The papal butler did it

I don’t know why I was surprised to read the pope has a butler. He’s got almost everything else -- international prestige, adulation, God’s ear.

You’d need a butler just to tidy up after all the confetti.

But it strikes me as odd that anyone would want to butler a pope. 

Paolo Gabriele is cooperating in a emerging scandal about the leaking of confidential Vatican documents. Authorities think the butler did it.

It’s so cliche it makes me suspect the competence of Vatican CSI -- and you have to imagine some network programmer is right now hyping that for a fall release.

Reporters who cover the Vatican -- and let’s go ahead and call them “poperazzi” -- have uncovered little about the married 46-year-old father of three.

His is a fascinating and historical job, but I’ll bet his kids wish he was a fireman or trash hauler on career day down at the elementary school. 

The idea of having a butler is something that’s always fascinated me. It’d be like having a drinking buddy who’s always around to pick up your dirty underwear.

He’d be my caddie, my designated driver, and my ready alibi if I ever wanted to engage in some illicit fun.

I suspect being the pope’s butler didn’t involve any of those sorts of shenanigans. The pope doesn’t golf, enjoy inebriation and has no track record of grabby flirtiness, the latter being quite an achievement for a man whose job description includes laying on of the hands. 

Lots of butlers to rich and famous men probably take advantage of opportunities to shag stray groupies, but I find it impossible to fathom even the idea that papal groupies might exist much less, yikes, conjure up an image.

That’s why I’m surprised anyone would choose a career path that would lead to being the pope’s butler. Sure, few of us achieve our dream jobs, but at what point did Gabriele veer from yearning to be an astronaut or a ballplayer to becoming the pope’s butler?

It would be more fun working for a big-eared dullard like Prince Charles.

Of course, now he may wind up being a butler to Vincenzo the Butcher or some other mafia enforcer down in Cell Block 4.

He and an as-yet-unnamed accomplice are suspected of leaking classified Vatican documents that are portraying the church hierarchy in utter disarray over power struggles, craven money concerns and other earthly matters that have little to do with loving thy neighbor.

It’s rocking the Catholic Church -- and it seems venues that host bands like the Foo Fighters haven’t been rocking nearly as much as the Catholic Church. Some say high-ranking heads will roll.

It proves that not only did Gabriele lack loyalty, he also lacked playful imagination.

Had I been the papal butler, I’d have leaked a series of memos that would have rocked the whole world. For example:

• “Pope debating whether to announce conclusive Vatican proof: Santa Claus is real!"

• “Vatican scholars find typo in 10 Commandments: Turns out thou SHALL commit adultery!"

• “2011 NFL wagers had Pope considering moving Christmas to August 14 to honor birth of Tim Tebow!”

Unlike Gabriele, no one would have ever suspected me of doing anything so ambitiously conniving.

The Holy See himself would testify he never saw me doing any ironing, pillow fluffing or warming the cocoa in time for holy bedtime stories.

The police will say it was a rare case where not only didn’t the butler do it.

The butler never did a thing.

The condom and the cross

I’m sensing the Pope would have been pleased if I’d have given up condoms for Lent. He was in Africa last week and spoke about the evils of condoms in ways that might confuse Satan into thinking they were talking about him.

He seems to think they’re wicked tools of evil, which is about the same thing my wife thought about associated parts of me after enduring the divine pains of childbirth.

Proponents of condom usage say they’re crucial in stopping the unholy spread of AIDS on a continent where two-thirds of all HIV-infected -- 22 million -- people live. Emaciated infected babies dying in orphanages break the hearts of men like South African Bishop Kevin Dowling who insist condoms should be used to prevent the deadly transmission to the innocents.

I agree. If I was in charge of public health in Africa I’d be loudly advising everyone to put condoms on everything.

And three condoms on some things.

But the pope says nope.

“You can’t resolve (the AIDS crisis) with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem” by promoting promiscuity, Pope Benedict says.

Back when I had a carnal interest in promoting promiscuity, I used to think the same thing. But my experience -- and I’m one-up on the pope in maybe this one regard -- taught me otherwise. As a young man consumed by ambitious lust, having a condom always seemed to ensure I’d never have a reason to use it.

It was like some diabolical gypsy curse.

I’d carry one in the same wallet that contained my driver’s license with its generous organ donor card. But I was young, awkward around the ladies and none of them ever expressed any interest in accepting any of my organs.

Then the instant I stopped carrying the long-since expired prophylactic around, women of low reputation seemed to find me irresistible. They’d come up to me in dim, smoky bars and with bloodshot eyes hint at illicit fun just outside in the parking lot.

Of course, this was when AIDS was just beginning to roar across America’s social landscape. We were learning that free love sometimes carried a steep price.

To dare unprotected intimacy with any of these women would at the very least lead to weeks of worry about exotic social diseases and would certainly damage my carefully constructed reputation. But, let’s be honest, being linked to me wouldn’t exactly launch them into society page prominence at the next season’s debutante balls.

With so much at stake, what did I do?

Why, I’d order us each another snort of Jagermeister, slam ‘em down, and dance her out to the parking lot where we’d steam up the windows of her pickup truck until the cops came tapping on the windows.

Did it every chance I could. If refined lovelies didn’t want me, then I’d be wantin’ anything wanton that would be wantin’ me back.

That’s just the way we are. We’re not made of wax. We’re lonely flesh and blood animals who’ll scheme and dream of any chance opportunity for cuddles and pokes. This life’s not for sissies. Rich, poor, black or white, we’re all looking for love.

Even the Catholic hierarchy in Africa seems to understand this -- and some of them are reveling in it. Priestly affairs are rampant across the continent, says Velesiwe Mkwanazi, a co-founder of Women Ordination South Africa, who says she knows of two priests with children. And Zimbabwean Archbishop Pius Ncube stepped down in 2007 after he was photographed naked in a bedroom with a woman.

Now, I’m not Catholic. But my wife Valerie is a Lutheran church organist who helps edit a Catholic newspaper. Her ecumenical duality gives me rhetorical cover to discuss our Lutheran organs and all things Catholic from condoms to commas.

It’s heartbreaking to think of the millions of people who will die because the church’s stubborn insistence on keeping its moral head in the sand while its faithful have their heads frolicking in other places.

It’s a sticky situation. Without some sensible interventions, things in Africa are bound to get really hard.

I can’t think of a more perfect set of circumstances for a condom to come riding to the rescue.