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Who Knew It Would Be So Easy To Impersonate A Priest?
BY DANIEL VASCONI
FEBRUARY 27, 2002 | ISSUE 38•07
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I've admired priests all my life. Whenever a priest walked into a room, everyone seemed to look at him with respect and admiration. I always thought it'd be great to be a priest, but the thought of going through years of vocational training and having to stop screwing women was too much for me. It was a glorious moment, indeed, when I realized I didn't need to do all that to become a priest.
To become a priest, all you really need is a priest outfit from a costume shop, a Bible, and the right attitude. If you can remember to stop swearing, be discreet about the bonin', and wash the stench of pot smoke out of your clothes, you're home free. Who knew it would be so easy?
I mean, you don't even need to know Latin. Hell, no one knows Latin anymore. But if you occasionally spout a few phrases that sound all Latiney, like, "E Novus Unum Omnibus,"it makes you seem all the more authentic.
The thing you have to realize is, when you dress up like a priest, people want to believe you're a priest. I recently visited a small town in Missouri where no one knew me and started walking around in my priest outfit. Within a few hours, I was invited to a week's worth of home-cooked meals. Man, did I eat good! And you know what? Not a single person asked me to show my priest ID card before serving up the roast turkey and mashed potatoes.
I always thought the hard part of being a priest was giving people biblical advice and stuff. But I soon found out that you don't have to know jack shit about "John 3:14" or "Jeff 9:44" or whatever. Whenever someone asks me for spiritual guidance, I just mix a little common sense with whatever my uptight Aunt Martha might say, and people go away thinking I'm King Priest. And if you really want to seal the deal, call the person "my child" or "my son." Works every time!
If only my brother Mark could see how these people hang on my every word. Then, maybe he wouldn't call me Doofus Dan. As a priest, I'm a lot more admired than I ever was as a Chick-fil-A assistant manager. I wish I could go home for Christmas in my priest outfit and shove it in Mark's stupid face, but my family would disown me if they found out what I was doing.
Another bonus of being a priest is the chicks. There always seems to be some spiritually troubled, sexy young thing who needs to confess. And you wouldn't believe how easy it is to get into their pants! After listening to a girl yammer on about her problems for an hour or so, I tell her how moved I am by her spiritual dilemma. Then, I tell her how conflicted I am about the "strange stirrings" I'm grappling with as a result of meeting her. I don't know what it is about a man considering breaking his covenant with God that makes a girl's panties fly off, but it works like you wouldn't believe! For a guy whose only contact with women was in titty bars or crowded buses, this is Heaven. Praise be!
And the best part is, when I wake up next to the girl the next morning, it's easy as pie to escape. I just make like I've made a terrible mistake and tell her I have to beg God for forgiveness, and I'm gone. I don't even have to buy breakfast. Talk about a racket! You'd think every guy in America would be doing this by now!
Sometimes, I feel guilty about impersonating a priest, like I'm committing some kind of sin. (Maybe I'm starting to take this priest thing too seriously!) But then I come to my senses and say, "What's the harm?" Okay, so maybe a few couples out there aren't technically married in the eyes of God because of me. And maybe one or two people haven't been given the proper Last Rites. But in reality, religion is all just a big show to impress your friends and family, anyway, so as long as they believe it, that's what matters.
Impersonating a priest isn't quite as easy as I've made it out to be. You have to keep on your toes a lot of the time. Forget to say "bless you" a few too many times when people sneeze and people start looking at you funny. I also should probably learn the names of the guys in that "Last Supper" picture. But the great thing is, once people start getting a little suspicious, you can start all over in another town. It's not like people love priests only in Missouri!
Sometimes, I just want to wrap my arms around the Catholic Church and give it a big, wet kiss for getting me the respect and admiration I could never earn myself.
I think I'm ready to move up and become a bishop. I bet that's where the real goods are.
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