AUGUST 1998

DATELINE VATICAN CITY, July 1—Using a .22 Ruger, Pope John Paul scored a bull's-eye with a through-and-through wound at the base of the middle toe of his left foot. In a stunningly medieval, unenlightened Apostolic Letter titled, "In Order to Defend the Faith," the pontiff carved into stone via Canon Law the bans on birth control, women priests, voluntary euthanasia, and teaching mynah birds to talk. Asked about the birds, John Paul replied, "The power of speech is God's precious gift to man alone. The mynah is just a dumb bird." But when asked if the ban then also applied to parrots, the pontiff snapped, "Of course not! Those birds are incredible! They talk better than most people!"

Chastened by the papal outburst, no one dared ask about parakeets. But an inside source at the Vatican said that budgies would be exempt from the ban because, "In the first place, they aren't mynahs, are they? And in the second place, those crummy little birds are so hard to understand nobody cares." The penance for mynah bird training will be fifteen Hail Marys and the ritual sacrifice by fire of the offending feathered vocalist.

Catholic bird lovers were shocked by the news. "I love my little Pee-Wee!" lamented one bird owner. "And he already knows how to talk! So why should I have to kill him now? It isn't fair!" Others were more resigned to their fate. "If it's God's will," sighed Charles Sangretti, "then so be it. I am a good Catholic. But I have over a dozen mynahs. It's gonna be one hell of a bonfire."

DATELINE ISLAMABAD, May 7—A Roman Catholic bishop and prominent animal rights defender fatally shot himself to protest the death sentence on talking mynah birds. Bishop John Joseph, chairman of an animal rights commission, established by the Catholic Bishop Conference of Pakistan, shot himself in the head Wednesday with a pistol, while holding a mynah bird in the other hand. Unfortunately, the bird was squashed to death in the process.

Hundreds of Christians gathered outside the courthouse in Sahiwal, 400 miles south of Islamabad, while hundreds of others held a candlelight vigil outside the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They chanted, "Words for birds! Words for birds!" Many mynahs also participated in the chanting.

Joseph had previously gone on a hunger strike as part of an American protest against forcing salmon to climb fish ladders. "If I won't speak out for the salmon, who will?" he is quoted as saying. When his actions proved successful, and salmon were no longer forced to climb the ladders, Joseph ended his hunger strike with a dinner that featured a tossed green salad, a twice baked potato and salmon amandine.

DATELINE SALT LAKE CITY, June 9—The Southern Baptist Convention released its official interpretation of the New Testament admonishment instructing wives to submit to their husbands. The formal announcement stated, "Wives must graciously submit themselves to their husband in all things. This includes who controls the thermostat, who has charge of the remote control, and who has to refold the map so it will fit back in the glove box. It also includes cleaning up pet poop."

"The key to understanding the directive," explained a Baptist representative, "is the qualifier all things. For example, if a husband wants his wife to mud-wrestle, naked, with a llama, she is bound by heavenly mandate to oblige him. Likewise, if he wants her to fetch Frisbees on the front lawn, she is equally obligated." The proclamation goes on to emphasize that the directive is in no way intended to be demeaning to women.

As to the exact definition of "graciously," there has been widespread controversy within the Convention. Some insist it means obeying each male whim with a sincere smile frozen on one's face, while others claim that only the actions themselves are important. If the latter is true, then under-the-breath muttering through gritted teeth would technically not be a violation of the "graciously" part of the mandate. Further debate is expected. The terms "genuflect," "Lord and Master," and "ass-kissing" were edited out of the first draft, over much protest.

In a related story, Southern Baptists are waging an "evangelical Blitz" in Salt Lake City to "convert those damn Mormons." And James Sibley has been hired by the Southern Baptists to "convert those damn Jews." Sibley maintains that both the Mormons and the Jews have been "led astray." Said Sibley, "It's not that we view the Mormons and the Jews as our enemies. But everything they believe is a bunch of bullshit and it is our job to set them straight."

Sibley cited the modern idea of "Dual-Covenant Theology." "Both Christians and Jews have an equal and valid pact with God," explained Sibley. "It's just that the Jews are wrong." When asked what his position was on Catholics, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, Sibley groaned, "Jesus! Gimme a break, will you? One errant, muddle-headed, blasphemous religion at a time!"

Copyright 1998 The Heretical News

Pope John Paul really did change Canon Law the way I described it. Except for the mynah birds. The policies aren't new, but they had not been enshrined in Canon Law. Now they are. Canon Law has been changed only a few times in recent centuries. So John Paul decided to go down in history by changing it like this. Some legacy. The Church treats married women like breeding machines. Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant, huh, John? That man has an absolute vendetta against progress. Since the planet Earth is already groaning under the weight of its overflowing human cargo, the enshrinement of the birth control ban is nothing short of criminal and is unforgivably irresponsible.

