo! Who does he think he is! My 78th level half-elf-half-dwarf paladin-ranger-barbarian just got a +23 sword of Slaad-slaying, and was going to go to Limbo and kill Ygorl and take over the whole plane! How’s he going to do that now? He might have to take over the Seven Heavens instead! Let’s see how the Pope likes that!”

The Vatican has so far declined to comment on the reactions of the faithful D&D players of the world.

Believe it not, the actual impetus behind the rather humorous blog account above, is true. The Pope really is considering abolishing the concept of Limbo. Read the Times of London account.

Another excerpt:

There is little doubt that the Pope will agree. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he presided over the commission’s first sessions. He is on record as saying that Limbo has no place in modern Catholicism. In 1984, he told Vittorio Messori, the Catholic author, that Limbo had “never been a definitive truth of the faith”.

He said: “Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis.” The commission is currently chaired by Archbishop William Levada of the United States, appointed by the Pope in May to be his successor as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

And here’s a link to the Wikipedia article on Limbo, in case you’re interested, but too lazy to do your own damn research.

Bonus: artistic renderings of Limbo, since I’ve carried this entire post too far alreay.

To sum up: no more Limbo, but funny D&D-related article on this news makes me proud to be geeky. Next issue!