INQUISITION

     It's about time. Recently, Pope John Paul II addressed the masses and publicly apologized for years of Catholic religion's excesses, travesties, crimes and downright bad judgements. I don't know how the real schpiel went down but here's my liberal rendition of the Pope apologizing.

     "Children of God, we gather here today because the Church has something to say; I, have something to say. <Ahem> Something which has been a long time coming. Something which you must listen to--because you know that when I, the highest Pontiff, say anything, you must listen. This something is very serious; I'm not proud of it. But it is this: The Church apologizes for many, many things.

     Doing my regular recordkeeping, it became urgent to me that the list of things the Church has done wrong had gone too long to be put back in the Holy Vault of the Vatican. So in order to do some spring cleaning and make some room for injustices to come, the Church must apologize. >Cough< Let me commence.

     The Church apologizes for the Crusades, all of them at once because I don't wish to go into the ugly details. But we apologize for raising armies and kicking Muslim ass time and again to recover the city of Jerusalem. We got a little bit too carried away with the killing and the pillaging. I suppose we were not well lead at the time, and we thought it was all justified. I...I can't recall just how many Crusades but I can say there were one too many. So sorry. For the murder. The pillaging. And the burning. <Ahem> And the raping. There. That one's done.

     The Church then wishes to apologize for that damn blemish in its history known as the Holy Roman Empire. I don't know what were thinking, taking religion to the point of it being the name of an empire and all that. I guess we got a bit too full of ourselves. It happens. We're now gotten back to just being a judgamental dogmatic institution and we don't pretend to control countries and all that.

     Next, the Church apologizes for Pope Alexander of the Borgias. Oh Man, was he a shame to our holy institution or what. Here was a man who was Pope and yet married and carried on like the everyman, having carnal relationships. Alexander bent the rules a tad, and for that I apologize. All that father-daughter incest thing with Lucretia was sure unpleasant. And with him having all his enemies poisoned and all. Let's not speak about such damnable stuff any longer. Let's just say we apologize.

     What's next? Oh Boy, there's more. I'm so sorry--I know you all want to go back to sinning and then saying your Ave Marias and Hail Marys to be absolved but this has gotta be done. The Church apologizes for that excessive travesty known as the Spanish Inquisition. Well, at first we thought some of those people were really warlocks and witches but I guess after a while we couldn't tell a warlock from a reputable scientist or a talented artist. So we apologize to all those who were, ahem, strung, pierced and burned. As well as cut. Uhmm. Beaten. Vivisected. Aaahhh. Drowned. Castrated. We sincerely apologize.

     And man-o-man, were we wrong when we looked the other way during the Holocaust. We are sooowwwwyyyyy. But what could we have done anyways? Hitler would had marched into the Vatican and ventilated with lead each and everyone of us if we would have said a peep. And I know millions died in concentation camps--we're again sorry. We should have at least lifted a finger to help in the situation.

     I'm running out of time, and goddamned is this list long. But we apologize for all our perverted priests and their sexual misconduct with children. We're going to get all of them and pack them in the Vault. And in advance, we apologize for instilling shame, fear and hatred in the hearts of so many, all in the name of Being Right. So... we apologize...sowwy and see you all soon.

     Oohh Veeyy. Let me crawl back into bed now."