Pope Benedict XVI is creating a new Vatican office to fight secularization and “re-evangelize” the West — a tacit acknowledgment that his attempts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe haven’t succeeded and need a new boost.

I like to think that I know a little something about “secularism.” In that spirit, I offer up 10 commandments suggestions to help the Pope with his, um, crusade:

10. Create colorful infographics showing that more children are molested by wicked (presumably secular) step-parents than by priests. (If anyone complains that the priests would look worse per capita, excommunicate him.)

9. Point out how “secular” referees can’t even judge whether a soccer ball goes in the goal or not, whereas the Pope is infallible.

8. Highlight how postponing retiree benefits until after death has allowed the Vatican to escape the fiscal woes plaguing its European peers.

7. Contrast between Papal support of gun control and “secular” American love of firearms ought to appeal to gun-hating weenies.

6. Start own MMA league (e.g. “CatholicForce”) and pay whatever it takes to get Brock Lesnar to join.

5. Sponsor a Judd Apatow movie starring Will Ferrell as a wacky priest, or a Michael Bay movie about robots that turn into priests. Or both!

4. Somehow convince Lady Gaga to use Catholic imagery in one of her videos.

3. Announce a ban on Your Religion Is False. (It could really help with sales!)

2. Reverse the Church’s position on masturbation. (That doesn’t just mean “use the other hand,” although I guess it could.)

1. Abandon mysticism and superstition, embrace science and reason.

They’re yours to use if you want them!

Unfortunately, the whole celebration is under a bit of a cloud this year, what with all the petty gossip about the Pope’s complicity in covering up sexual abuse by pedophile priests.

I personally think it’s a bit unfair for us to focus so much energy on his role in the sexual abuse scandals while ignoring his role in the Plame affair, in the Vince Foster murder, and in Abscam.

It doesn’t really matter, though, as it looks like the Pope will be able to use his diplomatic immunity card to get out of jail free:

“The pope is certainly a head of state, who has the same juridical status as all heads of state,” he said, arguing he therefore had immunity from foreign courts.

Now, obviously this isn’t on the same level as really egregious diplomatic immunity abuses like the end of Lethal Weapon 2 or the “Law and Order: SVU” episode about Romanian wife-smuggling or unpaid parking tickets. But it still puts him out of our reach, unless maybe we can spare some Marines from Afghanistan, which doesn’t appear to be in the cards.

That leaves our hopes in the hands of rank-and-file Catholics, who could quickly and peacefully put a halt to both the priests-touching-boys and the pope-covering-up-for-priests-touching-boys problems by quitting the church. Without parishioners, it would quickly go out of business and could be replaced by slightly less criminal churches. (This is what economists call “creative destruction,” although in today’s world there’s always the possibility that Tim Geithner or Ben Bernanke might decide the Church is “too big to fail” and try to save it using our tax dollars.)

There would be other benefits as well:

• Springtime lunch options no longer restricted to crappy Quiznos Lenten menu
• Sunday mornings suddenly free to watch “America Quilts Creatively” on PBS
• No more germy Christ-blood sharing means slower spread of communicable diseases
• Savings from not tithing could be donated to help pay off national debt
• Prime Catholic real estate in Rome could be repurposed into something everyone can enjoy, like a Starbucks.
• If we’re lucky, no more Dan Brown books.
• Deep sense of satisfaction from no longer devoting life to false beliefs.

Catholics, won’t you think about it? If you won’t do it for me, then do it for the children! Or maybe for Dan Brown!

Oh, and happy Easter!

And if there’s one man you can count on to take a firm stand against pleasure-providing, consensual activities, it’s the Pope.

Which is why it’s not terribly surprising to find him weighing in against drug use:

In particular, the Holy Father noted Mexico’s work to eliminate “violence, drug trafficking, and inequality and poverty, which are fertile ground for delinquency.”

I can already hear you objecting that the Pope is only opposed to drug “trafficking,” not drug use, to which I will simply point out that without drug “trafficking,” there is no drug use, except maybe for drugs that you grow yourself in your closet using a hydroponic setup that you lied to the sales clerk and told was for “legitimate vegetables,” drugs that you made in a trailer in the woods from common household items you bought at supermarkets and hardware stores, and model airplane cement.

At this point you might be wondering why exactly the Pope cares about drug use. After all, the College of Cardinals has been known to smoke some wacky stuff during papal elections, and Benedict is himself supposed to have experimented in the past with Nazi crank. And you’d think that as a well-known Cypress Hill fan, he’d have more appreciation for the “bubonic chronic.”

Well, it’s possible that nostalgia-minded priests are encouraged by the parallels between the War on Drugs and the Inquisition. Also, drugs have “an obvious affiliation with the desires of Satan,” especially his desire to eat at White Castle. And probably the Church views the War on Drugs as a useful proxy for its war against Santa Muerte.

According to the internet, though, it’s primarily because Pope Benedict is the antichrist, who will necessarily support the drug war:

“If cannabis was one of the main ingredients of the ancient anointing oil _ and receiving this oil is what made Jesus the Christ and his followers Christians, then persecuting those who use cannabis could be considered anti-Christ,” Mr Bennett concludes.

End times could be near! I’ve already picked out which house I’m moving into after the rapture, but have you?

