Lightening that enlightened: Wither Gods?

Lightning struck the dome of St Peter’s Cathedral at the Vatican on the day the Pope announced he would be resigning at the end of this month due to health reasons. While this is an unprecedented move in the modern history of the Catholic Church considering the last such abdication took place nearly 600 years ago, lightning striking the cathedral dome is quite precedented.

Meaning, despite its coincidental timing, there’s nothing miraculous, marvellous or even mildly mysterious about it that a lot of the faithful are tom-tomming, saying they believe only some kind of divine action could have been responsible for the meteorological phenomenon. That’s because lightning usually strikes the highest part of any structure that, in this case, is an actual lightning conductor placed on the cross at the top of the tallest dome in the world.

Add to that there was also a rainstorm in progress at the time. So what about the “uncanny” timing in that case? For one thing, the strike didn’t dramatically coincide with the exact moment of the announcement but took place five or six hours later.

In other words, if God really made it happen, would he have to wait that long for a passing rainstorm so that mere mortals like this writer could poke holes into His ways? On the other hand, people who genuinely believe in the existence of something greater than the sum of their own selves don’t require to subscribe to such retrograde religious claptrap.

A completely different kind of light strikes their heart at a completely different time of coincidence.