Happy Birthday Church! Today you are 1974 years old and looking pretty good for your age. Though there have been lots of bad people, they are getting assinated by elite SquachCommandos and things are looking up for the 2000th anniversary of your marriage to Christ coming up quite soon. You're also catching up in age to Jimi Hendrix, but you'll never be as old as St. Peter who was around when you were born.

Time to pop the champaign. Here's your song, the Vatican Rag! (Stolen from 4d, click for music)

Another big news story of year concerned the ecumenical council in Rome, known as Vatican II. Among the things they did in an attempt to make the church more commercial was to introduce the vernacular into portions of the mass, to replace Latin, and to widen somewhat the range of music permissible in the liturgy, but I feel that if they really want to sell the product, in this secular age, what they ought to do is to redo some of the liturgical music in popular song forms. I have a modest example here. It's called The Vatican Rag.

First you get down on your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
Do whatever steps you want, if
You have cleared them with the Pontiff.
Everybody say his
own Kyrie eleison,
Doin' the Vatican Rag.

Get in line in that processional,
Step into that small confessional,
There’s, the guy who's got religional
Tell you if your sin's original.
If it is, try playin' it safer,
Drink the wine and chew the wafer,
Two, four, six, eight,
Time to transubstantiate!

So get down upon your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
Make a cross on your abdomen,
When in Rome do like a Roman,
Ave Maria,
Gee it's good to see ya,
Gettin' ecstatic an'
Sort of dramatic an'
Doin' the Vatican Rag!