While a disclaimer such as this is generally frowned-upon by the perpetrators of the LCN Syndicate, these days it seems necessary: This is a work of satire. C'mon, folks. Really.

Everywhere I look these days, there's an ad telling Catholics to go back to church for Easter. Maybe it's because every morning on the way to work I pass through the Catholic University of America stop on the Red Line. There are these pictures of happy white families looking up at a church and smiling. The posters say, in effect, "It's Easter. Come on back, y'all!" This works especially well if you use a southern accent in your imagination.

I can't believe the Church would do this. How could anyone encourage a family to bring their boys within 100 miles of a priest? The message should be, "Hey, folks, bring your boys in. Our priests can't wait to lay their hands on them."

Just last month (that would be March 2011, for those paying attention) the Philadelphia Diocese suspended 21 priests after the completion of a grand jury investigation. If you thought all the "bad" priests had been found out years, you are sadly mistaken. The Catholic Church is much more interested in taking your money from the offertory than it is keeping your sons safe from its priests.

Then again, why am I focusing on pedophile priests? After all, Sen. John Kyl said (on the Senate floor, where truth is merely an option) last week that only 90 percent of priests are pedophiles. So let's skip right over the Catholics and get to the real question. Who would ever want to encourage anyone to ever go to a church?

Church largely involves preachers fulminating about queers and traitors and blasphemers and then healing people by whacking them in the forehead. I mean, maybe this stuff is suitable for high school kids--if they've been fed a steady diet of Jason Statham movies since the age of five. But truly young folks? I'm pretty sure an explicit dissection of anal sex technique is not appropriate for an elementary school audience.

You say this doesn't happen at your church? I say you're lying. I know what I'm saying is true. I've seen it on TV. And I've seen worse. One time, I saw a preacher spend an hour denouncing sexual practices I'd never even conceived. I kept watching and took notes, but there's no way I would have been one of the hundreds of parents in the audience who dragged their kids to the show.

The truth is, taking your kids to church is more dangerous than driving a car off the rim of the Grand Canyon. At least when your car stops rolling, you'll be dead. Taking your kids to church exposes them to a lifetime of horror.

Church is a refuge for the sick and twisted in our society, and kids should be nowhere near one. Anyone who even thinks about going to church with their kids is guilty of child abuse and ought to have their kids taken away.

So there.

Jon Worley wonders, "Painting a boy's toes with pink polish is the most urgent crisis in our society today? Really?"