DEAR POPE FRANCIS:
A couple of weeks ago, my family went to Easter Mass together. (We usually show up from three or four different places in three or four different cars, but this time we thought we’d make it a family outing.) In the car on the way, my son (the provocateur) posed the question, “What if Jesus came back today, went on Fox News, and announced that He thinks that gay people should be allowed to marry? What would all the Bible thumpers think?”
I said, “The first thing they would want to know is who’s that black guy who’s pretending to be Jesus.”
My wife blanched. (There’s an extra joke in there.)
I continued: “We’d have to explain that He’s not black. He’s Middle Eastern. But He’s damn sure not that guy with the light-brown hair and blue eyes that you see in all those paintings.”
My wife, who was driving, reached into her purse and whipped out her rosary, so we changed the subject.
Anyway, your Holiness, my children have a modest request. (They’re really good, decent people. They served a combined 14 years—every Sunday for years—as altar servers and they still do it a couple of times a year when the kids assigned to the Mass fail to show up for one reason or another.) Anyway, here it is: They would like to know if there could be some kind of papal dispensation that would allow good Catholics who attend Mass the other 50 weeks of the year to skip services on Christmas and Easter, thereby avoiding the knuckleheads.
It would be like that episode of The Simpsons in which Homer joined the super-secret Stonecutters Society. Stonecutters got all kinds of special breaks, like if they were stuck in traffic, they could push a button on their dashboard and an opening in a mountain would appear through which they could gain access to a private road with no traffic on it. Or, if they were in trouble, they could call the real emergency number—9-1-2!
It’s getting harder and harder to attend those Masses. I won’t even talk about the way some people dress to go to Mass these days. When we were in Hawaii, the priest railed against people who show up for Mass wearing shorts and/or cleavage-exposing tops (both men and women).
We got to the church about 15 minutes early and it was already about half full. We knew there would be a crowd, what with all of the Christmas/Easter Catholics out there. I have to tell you that I’m somewhat dismayed. I figure that if you’re only going to church a couple of times a year, you might make an effort to get there on time. (When I was a kid, the pastor at Guardian Angel Church used to close the doors and bolt them once the Mass started. If you got there late, you had to wait until the next Mass.) I wouldn’t mind it if they made everybody who showed up late stand in the back through the entire ceremony, as penance.
(I’ve shown up for Mass late a few times and I stand in the back. I don’t deserve to sit down.)
The people kept coming and coming, some arriving about halfway through the Mass. Do you know how I knew it was either Christmas or Easter? A guy two rows ahead of us took out his phone and made a call during the Mass. If God hadn’t been busy elsewhere at that moment, that guy’s phone would have emitted a high, shrill sound like the ambassador’s phone at the end of Fail-Safe and the guy would have melted into a pile of slag. I wanted to throw a missal at him. (Actually, I would have preferred a missile.)
Then, these two adult women got into a tug of war over a bottle of water. You’re in an air-conditioned church less than an hour! Who needs to bring water?!
I figure you can just have the priests announce the secret, stay-at-home deal at one of those Masses during Ordinary Time. You could broadcast the Mass on that Catholic cable network (Comcast 291); nobody ever watches that. Even better and sneakier, you could make a deal with the Mormons and put it on the BYU Network (where Jesus has light-brown hair and blue eyes).
Just a couple of other things: I’m really curious as to where you were, mentally and spiritually, during the Dirty War. We all know that you should have been at the plaza, marching with the mothers of the desaparecidos and giving the Galtieri junta the big middle finger. Your supporters claim you were working behind the scenes, kinda like double-secret probation, but I’m not so sure.
One last thing: Please be careful with the Vatican Bank. Those people are no joke. The last pope who messed with them, John Paul I, lasted a whole 33 days. Then, just to show how powerful they were, the “bankers” got Francis Ford Coppola to make The Godfather Part III, thereby ruining his reputation and killing the franchise.
After you’re done with that, you can let priests get married, rethink contraception, and root out the demon-worshipping Freemasons. May the Fo–, I mean God, be with you.
This article appears in Apr 18-24, 2013.
Cut the Christmas/Easter catholics some slack. You should be grateful for the company. You would be surprised how many of them have to work on Sundays. Take a hint from the Greek Orthodox church. For them, mass is 24/7 and people come and go in the middle of stuff all the time. As far as your papal wish list, don’t expect miracles.
You wanna know what Jesus looks like?
“Then I turned to see the (loud voice like the sound of a trumpet) that was speaking w me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across his chest w a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze that has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice roared like the sound of many rushing waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man.” (Rev1:12-17a)
Problems w the standard image we see are many. Right, He was mideastern and not caucasian. Then it flies in the face of the Biblical command not to create any image of anything on earth or in heaven. (Exo20, and maybe here we can see one reason for that command.) Since moreoever, that beatific smile makes us feel all warm and fuzzy; “Aw, He’s just all loving and will forgive anything I do.”
And He does. Read on to the rest of Rev 1:17,18. “And He placed His right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, I am the first and the Last, and the Living One, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.'”
He put His hand on John, lifted him back up. After, that is, John fell on his face.
Isn’t it interesting that everybody else’s religion is totally ridiculous? And everybody else’s behavior in my religion is totally wrong? Danehy, do you really think god likes you better because you get there on time, and turn your cellphone off? Or, if you are late, he likes you better because you piously stand in back?
Well, I hate to tell you, but you are dead wrong. It is MY religion that makes sense, not yours. It is MY behavior that god likes best, not yours. It is MY jesus, with MY features that is the right one – not yours. And (the capper) if you don’t agree with ME, it is heresy, blasphemy, and you should be put to death!
As for the papal stuff, I don’t think he has any more clue about it than you or I. Or any less, for that matter. My Sunday morning sacrilege.
As Amy Farrah Fowler said when she first met Sheldon Cooper, “I don’t object to the concept of a deity, but I’m baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance.” I just think that I should be on time for stuff. And I don’t own a cellphone.