Nonetheless, it’s easy to pick out four key themes:

1. Fascism:

To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority

(I think he stole this idea from Hayek, or possibly Orwell, or maybe both.)

2. Monoculture:

Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations.

(This seems possibly related to Jesus’s famous recommendation to “Put all thine eggs in one basket.”)

3. Redistributionism “governed by politics”:

Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics

(Although he didn’t give any specific examples of “redistribution governed by politics,” the morning papers are consistently full of such stories, like “congressman seeks taxpayer dollars for tony private club” and “congressman uses taxpayer dollars to fund remote, mostly-useless, eponymous airport,” and “city council member awards lucrative sludge-hauling contract to bribe-paying bidder.” Obviously, the endorsement of such behavior by the church is not without precedent.)

4. Anti-atheism:

ideological rejection of God and an atheism of indifference, oblivious to the Creator and at risk of becoming equally oblivious to human values, constitute some of the chief obstacles to development today.

Oh, yes, those horrible, horrible atheists. Why, I’m sure with their oversized presence in politics they’re getting in the way of all the religious people clamoring for nationalized health care, or perhaps they’re getting in the way of the religious people arguing against nationalized health care.

I bet it’s the atheists who are standing in the way of all the pro-gun Christians, as well as in the way of all the anti-gun Christians.

And it must be the atheists who are fighting against minimum wage increases, while simultaneously fighting for minimum wage increases.

Why, if you can think of a political issue that some Christians support and other Christians oppose (which includes, oh, pretty much all political issues), then probably it’s the nasty “oblivious to human values” atheists who are fighting for and against it. You tell it to them, Benny!

Now, Priests aren’t supposed to have girlfriends, and also the Catholic Church doesn’t recognize divorce, which got Cutié doubly in trouble. Instead of waiting around for a nun to beat him senseless with a ruler, he instead joined the Episcopal church, where he delivered his first sermon this morning:

The former priest received a standing ovation and told several jokes, quipping at one point that “my stuff is in storage.”

Thanks to a favor I once did for the Archbishop of Canterbury, I got a sneak peek at Cutié’s joke-filled opening monologue:

Finally, Father Oprah has come back to Anglicanism. [pause for laughter] Now, I know what some of you are thinking: Father Oprah’s just here for the lonely, divorced women. And I’m not going to bear false witness [pause for laughter], some of your divorcees estan muy buenas! [pause for laughter]

But it’s also a huge relief not to have to believe in transsubstantiation anymore. I mean, I can believe that someone could turn crackers into toffee [pause for laughter] or wine into sangria. [pause for laughter] But turning them into the flesh and blood of Jesus? That’s kind of gross!

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against people wanting to get flesh and bodily fluids in their mouths … especially when the people are hot divorcees! [pause for laughter] And especially when the flesh and fluids are mine! [pause for laughter and hoots] But crackers can’t turn into flesh. Again, crackers can’t turn into flesh. So ladies, next time you want to get your mouth on some “divinity,” you talk to Father Oprah, because [points at crotch] ain’t no crackers down there! Am I right, gentlemen? [pause for "woof, woof, woof" noises from male parishioners]

Also, I’ve got to say, it’s somewhat of a relief not to have to take marching orders from the Pope anymore. He’s definitely a smart man, there’s no doubt about that, but all that goose-stepping was giving me muscle cramps! [pause for laughter] And how much bratwurst can one cardinal eat? [pause for laughter] I swear, every time there was a conclave in Rome, I was shitting pig intestines for a week! [pause for laughter] One of my flights back to Miami someone thought there were WMDs in the bathroom! [pause for laughter] Wurst-Mess Dookies! [long pause for sustained laughter]

Anyway, it’s great to be here. I look forward to years of productive relationships with your divorcees. [pause for laughter] I mean, with all of you. [pause for applause] God bless!

Well, according to the New York Times, you probably shouldn’t consider joining the clergy:

The anecdotal evidence collected by the Association of Theological Schools, which covers 250 graduate institutions in the United States and Canada, has found job listings for ministerial positions down by about one-third at major seminaries serving both evangelical and mainstream Protestant denominations. The Jewish newspaper The Forward reported last month that Jewish seminaries accustomed to placing nearly all their newly minted rabbis were finding jobs this year for only about half.

Also the pay isn’t that good (unless you run a “prosperity gospel” scam), and you have to wear a funny costume.

But if you’re really intent on being a religious leader, there is one option:

Only the Roman Catholic Church, with a well-known shortage of priests, has more openings than applicants. And that, in turn, has led to a round of mordant jokes among seminarians about converting to get a job.

Of course, they don’t bother to tell us any of these jokes, forcing us to speculate. I’m guessing they’re along the lines of

• Sure, the Catholic Church may be The Great Whore of Babylon, but they do offer a steady paycheck!
• I don’t agree with their boy-touching policies, but I do agree with their clergy-paying policies!
• I bet if you pretend you work in a toll booth the days just fly by!
• The celibacy sucks, but the exorcisms more than make up for it!
• “WILL TRANSSUBSTANTIATE FOR FOOD”
• Taking marching orders from a crazy ex-Hitler-Youth might be cool, just like in Apt Pupil!
• Maybe I’ll get a free trip to Rome out of the deal. I hear the pizza there is amazing!
• Come on guys, it’s not like any one of these crazy religions is any less false than all the others!