Don’t tell Sic this isn’t a scoop. The Catholic world is buzzing with rumors that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has written his memoirs, titled Gotcha! or in Italian Urbi et Orbi.

“Is this really Sic?” Ratzinger said when we called long distance. “Sic is such a kidder.” He seemed frisky, and we knew we had a scoop. Then he uttered an anathema and hung up.

A Canadian named Joe Wilson has made an apron out of duct tape. He also made a baseball cap, a bachelor’s toilet-roll cover and more, then wrote a book with phrases such as “veni, vidi, ducti” and “carpe ducti.” If you’ve been waiting for years to publish your great American novel, you’ll be depressed as Sic by all this.

Rosemary Moon from Saginaw sent some Dilbertisms:

“I love deadlines. I especially love the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.”

“Someday we’ll look back on all this and plow into a parked car.”

“Accept that some days you’re the pigeon and some days you’re the statue.”

“Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars, and I thought to myself, ‘Where the heck is the ceiling?’ ”

“Everybody is somebody else’s weirdo.”

“Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.”

A holy card, sort of, from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asserts Jesus was a vegetarian. Some of PETA’s theology, though, is on the loose side. Jesus “drove those selling animals for sacrifice and consumption out to the temple.” This is news to Sic who thought they were selling doughnuts and dromedary droppings. Jesus also “instituted baptism in place of animal sacrifice,” the card says. Sic thinks Jesus might have done just that had he thought of it.

A beautifully manicured likeness of Jesus hints at too much Oil of Olay. Above all, note the halo, composed of a slice of either orange or lemon, neither of which, if you ask Sic, is a vegetable, nor mentioned in the Bible.

This Pastoral Search Report is now some years old:

Adam: Good man but problems with his wife. Also enjoys walking nude in the woods.

Noah: Former ministry of 120 years with no converts. Prone to unrealistic building projects.

Joseph: A big thinker, but a braggart, believes in dream-interpreting, has a prison record.

Solomon: Great preacher but rectory would never hold all those wives.

Deborah: Female.

Jeremiah: Emotionally unstable, always lamenting things, and reported to have taken a long trip to bury his underwear on the bank of some foreign river.

Jonah: Refused God’s call until swallowed up by big fish. Said the fish later spat him out. We hung up.

Headline in The Michigan Catholic: “Rev. Marty due April 18.”

Anon, who sent this to Sic, insists it’s a miracle since the article says Marty has written 50 books. And that’s just for starters.

More things readers wish they had said had they thought of them in time:

“You sound reasonable. Time to up my medication.”

“I’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.”

“It might look like I’m doing nothing, but at the cellular level I’m really quite busy.”

“I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.”

“Someday we’ll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.”

NCR undercover reporter Arthur Jones reports on a certain church in the Southwest having bats in the nave (fooled you, hah?), until a Franciscan was consulted, who advised: Baptize and then confirm them and you’ll never see them again.

(Sic doesn’t know why this was a Franciscan. Probably some divine plan.)

Not everyone knows the scriptural bases for the title of monsignor. Liturgy Network Newsletter found them in Notitiae:

1. Book of Genesis: Since God created something out of nothing, the church is justified to name some as monsignors, which, while parallel to God’s action in creation, is more marvelous, creating nothing out of something.

2. Matthew 26:45: During his passion, the Lord proclaimed the words that embolden the church to create monsignors: “Sleep now and enjoy your rest.”

This Space is still trying to reach Ratzinger whose book has been described by insiders as a whodunit.

National Catholic Reporter, June 18, 1999

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