Congratulations on Falling Out with the Church!

“I just don’t think fucking kids is right,” you’ll declare quietly while sitting at the Secret Catholic Club’s fancy dinner table. Then the room will go quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop. Everyone will have stopped eating. Occasionally someone’s robes will rustle, but for the most part the stillness will be suffocating. Then a chair will screech as the Archdioses of Boston rises to his feet shaking his head.

“BURN IN HELL, HERETIC!” he’ll cry, flicking holy water on you. You’ll sputter as it goes into your mouth and spills down your shirt. You’ll want to flip shit and hit him in the face, but he’s your church superior so it’ll be a no-go. You’ll just have to stand there and take it.

He’ll keep at it a good long while, hurling various relics and reliquaries at you and chanting non-sense in what sounds like but actually is not Latin while he circles around you. Dinner will have been over for a long while when some of the other members of the Catholic church finally step up and take him to another room where he can get wasted on sacrament and throw rocks at an old man with a beard they pay to walk back and forth in the Vattican basement.

Once he’s been removed you’ll be shuffled off too, but not to a fun place where you get to abuse the poor. You’ll be taken to a secret underground meeting room where the Pope will be waiting for you. He’ll be looking particularly evil this evening, with dark rings under his eyes and his fingers constantly touching by only the tips.

“Good evening,” he’ll say, smiling unnervingly.

“Hey Pope,” you’ll say, doing a little semi-circle wave at him. He’ll nod back. Then he’ll lick his lips and begin.

“Your controversial opinion regarding the sexual abuse of children is a bit much for some of us,” he’ll sigh. “We cannot have such dissenting voices within the church.” You’ll sit, struck dumb.

“Thinking we shouldn’t fuck kids is controversial?” you’ll say, puzzled. He’ll immediately shush you.

“Please, my child. The walls have ears here.” He’ll drum his fingers on the desk as he considers just what to do with you. “Excommunication would be imprudent, given your record and the circumstances.” Then he’ll make a sucking sound through his teeth. “How do you feel about Alaska?”

You’ll stand up and bow to the pope, then walk out of the room, your shoulders drooping a little. You didn’t want to have your career with the church go this way, but sometimes it happens. At least you’re going to Alaska instead of one of those molesting priests. Maybe you’ll even be able to do some good there. We don’t know, we’re not that good at this future thing. For now we’ll just say Congratulations on Falling Out With the Church!

Congratulations on Being Pope for a Day!

In an effort to shore up dwindling numbers the Vatican has recent initiated a contest allowing one of the faithful to become Pope for a day. On this day you’ll go about the normal Popely duties AND be able to tell the Pope to do anything you like (except renounce Catholicism).

As a lifelong non-Jewish, white Boston resident you are, of course, Catholic, and on Thursday you’ll be selected from the millions of followers to become Pope for a day. It will be the proudest moment in the history of the Medford public school system and your big chance to see a girl’s boobs for the first time, theoretically, because Italian women are way hotter and looser than Americans, or so you’ve heard.

But when you arrive in Italy you’ll come to discover that the Papal state has a general lack of poon in it, and that the powers of the Pope don’t really relate to getting chicks to take their tops off. Instead you’ll learn a lot about the duty of interpreting belief for millions of people and the purpose and pressure inherent in operating an organized religion. You’ll see how much the Catholic church is like a business and how each day is a struggle for them to boost flagging membership and dodge criticism for missteps both past and present.

You’ll be incredibly bored by the entire experience and it will be nothing like the movie based on the events, which will feature way more hilarious coming of age antics and a much less cute Jonathan Lipnicki who really needs the work. It’ll receive lackluster box office returns and break even following its DVD release.

When you go back to your life absolutely nothing will be different, although you’ll be even more bored by your visits to church than you were before.

Congratulations on Being Pope for a Day!

Congratulations on Piecing the Other Night Together!

After that whole pope hat thing you spent the next day, understandably, convalescing and trying to rack your brain as to just what happened last night. After hours and hours of deep soul searching which resulted in zilch you decided to leave your lavishly appointed hotel room (paid for with trust fund money, of course) and head out onto the town the next day.

Immediately after exiting your hotel room you’ll be attacked by an albino assassin. Luckily, as a trust-fund werewolf you’ll be in excellent physical condition and be mostly impervious to conventional weapons, so even after he shoots you twice in the chest you’ll still crush his throat easily. Then you’ll hide the body in a vent shaft and begin your investigation, more sure than ever that you’re in a plot of Dan Brownian proportions.

Turns out you’ll be right. After a day of searching various church establishments, espresso shops and sex clubs you’ll discover that the Catholic church is, in fact, just a front for Dan Brown so he can publish more horrible books about how the Catholic Church is ruining everything for him. You discovered that the pope was one of Dan Brown’s minions and stole his hat and killed him to try and keep Dan Brown from making any more fucking awful books.

But of course your efforts were only a minor setback and Brown, with the massive amount of free time that his lifestyle allows him and his general douchebaggery, decided to strike back against you instead of trying to write about a topic other than Catholicism and art history as a means of solving crime.

Since you’re a supernatural creature and the only people who pay attention to Dan Brown are fucking idiots you’ll have zero trouble breaking into his secret chamber in the Vatican and hanging his guards by their intestines, never having to “wolf out” a once.

But when you get to Brown he’ll plead for his life, claiming that he’d like to write a terrible book about the shit you just did, but replacing himself with someone like Nora Roberts or something to make it seem like there’s a stupid writer feud going on and sell a few more hundred thousand copies that way.

After carefully reading the contract you’ll agree and Dan Brown will produce a shoddy “novel” about a werewolf who uncovers a conspiracy against Dan Brown run by the Catholic Church and Nora Roberts. He’ll add some really weird sex scenes and shoehorn a love interest who knows a lot about Celtic mythology and art history in there and it’ll sell like hotcakes.

That means you’ll be able to live well beyond your trust fund’s already excessive means in the future and that you won’t be able to kill Dan Brown. Some days you’ll regret your decision, but the millions of dollars will quell most of your personal qualms, which just goes to show that money doesn’t make good people.

Congratulations on Piecing the Other Night Together!