News I Made Up
Rome, January 12th
New research sponsored by the Vatican has uncovered a startling link between the impending destruction of the human race in a global climate catastrophe and saucy bedroom antics. Homosexuals, in particular, the report concludes, raise the average global temperature by as much as half a degree per year.
“Climate change is real, and it is a threat to creation,” a Vatican spokesperson said today. “But this nonsense about its causes must stop. Yes, it is anthropogenic, but no, it’s nothing to do with oil! It’s all about having filthy hot boy-on-boy sex. Well, that and filthy hot girl-on-girl action, obviously. And those people who have non-procreative sex, they’re responsible as well.”
Father Josefus di Cantaloupé of the Vatican’s recently-formed Congregation for the Preservation of Science And Doctrinal Health, also had hard words for teenagers who wear too much make-up and listen to devil music.
“All this, with the heavy base, the boom-ba-baba-boomba,” Father Josefus said, “everyone knows that’s hot sex music for the carnal acts. It also damages the ozone layers and kills baby seals, part of what we like to call ‘telegenic megafauna’, which are of course the most important parts of God’s work. It’s your generation which will face the consequences of this devil music. So the best thing you can do to stop climate change is wear long, shapeless overalls and listen to Chris de Burgh instead.”
“The key issue here is stewardship,” Father Josefus said. “The Holy Mother Church is the steward of the global soul, the planet, and of everyone’s genitals. Jesus does not like it when you have bad, steamy, back-archingly orgasmic sex with a person of your own gender, because we are all one in the body of Christ. Homosexual behaviour makes God do gay things, and God is straight. His reaction – whether it’s rage, as in the Old Testament, or a sort of profound embarrassment and a desire to apologise immediately as in the modern Church of England teaching – makes the world hotter. It’s that simple.”
Scientists and theologians have responded cautiously to the report.
“It’s, uh, it’s not the sort of science I like to get too closely involved with,” said Mary Criddler of the Meterological and Climate Science Institute in Pendlesham, Ohio. “I haven’t seen the data, so I shouldn’t really comment, but… excuse me, no, I’m really not laughing I just have a cough today, can I call you right back?”
Cardinal Archbishop Tarkov from the Mitteleuropa Holy Angelic Communion queried the Biblical sources of the report. “The word of God says nothing about climate directly,” he said. “There are floods and disasters, but it never says ‘God will raise the temperature if you are bad.’ In fact, the pledge given to Noah would sort of seem to contradict that. Myself, also, I’m not sure it’s useful to talk about the Lord in the context of physical gender. I tend to think that that’s our limited perception of the universe trying to fit the infinite into a box made of flesh… Honestly, I think everyone at the Vatican is a bit surprised that Father Josefus has lasted this long. He was kicking around Rome with nothing to do, scaring the crap out of visiting Japanese tourists with some rather harsh stuff about Buddha, and they sort of gave him the job thinking he’d join our Heavenly Father before he could actually produce a report, but he’s hanging in there. He’s a tough old guy, and he did some really good stuff smuggling people out of Germany in the war when a lot of priests were just toeing the line with the Nazis. But honestly, I think he’s lost his clerical marbles here.”
God was not available for comment.
