After Pope Francis called, this week, for a more inclusive Church, a bigger tent – “a home for all”, 1.2 Billion shocked Roman Catholics tweeted “WTF?” to the new Pontiff.
One tweeter, from Tupelo, Mississippi, Beauregard Ooopson, raised questions on the lips of Roman Catholics around the world. “Love Thy Neighbor? Pope Francis wants me to love my neighbor. Mister, have you seen my neighbors? Mostly funny looking people, oddly dressed, born in countries I’ve never heard of. Never knew people came in so many shades of brown and yellow.”
Mrs. Ooopson, interrupted her husband, reminding him, “Darling, honey, tell this here reporter ’bout the women we see in this town buying bagfuls of contraceptives at the checkout counter at Walmart like they was buying chewing gum. And tell him ’bout them women we see keeping company with other women – as if the men in this county ain’t good enough for them. Now just last Sunday, from the pulpit, I was told that Jesus himself frowns upon such peculiar conduct. But today, today, I’m asked, ‘Who are you to judge another human being?’ This here, new Pope Francis says we’re obsessed in our Church with abortion, contraception and opposition to gay marriage. Well, what does his Holiness want us to be for, to be about, if not the things, and people, that we are against that unite all of us?”
Another tweeter, from Cambridge, Massachussets, a tenured Harvard professor, said, “Pope Francis argues we’re at risk of creating a small nest ‘protecting our mediocrity’. What’s suddenly wrong with small nests and fences? Why bother building fences if there’s nobody to keep out.”
Back in Rome, Pope Francis knelt in prayer and asked his heavenly Father to explain, “Why is it so much easier to say “them” than “we“, to be against than for?”
