You see, I was looking up "on this date in history" for my birthday (procrastination is an artform), and apparently the Pope with the shortest term died on my birthday, isn't that sweet? Ah, malaria. The best part's yet to come. According to everyone's best friend, wikipedia:
Urban VII's short passage in office gave rise to the world's first known public smoking ban, as he threatened to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose.
Would excommunication be a viable way of combatting smoking today?
Other things that get you excommunicated: (wade through this site if you're up for it)
- abortion
- dueling
- communism
- neglecting to denounce within a month a priest who has "solicited" you to "immodest acts" during confession (or "in a confessional," which made me giggle inappropriately. Funnily enough, this law dates from the 17th century)
- abducting a woman "with a view to marriage" (I like this one because you don't get automatically excommunicated just for abducting a woman)
- punching a nun
Just imagine if, by smoking, you could add yourself to the venerated list of people excommunicated by the Catholic Church, which includes, in case you were wondering, Freemasons, Fidel Castro, and Napoleon. I like to imagine that they all broke aforementioned rules. You can decide which acts you think each one committed. I'm chuckling right now, picturing Napoleon giving a nun the right hook.
