http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4119Cardinal Bertoli:
VATICAN CITY?The Vatican has released a strict new set of Church laws intended to reduce the nocturnal emissions of teenage polluters by 50 percent in the next decade, Cardinal Antoni Bertoli announced Monday.
"In the past 10 years, unholy emissions from young men have risen by 150 million cubic centimeters, releasing erotic-dream byproducts into the bedsheet environment," Bertoli said. "The accumulation of pollutants from millions of individual violators around the world is having a devastating effect on the moral atmosphere."
Vatican scientists believe the increase in emissions contributes to the Hothouse Effect, a steady rise in the overall temperature of the average Catholic male's genitals.
"Unchecked, we will soon reach a crisis point that no amount of will power can contain," Bertoli said.
Catholic males have long been subject to purity standards set by the 15th book of Leviticus, which states that "when any man has a discharge from his member, his member makes him ceremonially unclean." Prior to the new restrictions, a polluter who did not voluntarily comply with the regulation was required to bathe his body in fresh water, count seven days for his cleansing, and on the eighth day take two turtledoves to his priest for an offering.
But in recent years, these so-called Clean Sheets Regulations have begun to draw criticism from Church hardliners, because enforcement of the laws relies largely on self-policing.
"In this day and age, shame alone is no longer adequate to deter emitters," Boston's Father Antonio Luigi said. "Year after year, the worst polluters consistently go unpunished, leaving others to clean up the mess. Unless we start to actively regulate abuses, boys will have no incentive to curb their outputs."
Bertoli said a newly created Vatican Bedroom Purity Board will be responsible for enforcing the tougher standards. Made up of experts in an array of fields including physiology, psychology, and canon law, the ecumenical council will also conduct research into the causes of self-pollution.
The Vatican plans to establish VBPB agencies in all major cities to monitor ejaculators, and has decreed that Catholic males between the ages of 12 and 19 will undergo regular nocturnal-emissions tests in the form of laundry monitoring.
According to Bertoli, violators who soil their linens more than once per month will be subject to strict punishments, including mandatory confessionals, and fines of up to 20,000 Hail Marys per year.
Polluters who attempt to cover up evidence of their nocturnal crimes by hiding their sheets in the back of the closet will be sentenced to up to 30 minutes of the silent treatment from their mothers.
Known nocturnal emitter Chad Severson:
Males of ejaculatory age who fail to meet the new standards will be outfitted with Catholytic converters, which attach directly to the genitals during sleep and curb nocturnal emissions by reducing the temperature of the reproductive organs.
According to Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, the new laws will have wide-reaching implications for bedrooms in his diocese.
"These standards are going to be very hard to meet, especially in cities like L.A., where the warm temperatures and humid ocean fronts encourage women to walk around wearing next to nothing," Mahony said. "Rather than setting up impossible objectives and then punishing those who fail to reach them, officials should reward compliance. For example, local church officials could offer monetary incentives or baseball-game tickets to young men who willingly take steps to reduce their emissions."
Critics of the new regulations say that focusing solely on nocturnal emitters punishes the victims while ignoring the true perpetrators of impure-thought pollution.
"The real culprits behind bedsheet contamination are the reckless members of the dream-manufacturing industry, such as HBO, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar, and Mary Antonioni, the busty brunette who sits in the front row of Sister Francesca's sixth-period health class at St. Mary's Junior High in Fayetteville, IL," said Mother Superior Katherine Calahan. "We need anti-temptation regulations that focus on dress conservation. Let's require girls to wear less makeup, flatter shoes, and just put some clothes on, for God's sake."
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