An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut.

The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest’s breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car.

He says, “Sir, have you been drinking?”

“Just water…” says the priest.

The trooper says, “Then why do I smell wine?”

The priest looks at the bottle and says, “Good Lord! He’s done it again!”

A nun in a convent walked into the bathroom where the Mother Superior was taking a shower.

“There is a blind man here to see you,” she tell the Mother Superior.

She thinks to herself “Well, if he is a blind man, then it does not matter if I’m not properly dressed.” So she tells the nun “Send him in.”

The blind man walks into the bathroom, and mother superior starts to tell him how much she appreciates him working at the convent for them. She goes on and on.

After a couple minutes of this, the man interrupts and says “That’s nice and all, ma’am, but you can put your clothes on now. Also, where do you want me to install these blinds?”

While on vacation in Rome, a man noticed a marble column in St. Peter’s Cathedral with a golden telephone on it.

As a young priest passed by, the man asked who the telephone was for.

The priest told me it was a direct line to heaven, and if he’d like to call, it would be a thousand dollars. The man was amazed, but he declined the offer.

Throughout Italy, he kept seeing the same golden telephone on a marble column. At each, telephone, he asked about it and the answer was always the same: It was a direct line to heaven and one could call for a thousand dollars.

A year later, the same man was on vacation in Ireland.

He decided to attend Mass at a local village church. When he walked in the door, he noticed a familiar golden telephone on a marble column. Underneath it there was a sign stating: “Direct Line to Heaven: 25 cents.”

“Father,” the man asked the parish priest. “I have been all over Italy and in all the cathedrals I visited, I’ve seen telephones exactly like this one. But the price is always a thousand dollars. Why is it that this one is only 25 cents?”

The priest smiled and said, “You’re in Ireland now. It’s a local call.”

A preacher in his Sunday sermon, used “Forgive Your Enemies” as his subject.

After a long sermon, he asked how many were willing to forgive their enemies. About half held up their hands.

Not satisfied he harangued for another twenty minutes and repeated his question. This time he received a response of about 80 percent.

Still unsatisfied, he lectured for another 15 minutes and repeated his question. With all thoughts now on Sunday dinner, all responded except one elderly lady near the front of the church.

“Mrs. Jones, are you not willing to forgive your enemies?”

“I don’t have any.”

“Mrs. Jones, that is very unusual. How old are you?”

“Ninety three.”

“Mrs. Jones, please come down in front and tell the congregation how a person can live to be ninety-three, and not have an enemy in the world.”

The little sweetheart of a lady stood up, faced the congregation and said:

“It’s easy, I just outlived the bitches.”

Two men arrive at the Pearly Gates at about the same time, both wanting to know if they will be admitted to heaven. St.

Peter asks the first man his name, where he is from, and what he did in life.

The man answers that he is Alexander Jones and that he was a taxi driver in New York City.

St. Peter looks through his book, then gives the man a luxurious silken robe and a golden staff, and bids him welcome into heaven for his Eternal Reward.

St. Peter then asks the second man the same questions. He replies that his name is Thomas O’Malley, and that he was a Catholic priest in Chicago. St. Peter looks in his book, then gives him a cotton robe and a wooden staff, and bids him to enter into heaven for his Eternal Reward.

Father O’Malley says, “Wait a minute! Why did that taxi driver get a silken robe and golden staff while I, a Catholic Priest and a man of God, got a cotton robe and wooden staff?”

St. Peter replied “The rewards in heaven are based on results, and while Father O’Malley preached, people slept, but while Alexander Jones drove, people prayed.”

Microsoft Bids to Acquire Catholic Church

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In a joint press conference in St. Peter’s Square this morning, MICROSOFT Corp. and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church inexchange for an unspecified number of shares of MICROSOFT common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion.

With the acquisition, Pope Benedict XVI will become the senior vice-president of the combined company’s new Religious Software Division, while MICROSOFT senior vice-presidents Bradford Smith and CEO Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said MICROSOFT Chairman Bill Gates.

“We expect a lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to ten years,” said Gates. “The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people.”

Through the MICROSOFT Network, the company’s on-line service, “we will make the sacraments available on-line for the first time” and revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation practice of selling indulgences, said Gates. “You can get Communion, confess your sins, receive absolution — even reduce your time in Purgatory-all without leaving your home.”

A new software application, MICROSOFT Church, will include a macro language which you can program to download heavenly graces automatically while you are away from your computer.

An estimated 17,000 people attended the announcement in St. Peter’s Square, watching on a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello-in character as Father Guido Sarducci-hosted the event, which was podcast live to viewers around the world.

Pope Benedict XVI said little during the announcement. When Novello chided Gates, “Now I guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats,” the crowd roared, but the pontiff’s smile seemed strained.

The deal grants MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and the Vatican’s prized art collection, which includes works by such masters as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. But critics say MICROSOFT will face stiff challenges if it attempts to limit competitors’ access to these key intellectual properties.

“The Jewish people invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures,” said Rabbi David Gottschalk of Philadelphia. “You take the parting of the Red Sea — we had that thousands of years before the Catholics came on the scene.”

But others argue that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a common Abrahamic heritage. “The Catholic Church has just been more successful in marketing it to a larger audience,” notes Notre Dame theologian Father Kenneth Madigan. Over the last 2,000 years, the Catholic Church’s market share has increased dramatically, while Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted by Christianity, lags behind.

Historically, the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor, leading crusades to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and entering into exclusive licensing arrangements in various kingdoms whereby all subjects were instilled with Catholicism, whether or not they planned to use it. Today Christianity is available from several denominations, but the Catholic version is still the most widely used. The Church’s mission is to reach “the four corners of the earth,” echoing MICROSOFT’s vision of “a computer on every desktop and in every home”.

Gates described MICROSOFT’s long-term strategy to develop a scalable religious architecture that will support all religions through emulation. A single core religion will be offered with a choice of interfaces according to the religion desired — “One religion, a couple of different implementations,” said Gates.

The MICROSOFT move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to Herb Peters, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist Conference, as other churches scramble to strengthen their position in the increasingly competitive religious market.

A Dutchman in Amsterdam felt that he needed to confess, so he went to his Priest.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. During World War II, I hid a Jewish man in my attic.”

“Well,” answered the Priest, “That’s no a sin.”

“But I made him pay me 20 gulden for each week he stayed.”

“I admit that wasn’t good, but you did it for a good cause.”

“Oh thank you Father; that eases my mind. Father, I have one more question.”

“What is it son.”

“Do I now have to tell him the war is over?”