The 8:00 pm mass on Tuesday nights is usually pretty quiet-reserved mostly for widows, and quiet, well-dressed creepy men in their forties who are forced to come by the women they live with: their mothers. However, this Tuesday happened to be the anniversary of the death of local football hero, Ted Downing. Even though Downing passed away 17 years ago under bizarre and questionable circumstances on the St. Agnes swing set with an under-age girl, he was revered as a great role model and pillar of the community. That being said, the Ted Downing Memorial Mass was always quite full.
Standing in front of his parishioners never made Father John nervous. He was always comfortable. So comfortable that he felt succumbing to, “Idol Fever”, and texting in his vote for his favorite American Idol contestant, Adam Lambert, during his sermon, would be no problem at all. Hanselswift knew Lambert would need his help because while following the internet feed on mute, he saw that host, Ryan Seacrest, was unable to keep the show moving along, and went 8 minutes over. Lambert, the crowd favorite, was slotted with the “pimp slot” (the shows closer), and sang his heart out with his Tears for Fears cover, Mad World, to a studio audience only. The rest of the channel 5 audience was already being introduced to a word from the sponsors , by the time Lambert took the stage. As Hanselswift said “Amen” he pushed “send” hoping to fill his vote with that of the Holy Spirit. What Father John Paul didn’t realize was that in his excitement he had only prayed 1-800-IDOL, and hadn’t typed in the numbers. He had merely sent a naked photograph of himself in leather with a ball-gag in his mouth to his entire congregation, using the “send to all” option.
“There were a lot of folks there. A lot of folks found themselves quite upset by it. I’m not going to sugar coat it. It was pretty upsetting, said Amel Lukaewicz, parish elder. “People used to keep their phones off at church but with the “Idol Fever” going on out there…Father John wasn’t the only one trying to send his vote in.”
Being close to your parish comes with the territory of being a good priest. Father John had the cell phone numbers of mostly everyone that had ever been on a church committee, followed him on twitter, or sent him an email. He liked being connected to everyone, and being able to reach out in a moments notice, even when he was spending time with friends in Ibiza. He had probably only fantasized about alter boys getting a good look at his genitals, and never imagined it could actually happen.
Father John was unavailable for comment, according to the Bonsonville Diocese. The only statement released by the Diocese was the following: “We are very sorry that you had to see Father John in this way. We are in agreement that Father John is a sexual deviant, and he will be removed form the parish effective immediately. We will be re-assigning him to serve the people of St. Jerome’s which is a full 20 minutes from Bonsonville. He will only be able to reach you and your children through text messaging, the Internet, and if he’s feeling energetic, a long-distance bike ride on a sunny Saturday afternoon. We hope you can now rest knowing that we will be bringing in Father Philip, who himself, is being re-assigned for suspect behavior at a parish roller rink party in North Bergen. Thank you for remaining good Catholics during this trying time.”
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