Book of Catholic Jokes

He wrote, “There is nothing like a good joke to start off a sermon. When the preacher puts down the book and looks out at the congregation, the first thing he says is mighty important. If it starts off with ‘A priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar...’ All the better. Hey, even if the rest of the homily is a stinker, at least you come away with your funny bone tickled.”

I don’t know if the preacher Joel Osteen ever heard about Fr Boudreau, but he always begins his sermon with, “I would like to start with something funny...” And goes on to tell a joke. Once Joel said, “A little girl asked her mother where human beings came from. The mother told her how God made Adam and Eve and we are their descendants. The girl went to her dad and asked him the same question. The girl came back to her mother saying, “Daddy, told me we came from the apes!” The mother replied, “Yes, dear, that’s his side of the family.”

In the introduction, Deacon Sheridan begins, “Someone’s bound to ask: How dare I make jokes about the church? Okay, here’s why: Our human attempts to understand God and God’s action in the world is hilarious. When we forget that very powerful truth, we risk losing our real connection to the divine. The life God gives us can be very humorous. Comical. Downright laughable.”

The Deacon mentioned that the celebrated evangelist of the airwaves Archbishop Fulton J Sheen used humour to reach the hearts, minds and souls of the millions who were touched by his broadcasts. The Archbishop said that at one parish where he was preaching there would be an envelope in the collection with a note: ‘IOU $35.00’ or ‘IOU $50.00.’

This went on for weeks. Finally there was an envelope filled with cash, the total of all IOUs. Sheen said he felt good about his preaching until the following week, when there was another envelope. This time the note read, ‘You owe me $25.00’.

“The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, says it appreciates the jokes and humour in ‘The Simpsons,’ as irreverent and comical as a slice of exaggerated life as ever existed...The Pope’s semi-official publication commented that without Homer Simpson and his often befuddled and sarcastic pals ‘many today wouldn’t know how to laugh.’”

We read on page 20- “Catholics are funny; we all want to be in the front of the bus, the middle of the road, and the back of the church.”

My grandfather used to give this joke. One night, when Fr Palybeaux was sitting in the confessional, a man came in, knelt behind the screen and said, “Bless me fadder for I have sinned.” The priest replied, “My son, the good Lord will forgive whatever you have done, as long as you are sorry for your sin.”

The man confessed, “Ah just kill mih brother!” The priest said, “What!” The man went on, “Yes, ah kill he and mih sister!” The priest muttered, “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” The man continued, “After ah kill dem two, ah kill mih fadder!” The priest cried out, “O my God!” The killer boasted, “Den ah tun round an kill mih mudder. Now ah come here to kill you!” With that, the priest bolted from the confessional, out of the church and ran bawling and screaming all the way to the Archbishop House with the raving lunatic in hot pursuit.

The following joke dates back to 300 AD in Roman times: A man bought a slave who died soon after. When he complained, the slave seller replied, “Well, he didn’t die when I owned him.”