This stiffening of already inflexible policies is bound to cause dissension, especially among liberal theologians. And for once I'm pulling for dissension. I hope this latest affirmation of medieval bigotry causes irreparable rifts in this Behemoth known as the Catholic Church, this archaic shrine to intolerance.

The Southern Baptist Convention really did issue the "submit graciously to your husbands" nonsense, and fortunately most of the world laughed out loud. I consider that real foot-shooting. Such blatant misogyny, which abounds in the Bible, is awkward enough to deal with, but to blare it out through a bullhorn is just plain stupid. It's 1998 fellas. Check your calendars. Personally, I'm tickled that they did it. They only validated their harshest critics. Like me.

Also, the Southern Baptists really did hire James Sibley to try to convert Mormons and Jews. In an astonishingly irrational statement Sibley said one of his goals was to "share the Gospel in a way the Jewish people can hear it." Say again? The only way Jewish people can "hear it" is to stop being Jews. If they accept Christ they are abandoning the Jewish faith. Or did I miss something?

And, finally, Catholic Bishop John Joseph really did commit suicide in Pakistan to protest a death sentence pronounced on a fellow Christian. I mean no disrespect toward Bishop Joseph or his memory, but I have nothing but furious contempt for religions that push people to such tragic extremes. Joseph killed himself to protest the death sentence against a Christian for blaspheming Islam. The irony is overwhelming. But it all boils down to oppressive, restrictive, religious doctrines. Will they never go away? We must crawl out of the Middle Ages where death and religion were so gruesomely intertwined, and women were considered to be something quite less than human.

The Internet is having an amazing impact on religion, and religions are not happy about it. They are having a much more difficult time hiding their dirty laundry. Child-molesting priests are being ferreted out like earwigs under an overturned wet rock. The "submit graciously" thing swept around the world in a flash and made the Baptists look like fools in record time. News travels fast on the Internet. And since few of us (and boy does that include me!) have time to read all we want to read, we can set our Internet news services to flash a notice in our face every time a story hits the wires about whatever we're interested in. Every time the Pope burps I'm aware of it. When an interesting new fossil is dug up somewhere I know about it. When the Hubble Telescope detects yet another cluster of galaxies, I hear about it. Now. I don't have to wait three or four years for the books to come out. And it is this very speed of communication that may soon spell big trouble for religions. Why?

Consider how religions began and how they spread. Mainly they traveled no faster that humans could walk, or at most a horse's canter. Human migrations were at a snail's pace. In Europe, for example, for literally centuries, villagers were born, lived and died without ever traveling farther than ten or twenty miles from home. Oceans, mountain ranges and mere miles kept us apart, and that very isolation reinforced our local religious beliefs. We were never exposed to anything different, everyone we knew believed what we believed, and this went on for centuries. When cultures finally did collide the result was usually war. History is a depressing, dreary litany of wars. Humans are basically conservative and don't like sudden, extreme change. We fight back when we meet something alien.

But now think about how quickly all that is changing. In one generation Japan has transformed, almost miraculously, from our hated, fierce enemies, to a country we can barely keep up with technologically. In just one decade home computers spread like wildfire. In just the last five years the Internet has changed human communication in an almost incomprehensible way. When I started my own domain [www.thehappyheretic.com], just one year ago, my husband bet me that within that year I would hear from ten different countries outside the USA. I laughed at him, I really did. And he was wrong. So far it's seventeen. I have been in touch with people from all over the world—people that I otherwise never would have heard from. It would not have been simply unlikely. It would have been impossible. (By the way, I do appreciate your messages! Please write if you have time!)

Applying this breathtaking speed and ease of communication to religion, it is getting a bit dicey for True Believers to keep their flocks controlled. It's much harder now to claim that you have sole access to the ear of the One True God. There are just too many One True Gods out there. And they are bumping into each other on the Internet. And our children are watching the collisions. This, I believe, may spell the beginning of the end of many religions. It is also, in my opinion, the reason for the Pope's recent, tenacious insistence on archaic doctrine, the Southern Baptists' asinine submission thing, Baptists trying to convert Mormons and Jews, and the totally oxymoronic concept of a "Dual-Covenant Theology." ("Both Christians and Jews have an equal and valid pact with God" is an accurate quote.) Religions can no longer ignore each other, but they don't know what to do about each other when they're thrown together in a way they've never been thrown together before in history. They have to crack the whip a little harder now to keep their flocks intact.

The natives are getting restless. She said with a smile.

© 1998 Judith Hayes

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