This Just In #5

As a sign of solidarity with St. Matthew Church in the OC, we, the parish council of the newly christened Independent Collective Church of Unique Togetherness, wish to make our mission statement clear.

St. Matthew's pastor Peter Hickman has already illustrated the following as his own group's ideals:

• ordaining female priests
• ordaining married priests
• ordaining openly gay priests
• recognizing divorce
• accepting birth control
• accepting premarital sex
• blessing same-sex unions
• rejecting the authority of the pope

We too wish to us to make our own intentions fully known. So here is our exhaustive list:

• all of the above, plus
• abortion

We hope that clears things up.

~ ~ 50 years later ~ ~

[quoted from an online news site circa 2056]

The Independent Collective Church of Unique Togetherness is closing its doors, to the dismay of its three remaining members.

Longtime parishioners Kaitlyn Morris, 85, and Brad Whittaker, 89 - who have been dating for 57 years - and pastor Kourtnee Mendosa, 96, will be the last of the church's faithful to grace its doors before it is torn down on Saturday to make room for another new Benedictine monastery.

Recent demographic studies of the populations of this church and others with similar creeds, such as St. Matthew's in Los Angeles, have revealed a trend of sharply declining populations. Experts are at a loss to explain why, but some contraversial studies point to massive outbreaks of life-shortening sexually transmitted diseases and/or an anti-children attitude. Others refer with newfound hindsighted wisdom to the infamous Fitzgerald Report in 2029 which claimed that the relatively small numbers of young adults and youth in these churches were leaving in droves, either to enter more traditional religious movements or to abandon faith altogether, since they had no share in the contrarian rationale for the churches' foundings.

Morris and Whittaker have their own opinion. "It's because the Roman Catholic Church tried to tell us what to do with our bodies," Morris stated. "Glen and I used contraceptives for most of our fertile years because we weren't ready to have children. A few times I conceived anyway and had to have abortions. But the Church kept saying it was a sin, and we didn't want to hear that."

Whittaker nodded his assent, dabbing some drool from his lower lip. "Sure would be nice to have a grandson to do this for me," he added. "Stupid Catholics!"

Mendosa, the current priestess of the church, was also somewhat distressed. "Where's my cat?" she inquired. "Has anybody seen my cat?"

The Roman Catholic Church, as of press time, did not acknowledge our inquiries as to the whereabouts of Mendosa's cat.

h/t: Off The Record