Look, the FBI guys promised me a deal. So I made up a lot of stuff about Michael Corleone ’cause that’s what they wanted — but it was all lies — uh — everything. And I kept saying “Michael Corleone did this and Michael Corleone did that” — uh — so I said, “yea, sure, why not.”

OP-ED BY DR. NOAH SWAYNE, SCIENTIST/ST. MARY OF MERCY PARISHIONER – After the noon Good Friday service today at St. Mary of Mercy Church in downtown Pittsburgh, I waited outside the door the altar boys use, and when the first one emerged, I hauled off and punched him in the face as hard as I could, knocking him to the ground. No fewer than a dozen parishioners swarmed his limp body and started kicking him in the head and the torso until he was a bloody mess.  Then the next one emerged, and we gave him a taste of the same medicine.

The altar boys’ performance at today’s service was utterly appalling. No fewer than four times, father had to wait for one of them to go fetch the book even though they should have had it waiting for him. Once, father actually had to force one of them to hold it straight so that he could read from it.

Father wasn’t much better. Instead of just opening the book and reciting the prayers, he’d stand there looking at the words with the same puzzled look I give my car owner’s manual when I’m trying to figure out how to change a tire.

But the real problem was the boys. They deserved every broken bone we gave them. You see, we were sending them an important message: get your act together if you want to serve the Lord.

ROME – In off-the-record remarks to visitors over tea at Castel Gandolfo this afternoon, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI derisively referred to the new pontiff as “Juan Peron,” a reference to the new Pope’s Argentine roots. Benedict also said that the name chosen by former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis I, is a “girl’s name.”

At least three times over tea with friends, Benedict mentioned that he “whupped Cardinal Peron’s ass” in the 2005 conclave that elevated Benedict to the papacy.

Benedict asked a friend to deliver a message to the new pontiff: “I’m watching him, and I’ll be on him like a ton of bricks at the first misstep.”