News Briefs

Catholics in Washington D.C. and New York City ask the Holy Father to offer up his suffering for them and their intentions.


Papal onlookers beg Pope to ‘offer up’ poor musical selections from Papal visit for them

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Patti Renfroe said she knows that when the Holy Father hears “One Bread, One Body” played this week during his historical trip to the United States, it has to hurt his aesthetical nature, but she is hoping that the pain it causes him may mean she will spend less time in Purgatory.

“As he rode by, I yelled out, ‘Pope Benedict, please offer up ‘One Bread, One Body’ for me and my kids, for our salvation!” He kind of gave me a knowing, but pained smiled and nodded. “What that man has to suffer for us,” said Renfroe, a music teacher at Our Lady Queen of Heaven School in Arlington, Virginia. “People just don’t appreciate it.”

Meanwhile, the eight members of the Thompson family, who traveled from Providence, Rhode Island, to see the Pope, stood along the police barricades, holding placards with the phrase “Remember Us When You Hear City of God!” painted in tempera paint. “Please offer it up for us! My dad’s out of work,” 12-year-old Josiah Thompson continued yelling as the motorcade drove by. “I just hope he heard me,” said Thompson. “Anytime I hear a lame song, I offer it up for him. My dad says if I keep doing this, the Pope will probably live to be 103.”

Non-Catholics say they hope Pope will begin implementing their ideas now that he is stateside

LOUISVILLE, KY – Across the country, non-Catholics are writing blog posts, calling into radio talk shows and loudly expressing opinions over dinner, in hopes that the pontiff will discover their ideas while he is in the United States and take them to heart.

“Did you guys read my latest blog post?” Daniel McMillan, a lapsed Methodist, asked his co-workers at Hart, Hart and Martinson Accountants in Louisville today. “I wrote about how the Catholic Church should allow priests to get married. I really think that would cut down on the sexual abuse problems. If the Pope Googles himself while he is here, maybe he will see it and comment on my blog.”

Andrew Davis, a cab driver who works in Chicago, tried to get through to the Pope via the Sean Hannity Show this afternoon. “Yeah Sean, I think the Pope should bless your ideas about birth control. You’re a good Catholic and you use it. I’m not Catholic or anything, but I think more people would join your church, if the Pope would change this rule. Pope Benedict, if you are listening, Sean and I are great Americans. You should listen to us.”