Americans Dismayed as Pope Remains Catholic

For full hilarity, read the whole thing at Wittenburg Door:
According to a poll just released by Gallup, a growing number of Americans are becoming disenchanted with the Catholic flavor of Pope Benedict the XVI's papacy.

"It seems that America was looking for someone who could bring the church together and move it towards the center on issues like birth control and women in the priesthood," reported Gallup's Howie Niedigger, "but this Pope has continued to defy public opinion and appears to be solidly Catholic.

"You might remember the polling done shortly after the former Pope's death that reported that 78% of all American Catholics thought the new Pope should change the church's teaching about birth control," Niedigger added. "Well, it's as if nobody ever took those polls at all. I mean, Americans said such nice things about Pope John Paul II when he died and then the Vatican turns around and picks a pope that's just like him – only more so and with even less tolerance. How's that for gratitude?!"

[…] "A lot of Americans are upset that the Vatican ignored American religious sensibilities by making Cardinal Ratzinger Pope," noted CPFTASQ (Catholic People for the American Status Quo - ed.) spokesperson Dina Horn. "Someone like Oprah or maybe Hillary Clinton would have been a great choice. "Instead we got a Pope who was "selected and not elected" and who will probably keep the church faithful to its almost-2000-year-old ideals in spite of America's wishes.

"At first people were willing to give Benedict the benefit of the doubt," Horn continued. "But feelings have soured as the cold hard reality has set in that the church's position on hot button topics like abortion and stem cell research will not change to suit America's beliefs."

Horn predicted that if Benedict XVI "keeps this" that the Roman Catholic Church will "suffer greatly" as Americans vote with their feet and pocket books.

[…] Cardinal Brian Law, America's most quotable Cardinal, disagreed.

"The Catholic Church remains committed to reaching out to Americans," Law said. "And we are doing everything that we can to Americanize Catholicism as quickly as possible. We're even asking EWTV to start adding more Prosperity Gospel Masses and limit talking about suffering and discipleship to after 9 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends to protect children from some of the more traditional teachings of our Church…

One troubling factor of our age is that it is not always easy to differentiate satire from the evening news. The part about "protecting children from some of the more traditional teachings of our Church" is way too close to reality for both Protestant and Catholic alike. Why catechize the little rug rats? The main point, after all, is to keep them occupied during the service...