Sacrilegious Folk Humor

Introduction

In attempting to document the teeming and expanding world of ephemera formerly transmitted by office copier machines and most recently via fax and computers, we have observed no diminution in either the quantity or quality of this rich source of American folk humor. Quite the contrary—we find ourselves inundated by vast numbers of items sent to us by helpful friends and colleagues. We have somewhat arbitrarily chosen to focus on items concerned with religion as this seems to be a topic of great inter-

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est in contemporary society. No disrespect is intended by us toward any religion, but some of the material takes its point of departure from various forms of religious orthodoxy. Religion is in no way exempt from humorous treatment. Many readers may recognize one or more of the items in this collection and may wonder why we have bothered to reproduce it. Our experience is that people tend to delete such items that are sent to them, and decades from now it may otherwise be virtually impossible to find these texts. Our intention is to document a rich layer of current American humor so that it will be available to students of folklore, American studies and religious studies. This corpus of religion-related texts is only a small segment of what is presently circulating in the United States and abroad. This is not intended to be an exhaustive listing of all jokes about religion. Included are only texts that we have collected ourselves from photocopied or e-mailed sources.

Our previous five books on office folklore illustrate the great diversity of this active tradition. For the benefit of those readers not familiar with our earlier books, we might note that this material, like all folklore, is anonymous, typically without attribution, and exists in multiple forms with variation. For this reason, we sometimes present more than one version of an item to demonstrate its traditionality. Where possible, we provide a date and place of collection though electronic or e-mail items often bear evidence of numerous links in the chain of transmission. We also attempt to offer some brief explanation of the possible meaning and significance of individual items. In this way, our effort differs from most anthologies of jokes, which provide little or no indication of provenance much less of possible interpretive commentary. Where possible, we try to cite earlier versions or cognates of items included, though we do not pretend to have consulted all of the hundreds of collections of jokes in print. There is another difference between this collection and most others. Without apology we present the texts unexpurgated and uncensored. Bowdlerized texts are of little value to scholars, and we would rather risk offending readers than water down these traditional pieces of 21^st century folklore. Wherever possible, we have retained as titles of the items the labels on

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the original texts as received via e-mail or facsimile. Below are some samples of sacrilegious folklore collected from the Internet.

The New Patient

To the irreverent folk, nothing is off limits. The following item collected in Sierra Vista, Arizona in September of 2003 presents the common delusion that a psychiatric patient believes himself to be God. Another interpretation of this text is that God himself is in need of therapy. The folk perception that such a crazy, mixed up world could only have been created by a crazy, mixed up deity is also suggested.

When the new patient was settled comfortably on the couch, the psychiatrist began his therapy session, “I’m not aware of your problem,” the doctor said. “So perhaps, you should start at the very beginning.”

“Of course” replied the patient. “In the beginning, I created the Heavens and the Earth….”

They Forgot the R!

One of the likely reasons why there is such an emphasis on sexuality in Catholic humor is because priests and nuns are required to practice sexual abstinence. The folk find this prohibition to be somewhat unnatural and they often make fun of priests’ and nuns’ would-be sexual activities. Priests and nuns also find it difficult to practice total abstinence and the history of the church is full of violations of the practice. In a time before the printing press, biblical manuscripts were laboriously copied by hand, a process that occasionally led to errors creeping into the text. There is, in fact, no “original” copy of either the Old or New Testament. There are only copies of translations made from Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Some Biblical scholars worry about the accuracy of these translations. This topic is the subject of the following item, the first version of which was collected in Berkeley in November of 1999 while the second is from Denver in January of 2000.

The Pope dies and goes to Heaven. St. Peter is there waiting for him. He says, “We’ve been expecting you. Your room is right this way. If there’s anything you need, someone can get it for you.” “Ok,” says the Pope. “I would like to learn all the languages of the world.” St. Peter says “Ok. Can I ask why?” “Because I want to be able to study all the different Bibles written,” says the Pope. So the Pope learns all the world’s languages, and then proceeds to read all the world’s Bibles. One day, St. Peter is walking around, and he hears an agonized scream come from the Pope’s room. St. Peter runs into the room, and says, “What’s the matter?” The Pope says, “I can’t believe it! (Pointing at a copy of the original Bible.) They forgot the R! It was supposed to be CELEBRATE!”

