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Volume CCXXXV, Number 74    April 27, 2005 

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Triumph of the will:

THE NEW POPE:
MY STRUGGLE

By Charles Coughlin
Religion Editor

ROME – Pope Benedict XVI, formerly known as Hitler Youth member and Wehrmacht solider Josef Nazinger [Surely, Ratzinger? – Ed.], described his struggle to save the Catholic race from "impure influences" in a stem-winding speech to the faithful this week in Rome.

The new pope, who had pretty much run the Catholic Reich from behind the scenes during the protracted senescence of beloved religious icon Pope John Paul II, promised to throw off the shackles that had constrained the strength and glory of the Roman Catholic Church.

The new pontiff, who has attracted criticism in some quarters due to his extremely conservative doctrinal views, his coverup of the U.S. clergy sex-abuse scandal and his Nazi past, said that the Catholic Church would cast its critics down into eternal hellfire.

"The glorious Catholic Church," shouted the first German pope in a millennium, "cannot be held back by the mongrel religions that surround it, including the cosmopolitan Jews, the Slavic Orthodox and the decadent Protestants."

The harsh words from the new occupant of the throne of St. Peter alarmed many with reason to fear the power of a resurgent Catholic Church, including homosexuals and young boys. But others believe that the new Pope's bark is worse than his bite. "He is excitable but I think he will calm down and be guided by his senior Cardinals," said Herschel Taib of Munich. "I am very comfortable living around Catholics. Nothing will happen to me. My family has lived in Bavaria for 60 years," he said proudly.

Others point to the pontiff's extensive writing and proclamations, all of which point to a fervent, almost paranoid, sense of struggle against various dark forces that supposedly threaten the Catholic Völk. "We should not think that the new pope will suddenly turn his back on the very clear ideas he has outlined over the last thirty years," warned Cassandra Endlösung, who has covered the new pope since his humble beginnings in a Munich beer hall [Surely, parish? – Ed.].

Those closer to the pope had nothing but praise for the new infallible commander of the Catholic faithful. "He is my moral beacon and compass in all things," said fugitive brown-noser Cardinal Bernard Law.

But perhaps the final word should be left to the man who is now absolute dictator of one billion Catholics. In his concluding remarks to the hundreds of thousands of loyal followers who filled St. Peter's Square, the new Pope warned: "Those who oppose the holy mission of the Catholic Church by seeking to imprison wayward priests, spreading slander and lies about the Church, or defiling Catholic doctrine through abortion or homosexual sex, will be annihilated. Crushed. Destroyed. Wiped from the face of the earth. The unity of the Catholic peoples is irresistible!"