Enjoy.
* * * *
11 February 2013
His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City
Most Holy Father:
I send you my best regards on this historic day, and
wish you all the best with your future plans. I realise that you must have
quite a lot on your plate right now, what with your recently announced
resignation and all. However, I would like to make one final request of you
before you leave office as Holy Pontiff: I would like to request permission to
get drunk for one day during Lent.
This year, as I have for countless years past, I will
be fasting from meat and alcohol during the Lenten season, as a sacrificial
expression of my Catholic faith. Normally, this has been a joyous time of
contemplation and meditation which has greatly fed my soul. However, this year,
my friend Alejandra will be turning 30 during Lent—on the 26th of
March, to be precise—and I would like to get wasted at her birthday party.
The thirtieth birthday is a momentous occasion for
anyone—the unofficial coda bringing youth to a close and marking the beginning
of one’s adulthood proper. It is the day on which one becomes painfully aware
of one’s imminent demise; a day to consider the fact that the cold embrace of
the crypt grows ever nearer. A day on which you ask not for whom the bell tolls—it
tolls for thee.
The “Big Thirty” is a special birthday for anyone, and
Alejandra is one of my closest friends. We are so close that the word “friend”
doesn’t even begin to express it. We are like this, Your Holiness. (I crossed
my fingers closely together when I wrote that sentence, in the universal hand
gesture of “buddy fingers”; I then uncrossed them and corrected the spelling
errors caused by trying to type with crossed fingers.) Alejandra and I are like
family; she is like an uncle to me. And on this singularly sacred occasion in
Alejandra’s life, I would like to get totally hammered.
I should clarify—this is not due to a lack of
self-control. I have successfully abstained from alcohol during Lent every year
since 2004. I am a man who is overwhelmed with self-control; I am master of my
domain. Why, I even abstained from pleasuring myself for eight consecutive
years of my life—formative, hormonal years, at that. No, my sole interest is to
accompany Alejandra into her thirties, as any true friend would (Proverbs
18:24), and to get so inebriated that I can barely speak. I’ll get smashed on 26
March, then resume my fast on the 27th. However, I would feel much
better about doing so if I had the Papal green light on this.
I have greatly enjoyed being Catholic under your
leadership for many years. I will be sad to see you go, but I must trust the
wisdom and judgment of your decision. After all, as the Bible says, “You got to
know when to hold them, and know when to fold them”. I wish you all the best in
the future!
Catholically Yours,
David Schmidt
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