Forgive me, Father, for I have tailgated<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nFor L.A. drivers already in gridlock hell, Vatican’s new road commandments strike little fear.
By Bob Pool and Tami Abdollah, Times Staff Writers
June 21, 2007<\/p>\n
n a city that worships the automobile, it may take divine intervention to get motorists to live by the Vatican’s new Ten Commandments for drivers.<\/p>\n
That was the view of motorists as they contemplated “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road” \u2014 and whether it was faster Wednesday morning taking the 5 or the 101 between the San Fernando Valley and downtown.<\/p>\n
The new road rules call for “courtesy, uprightness and prudence” and condemns the use of cars as “an expression of power and domination” or for sinful purposes.<\/p>\n
But while some drivers acknowledged they pray that they’ll find a parking space, they wondered if Vatican guidelines are really the solution to stopping that black Hummer from tailgating on the Santa Monica Freeway.<\/p>\n
This week, the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers issued commandments, along with a suggestion that drivers perform the sign of the cross before switching on the ignition. It also recommended reciting the Catholic rosary, whose “rhythm and gentle repetition does not distract the driver’s attention,” as the council put it.<\/p>\n
Roadways “shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm,” states the second commandment.<\/p>\n
…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seriously. Sane driving in Italy is about as likely as a corruption free Washington, DC, or a profanity free New York city. The only way the Catholic Church can follow these rules is to leave Rome. Forgive me, Father, for I have tailgated For L.A. drivers already in gridlock hell, Vatican’s new road commandments strike …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1108,1021,1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auto-industry","category-religion","category-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199852"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}