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The Pope: Love Thy Fellow Motorists

By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.com

June 19, 2007

The Vatican issued the commandments condemning road rage, obscene gestures and bad driving behavior while encouraging Roman Catholics to make the sign of the cross before setting off on a journey.

The 36-page document warns that driving can bring out primitive behavior in motorists, including cursing, blasphemy, and loss of sense of responsibility.

The Vatican appealed to the noble tendencies of the human spirit, urging responsibility and self-control to prevent the psychological regression often associated with driving.

One section of the document, under the heading "Vanity and personal glorification", is not likely to sit well with the motor-racing-mad Italian Tofusi and Alfisti.

"Cars particularly lend themselves to being used by their owners to show off, and as a means for outshining other people and arousing a feeling of envy," it said. The document's Fifth Commandment continues: "Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin".

Asked at a news conference when a car became an occasion of sin, Cardinal Renato Martino said, "when a car is used as a place for sin".

While the Vatican urged drivers to avoid unbalanced behavior, impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, and blasphemy, praying while driving was encouraged.

Here are the new commandments as reported by the Vatican Press Office.

1. You shall not kill.
2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.
5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
7. Support the families of accident victims.
8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
10. Feel responsible toward others.

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