IN IRELAND, POPE FRANCIS CELEBRATES MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial Day


ROSCOMMON-SOUTH LEITRIM, IRELAND — Here in the only parliamentary constituency in the Emerald Isle to vote against gay marriage on Friday, Pope Francis shocked Ireland’s mostly conservative Catholic hierarchy by immediately reversing Roman Catholic dogma on priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, and communion. He accomplished these minor changes with the assistance of a solitary reporter.


“To quote your famous Bob Dylan,” the Pope whispered in the solitary reporter’s ear, “The times, they are a chang’in.”


Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the one-time Buenos Aires nightclub bouncer, now the Vicar of Christ in Rome, continued. “I am an admittedly young 78, but it’s the younger people of Ireland, and the thousands of Polish workers who came here because of the European Union, who carried the day and voted against the hide-bound clergy of this, one of the most Catholic of nations.”


“At your suggestion, SR, I have been diligently reading the works of the great Swiss Protestant reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, who lived between 1484 and 1531.”


“Zwingli and Martin Luther agreed on most everything in the Protestant Reformation,” the Pope continued, “And I, myself, have been protesting most vigorously against diehard dogmatists like my predecessor, Benedict XVI, within the Church, and against all the bad doctrine which we Catholics have been proclaiming, especially since the Counter-Reformation.” 


At this, Limerick's Archbishop, The Most Rev. Brendan Leahy, who was appointed by Benedict XVI, collapsed, and was helped up to his feet by Dublin’s archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, who, immediately after Friday’s vote, said, “The church needs to do a reality check right across the board.” 


(Archbishop Martin suggested on Saturday that some church figures who argued for same-sex marriage’s rejection came across as harsh, damning and unloving; see http://www.denverpost.com/news/national/ci_28179354/ireland-votes-to-legalize-samesex-marriage.)


Pleased that Archbishop Martin, in contrast to Archbishop Leahy, is enlightened, the Pope continued, saying “Now that we know that it’s perfectly all right for gays to marry, I see no reason in the world why Catholic priests should not be able to marry a man or woman, whomever they feel they are more attracted to.”


“And while we’re at it, there is no reason why women shouldn’t be ordained as priests, because women are better than men, if you think about life in general, and the history of this sorry world, realistically.” 


Finally, the Pope announced that Protestant heretics such as the solitary reporter may, from this day forward, receive communion in Catholic churches. “As Zwingli said, the Eucharist is simply a memorial, a symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper.”


“What better way to celebrate Memorial Day than that.” 


Memorial Day


ROSCOMMON-SOUTH LEITRIM, IRELAND — Here in the only parliamentary constituency in the Emerald Isle to vote against gay marriage on Friday, Pope Francis shocked Ireland’s mostly conservative Catholic hierarchy by immediately reversing Roman Catholic dogma on priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, and communion. He accomplished these minor changes with the assistance of a solitary reporter.


“To quote your famous Bob Dylan,” the Pope whispered in the solitary reporter’s ear, “The times, they are a chang’in.”


Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the one-time Buenos Aires nightclub bouncer, now the Vicar of Christ in Rome, continued. “I am an admittedly young 78, but it’s the younger people of Ireland, and the thousands of Polish workers who came here because of the European Union, who carried the day and voted against the hide-bound clergy of this, one of the most Catholic of nations.”


“At your suggestion, SR, I have been diligently reading the works of the great Swiss Protestant reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, who lived between 1484 and 1531.”


“Zwingli and Martin Luther agreed on most everything in the Protestant Reformation,” the Pope continued, “And I, myself, have been protesting most vigorously against diehard dogmatists like my predecessor, Benedict XVI, within the Church, and against all the bad doctrine which we Catholics have been proclaiming, especially since the Counter-Reformation.” 


At this, Limerick's Archbishop, The Most Rev. Brendan Leahy, who was appointed by Benedict XVI, collapsed, and was helped up to his feet by Dublin’s archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, who, immediately after Friday’s vote, said, “The church needs to do a reality check right across the board.” 


(Archbishop Martin suggested on Saturday that some church figures who argued for same-sex marriage’s rejection came across as harsh, damning and unloving, http://www.denverpost.com/news/national/ci_28179354/ireland-votes-to-legalize-samesex-marriage.)


Pleased that Archbishop Martin, in contrast to Archbishop Leahy, is enlightened, the Pope continued, saying “Now that we know that it’s perfectly all right for gays to marry, I see no reason in the world why Catholic priests should not be able to marry a man or woman, whomever they feel they are more attracted to.”


“And while we’re at it, there is no reason why women shouldn’t be ordained as priests, because women are better than men, if you think about life in general, and the history of this sorry world, realistically.” 


Finally, the Pope announced that Protestant heretics such as the solitary reporter may, from this day forward, receive communion. “As Zwingli said, the Eucharist is simply a memorial, a symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper.”


“What better way to celebrate Memorial Day than that.” 


Write a comment

Comments: 0