The Pope on tattoos.

Pope Francis has been speaking about the usefulness of tattoos. The Telegraph reports:

At a meeting with young people ahead of an upcoming Synod of Catholic bishops, Pope Francis told them "don't be afraid of tattoos".
Answering a question from a Ukranian student priest about how to respond to present-day culture, the pope told his audience of around 300 young people that tattoos were not necessarily a bad thing.
He mentioned cultural examples where tattoos have been a symbol of religious faith, such as in Eritrea, where it used to be common for Christian girls to have a tattoo of a cross on their foreheads as a symbol of beauty.

This will be good news to Gary who runs the tattoo shop just across the road from St Joseph`s as I`m sure he would be pleased to have papal approval and encouragement. A couple of the staff from the shop rent car parking spaces from the church so I`ll be sure to let them know what the Pope has said.

It may mean more work for me too. As someone who is supposed to know something about Latin the most common request I get for my help is to translate mottos people want as part of their tattoo into Latin. It`s an interesting phenomenon: I presume having it in Latin seems to give it an authority and timelessness that English lacks..

A parishioner asks :

Are you going to arrange a job-lot for parishioners with the tattoo parlour across the road?

Will there be reduced rates for clergy?