"Pulleth Mine Finger," The Lord Said Unto Abraham

In a cosmic jest right up there with God tricking Abraham into releasing The Almighty Wind (which slew the Phoenicians), The Vatican announced this week that for centuries His Lordliness has been pulling our collective leg about the whole Limbo thing. What a wiseacre. For almost two thousand years the parents of newborns who died before baptism have wept, believing they would never see their children in Heaven. That, instead, these innocents were sent to a lower plane, away from the presence of God. But guess what? Zing! It was only a joke!

So who let the punchline finally slip? Was it The Lord His-Damned-Self in an HBO Special, perhaps? Or in a profanity-laced set at The Comedy Store? Nope. It was none other than The Lord's straight man, His Holiness The Pope. That's because The Big Guy doesn't make personal appearances like he used to: every other week from a burning bush and or sinister cloud. Nuh-uh. Nowadays he just sits up there on his throne, whispering in The Pope's ear and chuckling at his handiwork.

And so it happened this week. His Benedictness the XVI was sitting quietly in his study, re-rereading his favorite naughty bits from the Book of Obadiah (Letter from Esua to the char-woman), when he found out:

The Lord (off-camera): "You busy?"
His Eminence (quickly pulling his hands above the table): "Huh, Whoozat?"
The Lord: "'Tis me. The One True God. You got a minute?"
His Eminence (meekly): "Sure, I was just, uh, slogging my treatise."
The Lord: "Never mind that. Have I got a doozy for you..."

Okay, so that's not the official version. The official version goes something like this:

Catholic experts are expected to advise Pope Benedict XVI that teachings on the state of limbo - somewhere between heaven and hell - should be amended. For centuries many Roman Catholics have believed that the souls of babies who die before baptism remain in limbo. But the Catholic Church is concerned about the grief suffered by the parents of stillborn babies, which could be compounded if they believed the souls of their children were to be excluded from heaven.

It's the old "Whoops, We Read That Wrong" defense. Not very assuring, if you ask me, but quite a bit better than the "The Man Upstairs Is Fucking With Us" alternative. So where do they go from here? Do they finally admit they haven't a clue about condoms or gays or the end of the world? Nah, there's still too much money in it, even with the pedophilic priest lawsuits. So they'll just keep muddling along, tut-tutting the rest of humanity whilst waving their collection plates about. It's really all they know.