| Home |
| Archives |
| Subscribe |
| About Us |
| Contact Us |
| Links |
| Submissions |
| Our Founding Documents |
|
Declaration of Independence |
| Constitution |
| Bill of Rights |
| Amendments |
| Federalist Papers |
 |
Forget Priests, Let's Have Some Female NFL CoachesAugust 5, 2013
Since becoming the head guy in The Vatican, Pope Francis has pulled a bigger beach crowd than the Rolling Stones, walked through slums, and washed and kissed the feet of prisoners.
He even slummed it on his flight out of Rio by talking with reporters covering his trip, but he didn’t wash or kiss their feet. And even though he came out and said it is not his place to judge a gay person who accepts the Lord and has goodwill, there are plenty of women who think he should have said something for the ladies in the crowd, like saying the Catholic Church should ordain women priests. He did not say that, though. And those women think it is just a load of papal bull for the pope to allow the Catholic Church to continue making the priesthood an all-boys club. Of course, the guys in the robes will say the church has plenty of women to call upon, like Mary, the Mother of God; and the other Mary with the Myrrh Bearing Women (who first discovered the empty tomb). Or closer to home, Our Lady of Guadalupe (who technically is the mother Mary), and even Mother Teresa. Come to think of it, if women can give birth to God and take care of his children, maybe they can take on some priestly duties. Hey, they couldn’t do any worse. Some of the folks down at Sparky’s Diner took this subject to its logical conclusion, in their minds at least. Why limit women to Catholic priesthood? Why not take it to the next level and let them be head coaches of professional football teams? Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that’s a pretty dumb idea. I thought so, too, until a few of the regulars set me straight. And then it kinda made sense. For starters, professional football, they said, is America’s unofficial religion. They could have stopped there, but that’s not what the Sparky crowd does. Among their other examples: Teams play on Sunday most of the time, come hell or high water. Attending an NFL game can take about ten percent of your income, just like a tithe at church. The words “fan” and “faithful” both begin with the letter “f”, as in “football”. Freaky, right? Fans ritualistically cook and ingest dead animals over altars of flames or hot coals either at the game site or with fellow faithful fans coming together for home worship. A priest censes the congregation with fragrant smoke. A pro football team comes onto the field through a wall of smoke. Each team, at some point, asks for special divine strength to beat the devil out of the other team. Teams put on their mantels as gridiron crusaders to take the field against other crusaders. There’s that whole conversion thing. Football teams already include Cardinals and Saints, not to mention some Rams, whose former owner was a woman. ‘Fess up now, how many times have you written off your team only to have them come back from the dead? And speaking of confession, priests are into hearing confessions and football players are into confessing in hearings (Tip of the hat to Hash Brown for that one.) Sparky eventually chimed in to remind us that at one time the very thought of a woman in a locker room was, well, unthinkable, if not downright unmanly. Now we have ladies in the locker rooms, ladies on the sidelines, ladies on the set doing what comes naturally to ladies: telling the guys how to play the game. And, of course, a Super Bowl championship comes with a big ring with lots of diamonds. Need we say more?
| ||||
John David Powell writes his Lone Star Award-winning columns from Shadey Hill Ranch in Texas. His email address is johndavidpowell@yahoo.com.
|