Guide to the Confessional

I make little money like that, I don't know what I'll make, or how much. But every dollar counts for me. You know, I don't make hardly any money being a priest. We just make peanuts. What they do give me don't even cover my tips. And, I make some money from this book I wrote, you know, little royalties to kind of dribble in here and there. It's for sale all over Europe into the back of the churches, at the shrines and that, it's called "Father Guido Sarducci's Guidе to the Confessional". It's coming out now — American еdition, in English; I hope you can keep an eye out for it, it's gonna be in bookstores, I hope everywhere

You know, every year in this country, Americans have to pay their income tax. And paying your income tax in America, it's kind of like going to confession to the government. You have to tell them how much money you made, where you made it, where you spent it, all that stuff. And people with a lot of money, they get the lawyers, they get accountants; and those lawyers and accountants, they weasel and maneuver their way around the law, and they get their clients off pretty easy. Well, it's the same in the Church, and with my book you're gonna be able to weasel and maneuver your way around sins. You can screw around your whole life, and still get to Heaven! Eternal happiness: $4.95, who can beat that?

I'll go over some of the chapters for you, just to give you a little taste of what's in here. This is one chapter I think is just wonderful, it's entitled "All You Should Know About the I don't recall Clause". I got that idea from one of your former presidents. That's just brilliant, you know, when you think of it. If you say "I don't recall", I mean, what can anybody say, right? "I don't recall, I don't recall". Here's a bigger chapter, it's entitled "Drugs in the Confessional". From now on, if you have to confess that you're smoking marijuana, the priest is gonna ask you if you're holding it. And if you're holding, you have to pass it to him underneath the screen. He's gonna have a little scale in there. If it's more than an ounce, it's mortal sin. Less than an ounce, vanilla sin. And I suggest when you get it back, you weigh it again yourself, you know? Just to keep him honest, on the up-and-up, you know

And you might be interested to know, that Saint Saud of Ankara, the patron saint of hard drugs, he is no longer responsible for marijuana. Marijuana is now under Saint Rolando of Marsala, the patron saint of beer and wine. It's like only making a misdemeanor, you know. And also, Saint Maureen and Doreen, the virgin junkies... you know the ones, in the holy cards always wearing pedal pushers? Teased the hair? They have been given full assistant responsibility for 3.2% beer and quaaludes. So you know, if any of you have any trouble with those drugs, you know who to direct your prayers to