REQUIESCAT IN BELLO

“What’s that darkish smudge on your forehead?” I asked my longtime friend and attorney, E. Hobart Calhoun.

“Lent,” he said. “You’re not supposed to wash it off.”

“Ash Wednesday was seven months ago,” I said, eliciting a shrug from E.

“You haven’t washed your face since February?” I asked.

“Father Zamboni says he heard from one of Pope Francis’s consiglieri that the ashes show your devotion to the Holy Father’s teachings.”

“But Pope Francis has proven over and over in his public proclamations about geopolitical issues that he’s an aged Argentine nitwit who knows less about the world than Kamala Harris. He said this week he’s for open borders.”

“He’s infallible,” E. said.

“Oh, that’s right,” I said, “just like the popes in the Middle Ages who made lots of money selling indulgences and instituting priestly celibacy to protect the Church’s real estate holdings from claims by myriad pontiffs' illegitimate kids? Or just like Popes Gregory IX and Sixtus IV who sanctioned the inquisitions? Or just like Pope Pius XII who knew about the Holocaust and never said a word? Or just like everyone in the Roman Curia who for decades covered for jillions of pedophiles and transferred them to other parishes and new victims?”

"I was an altar boy for years," E. said. "And I was never molested."

"Because you were a crew-cutted, roly-poly whiner and serial tattler."

“Nobody’s perfect,” E. said angrily. “At least we’re not like the Episcopalians, whose faith was started by a suppurating fat guy who beheaded a bunch of wives, stole land and money from monasteries, and sent thousands to their deaths in absurd quasi-religious wars.

“Or like the Muslims,” E. continued, “whose bloodthirsty Prophet in the seventh century killed everyone who didn’t convert and whose followers today conduct jihad and intifada against innocent people around the world!”

“Chill,” I said to E., dodging spittle and foam spewing from his mouth.

“You’re a sacrilegious smartass,” E. blurted. "And an atheist!"

“Not at all,” I said. “I believe in The Big Guy, The Prime Mover, the one whose name devout Jews are never to utter. I believe he preceded the Big Bang, devised the human genome, and created the multiverses and the extraordinary things the Hubble and Webb telescopes show us exist in the cosmos.”

“Oh,” E. said. “Well, I believe in Him, too.”

“Then wash your face,” I said.