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Easter 2025: Three Voices

A Satire in Bad Taste

Here, Your Holiness, I baked you some Easter cookies. They're from my mother's favorite recipe. I hope you enjoy them.

Why, thank you my son, I'm sure I will. Mmm, delicious. Bless you, and a happy Easter.

Twelve Hours Later

A “Theological” Short

In Bollywood, films about the gods are known as “theologicals.”

The Gods are rehearsing a play.

As the Old Gods act onstage, the Younger Gods stand backstage as chorus. One of the Younger Gods, though, keeps dashing onstage and interfering with the action.

Finally the Great Mother, who is directing the show, can't stand it anymore.

“Knock it off, Yahweh,” she remonstrates. Her mouth twists wryly. “Younger Gods should be heard, but not seen.”

The Old Gods laugh.

AP: Minneapolis

Watching the Superbowl makes you stupider.

That's what a new study at the University of Minnesota shows.

“The long-term evidence is irrefutable,” says Dr. Stefano Pozzo of U of M Fairview Hospital. “More than 30 years of clinical data demonstrate a clear correlation between football-watching and loss of intelligence.”

IQ tests administered before and after watching the Superbowl show a clear decline of intellectual capacity in virtually all watchers, ranging from a loss of 2-3 points to as many as 25 points.

“The real surprise,” said Pozzo, “is that anyone should be surprised to hear this. Any objective observer can see that American football is a stupid and brutal game. It makes those that play it stupid and brutal, and—as the evidence now shows—it makes those that watch it stupid and brutal as well.”

In fact, data suggests a strong correlation between football-watching generally and cognitive decline among fans, but for some reason Superbowl watchers are more strongly affected.

“Satanists in Christian Clothing”

AP: Mar-a-Lago, Florida

In a press conference Wednesday, President-Elect Trump admitted to having literally sold his soul to the Devil in order to win re-election.

“I summoned Him up myself, conjured Him up, at Halloween, just before the Election,” he told reporters, “that's His birthday, you know. You should have seen me, it was wild! He showed up, too—in person, of course. Hey, when the Donald calls, even the Devil comes.”

He laughed. “How else do you think a worthless, incompetent piece of sh*t like me could possibly have got back into office?”

“Talk about the Art of the Deal,” he continued. “I traded something that you can't even see—you can't even see it, everybody knows that—you can't smell it or taste it or hear it or feel it, some people would say it doesn't even exist. I signed the contract, the pact with the Devil—He's my buddy, you know, my good buddy—traded nothing for something, nothing, and now I'm going to be the most powerful man in the world!”

When asked if the revelation—which puts to rest the swirling cloud of rumors that have dogged his campaign since the election—would damage his popularity with Evangelical voters, a key voting bloc in his reelection, Trump laughed.

Jesus's pronouns are They, Them, and Their.

So, at least, says the Episcopal Conference of Bishops (ECB), at their recent annual meeting in Minneapolis.

“The Church is an institution of radical inclusivity,” said Bishop River Banks, presiding bishop of the American Episcopal Church. “Did Jesus come to save only those assigned male at birth? No! They came to save persons of all genders. If Jesus were alive today—and I believe that they are—their pronouns would be They, Them, and Their.”

"Be sure to get the capitals Ts on those pronouns," they added.

In a controversial decision, an overwhelming majority of acting bishops also voted to revise the liturgies of the Episcopal Church to reflect this new understanding and—even more controversially—to revise the Biblical text accordingly.

“Our understanding of Scripture, like that of the Constitution, is an evolving understanding,” said Banks. “We're not tampering with Scripture, as some have accused,” they added, “we're making it true to its own values.”

“'Radical inclusivity,' ha!” said dissenting Bishop Jack Whymer of Baltimore. “I'm out of here, and I'm taking my congregation with me.”

Prospects of yet another exodus from the Church's ranks do not worry Bishop Banks.

Dear Boss Warlock,

I'm cooking up my first batch of flying ointment, but I'm having a really difficult time finding the human fat that I need for the recipe.

I'm not into human sacrifice, and I'm afraid I just don't have the stamina for grave robbing these days.

Not to mention: how do I reconcile this with 'An it harm none'?

Stymied in Sturgis

Dear Sty,

Grave robbing? Human sacrifice? Seriously, Sty, how 1980s.

(Oh, we were earnest in those days.)

Mere weeks after the end of World War II, a prosperous but widely-despised New York mogul takes his young wife on a skiing vacation to the Norwegian mountains. While there, she vanishes, apparently into thin air.

Interpol and the FBI turn up nothing.

Three months later, she mysteriously reappears, to all appearances unharmed. No explanation for her disappearance is ever forthcoming.

After a difficult pregnancy of nearly ten months' duration, she delivers an outsized, obstreperous baby with a head of unnaturally orange hair.

You will, perhaps, have wondered why, in certain circles, a certain disgraced ex-demagogue is known as “President Half-Troll.”