In an ancient monastery in a faraway place, a new monk arrived to join his brothers in copying books and scrolls in the monastery’s scriptorium. He was assigned to be a rubricator on copies of books that had already been copied by hand. One day, he asked Father Florian (the head of the scriptorium), “Does not the copying by hand of other copies allow for error? How do we know we are not copying the mistakes of someone else? Are they ever checked against the original?”

Father Florian was taken aback by the observation of this youthful monk. “A very good point, my son. I will take one of the latest books down to the vault and compare it against the original.” Fr. Florian went down to the vault and began his verification. After a day passed, the monks began to worry and went down looking for the old priest. They were sure something must have happened. As they approached the vault, they heard crying. When they opened the door, they found Father Florian sobbing over the new copy and the original ancient book, both of which were opened before him on the table. It was obvious to all that the poor man had been crying his heart out for a long time. “What is the problem, Reverend Father?” asked one of the monks. “Oh, my Lord,” sobbed the priest, “the word is ‘celebrate!’”

Clerical Collar

Freud pointed out in The Future of an Illusion that man’s relationship to a deity was modeled after an infant’s relationship to his or her parents. And it is certainly true that Western man speaks of God the father. For that matter, the term “Pope” means father, cognate with “papa.” Sibling terminology is also employed with “sisters” or “brothers” in a Catholic order. A small child might be confused by calling a priest by the same name as his biological parent. But the child may be quite sophisticated with respect to the physical nature of fatherhood. This is the premise of the following text collected in Ormond Beach, Florida in 2003 (For another version, see Jim Bob Buford and “Shotgun” Jack Grabowski, More

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Redneck Jokes [New York: Barnes and Noble, 1998], p. 41).

A little boy got on the bus, sat next to a man reading a book, and noticed he had his collar on

backwards. The little boy asked why he wore his collar that way. The man, who was a priest, said, “I am a Father.” The little boy replied, “My Dad doesn’t wear his collar like that.” The priest looked up from his book and answered, “I am the Father of Many.” The boy said, “My Dad has four boys, four girls and two grandchildren and he doesn’t wear his collar that way.” The priest getting impatient said, “I am the Father of hundreds” and went back to reading. The little boy sat quietly, but on leaving the bus he leaned over and said: “Well, maybe you should wear your pants backwards instead of your collar.”

The Dying Man

For those who believe in a literal heaven and hell as choices for an eternal afterlife, death becomes a critical point of departure, ending a lifetime of concern about one’s final destination. In this text collected in Berkeley in July, 1998, the protagonist is hedging his bet (for another text, see also Albert Tapper and Peter Press, A Minister, A Priest and a Rabbi [Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2000], p. 240). The dilemma is reminiscent of a classic traditional epitaph:

In a cemetery in England:

Remember man, as you walk by,
As you are now, so once was I,
As I am now, so shall you be
Remember this and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing an addendum on the tombstone:

To follow you I’ll not consent
Until I know which way you went.

An American version shows some variation in this traditional epitaph:

Come blooming youths as you pass by
And on these lines do cast an eye
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now so must you be
Prepare for death and follow me.

 A cemetery in Waynesville, North Carolina adds a slightly different version of the addendum (See Richard Bauman, “Grave Commentary,” Military Officer [November, 2003], p. 40):

To follow you
I am not content
How do I know
Which way you went?

 The priest was preparing a man for his long day’s journey into night. Whispering firmly, the priest said, “Denounce the devil! Let him know how little you think of his evil!” The dying man said nothing. The priest repeated his order. Still the dying man said nothing. The priest asked, “Why do you refuse to denounce the devil and his evil?” The dying man said, “Until I know where I’m heading, I don’t think I ought to aggravate anybody.”

