The Pope, a Boy Scout, VIP A, and VIP B were on an airplane
that suddenly lost power. The pilot, wearing a parachute, came to
the rear and told the passengers, "There are only three
parachutes available for the four of you" - and then he
jumped from the plane.
VIP A (fill in your own personality) took one parachute and said,
"I'm a very important diplomat, and I need this so I can
save the world." Then he jumped out. VIP B said, "I'm
the smartest man in the world so I need to live," and he
jumped out.
The Pope said to the Boy Scout: "Young man, you take the
last parachute, I've lived a long, full life, and I have no fear
of dying." The Boy Scout then said: "Don't worry about
that. The smartest man in the world just jumped out wearing my
backpack."
Now that's a funny "pope joke," unlike the material a
desperate freebie New York City newspaper decided to put on its
front page last week. What ever could have possessed the editors
of this Village Voice clone to mock the illness of Pope John Paul
II with 52 very unfunny jokes about his impending death?
[Yesterday, the editor of that paper, the New York Press, said he
resigned. Jeff Koyen, 36, said he quit because his publisher,
Christopher Rohland, suspended him without pay for two weeks. Mr.
Koyen told The New York Sun that he had no regrets about
publishing a list making fun of the pope's health problems.
"No one in New York was really upset," he said.]
When I saw that Matt Drudge had posted it on his Web site,
ensuring that the paper would receive undue attention, my first
impulse was to ignore this tripe. The paper's own Web site was
swarmed with surfers, who would then be required to register
their e-mail addresses to see the offensive article. What a great
marketing ploy: Bash the pope, and gain a huge e-mail list to
sell.
Then I reread the article and recognized the desperation and
hatred that must ooze from the pores of this paper's editors.
After all, what did this pope say just before his latest bout
with illness? He reiterated the church's stance against gay
marriage, calling it the "ideology of evil." Whew!
That's a no-no among many here in New York whose agenda is
challenged by his authority over Roman Catholics.
At Sunday Mass, I watched a video tape on the Cardinal's Appeal
2005, which is being shown in all the parishes of the New York
archdiocese. In one scene of a local parish, the camera flashed
on an altar boy, and I was suddenly reminded of all those nasty
priest jokes that late-night television hosts made during the
priest scandals of 2002. If my mind could be poisoned by the
impressions foisted on us by press and network coverage, imagine
how it encouraged the anti-Catholic sentiment that abounds in our
city.
The now former editor of the freebie paper conceded to the Sun
last week that only 20% of the jokes were funny and the others
were distasteful and made him cringe. I congratulate him on
finding that 20%, because not one was remotely laugh-invoking.
Yet the editor felt confident enough to put it on the front page,
because when it comes to outrage in this town it never applies to
bias against the church.
Priests have become satyrs, predators of our innocent children,
and derided by those in the entertainment and literary world. Our
pope, the vicar of Christ, has been reduced to an object of
ridicule during his most vulnerable time in life. The 52 jokes
include these two gems. He is described as dying and looking like
a baboon. Upon his death, doctors "discover that not only
was the Pope a woman, but also Hitler."
Side-splitting, right?
But this is nothing new, and as I watched the video showing all
the good works that are done in the archdiocese, I was delighted
to see a glimpse of my old parish, St. Cecilia's on East 106th
Street. I filtered out the jokes and smears and remembered my own
personal experiences. My brother and my three sons were all altar
boys and were never molested. The priests, nuns, and brothers
that I've met all through the decades have for the most part been
pious, dedicated human beings who've sacrificed their lives to do
good.
I actually feel pity for that writer and that editor who are so
consumed with hatred that they are unable to judge when they have
made a mistake. In a press release about the vile front page,
William Donohue of the Catholic League writes: "Of course,
they hate the pope. Which makes sense: he is the one man whose
commitment to the truth has literally driven them over the
edge."