Two Traveling Angels

One of the fascinating aspects of the study of contemporary e-mail folklore is the way in which ancient folkloristic texts are updated. The following text collected in San Francisco in August, 1999 involving a puzzling series of events that confuse the junior of two angels turns out to be a version of a classic folktale, namely, an Aarne-Thompson tale type 759—”God’s Justice Vindicated.” A version of this tale is found in the Qur’an which dates from the seventh century. However, the tale is much older than that. (For a discussion of the version in the Qur’an, see Alan Dundes, Fables of the Ancients: Folklore in the Qur’an [Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003], pp. 59-62. For a scholarly discussion of the history of the tale, see Haim Schwarzbaum, “Jewish and Moslem Versions of Some Theodicy Legends,” Fabula 3 [1959], pp. 119-169.) It is a remarkable demonstration of the vitality and tenacity of tradition. The tale has lasted for well over a thousand years and is likely to continue for decades to come as it deals with the perception that if there is a divine plan, it is not always knowable by mere mortals who have little choice other than fatalistic acceptance of perceived adversity.

Angels 

Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion’s guest room. Instead, the angels were given a small space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied, “Things

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aren’t always what they seem.”

The next night, the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had, the couple let the angels sleep in their bed, where they could have a good night’s rest. When the sun came up the next morning, the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field. The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel, “How could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him,” she accused. “The second family has little, but was willing to share everything, and yet you let the cow die.”

“Things aren’t always what they seem,” the older angel replied. “When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn’t find it.” “Then last night as we slept in the farmer’s bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave him the cow instead. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

Sometimes that is exactly what happens when things don’t turn out the way they should. If you have faith, you just need to trust that every outcome is always to your advantage. You might not know it until some time later.

Conclusion

This body of traditional folkloristic texts demonstrates folk perceptions of various religious doctrines and practices. Some of the texts are relatively innocuous in tone, but some involve very pointed comments on sacred and taboo topics, often employing profane vernacular vocabulary. What few anthologies of religious humor exist tend to contain a mishmash of quotations from famous individuals or the products of professional comedians or joke writers or cartoonists with only a small representation of traditional folk humor of the sort contained in this article. The subject of religion continues to be a somewhat taboo topic in the media in a time of political correctness, and even top-level talk show hosts tend to steer clear of anything that might be construed as offensive to religious viewers. There are, however, numerous religious television and radio programs that present religious orthodoxy in various forms.

It is only in uncensored texts transmitted from individual to individual that sacrilegious humor is freely most exchanged. With the rise of the Internet and computer technology, the individual transmission of such folklore is no longer a matter of a face-to-face encounter. The new technology allows for instant transmission without heed of borders or third parties. The impersonality of the transmission process (which consists often of merely clicking a “forward” button on one’s computer to send a particular item to numerous addressees) facilitates the continued dissemination of these lively texts. The existence of such items in e-mail format is perhaps less fragile and ephemeral than oral transmission, but since most recipients do not ordinarily “save” these texts, they are not necessarily readily available to interested scholars or students of humor. We suspect that even those readers who recognize many of the examples presented in this collection would be hard pressed to put their hands on copies of these texts. It is our hope that the documentation provided in this volume will help ensure the availability of this rich facet of Americana. Moreover, we feel it is highly likely that with globalization of the computer and the Internet, similar if not identical materials will be found in other cultures around the world. In that event, this corpus will provide the means of an essential basis for cross-cultural comparison.

[Editor’s Note: The above material is taken from what may be the last book written by Alan Dundes (with co-author Carl Pagter) before his sudden, untimely death on March 30, 2005 while teaching his folklore seminar at UC-Berkeley. (Over 450 people came to a memorial for Professor Dundes that was held at Berkeley on April 22 and moderated by Laura Nader, his anthropology colleague.) The book, entitled Put the Bibles Away – Our Prayers have been Answered: A Sampling of Sacrilegious Folk Humor, is a collection of jokes and related material from the Internet. The materials above come from the preface and conclusion, along with examples from the body of the work.]

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