TIME magazine each week features a regular series – popular for nosey readers, of which there are plenty galore – called 10 Questions.
Respondees are rich, famous, photogenic. Status is enhanced by a) having placed first, second, last on American Idol and b) having been divorced on one or more occasions before and/or after the finalist appearance.
As yet I have not been asked to respond to anybody's questions, as my current celebrity status as columnist and artist of some repute and ubiquitous reputation here and abroad is on hold among the press and literary intelligensia. (My six divorces don't count.)
I'm given to understand that my status as such differs little from that of most of my friends and acquaintances in Detroit, Ferndale, Royal Oak, Ann Arbor. (With the exception of Mayor Craig Covey, who has been approached for an interview by National Geographic on suburban middle-aged LGBT mating-and-dance rituals, of which he is something of a "I'll lead, you follow" authority).
While I am not (as yet) rich and/or famous (the two are often sides of the same minted-in-America, copper-alloyed bus token), I am photogenic, or at least I have been told so by the purveyors of those pocket-sized physique magazines once discretely sold at our better city newsstands some 40 or 50 years ago.
If you know of anyone in the non-CNN media who might consider giving me the right to voice my politically correct opinion on any number of politically incorrect topics germane to our nation's mismanagement, suffice it to say I would appreciate your telling them so. (A signed mismanagement petition might help.)
Nonetheless, I'm pleased to report that my good friend, fashion consultant, spiritual mentor, Sr. Serena Scatterpin, Renegade Sisters of Mary, has – would you believe it? – been asked to answer 10 questions for a future edition, cover titled, "Have Recovering Catholics recovered recovering?"
As Sister respects my judgment (and because we have known each other for a number of years – we actually met outside of a confessional box: I left my Venial Sins List there, she chanced to retrieve it at some purgatorial cost to life, limb and habit), she provides me, and our loyal PG Recovering Catholic readers, with the following candid, sneak preview sampling. (Nihil Obstat. Nothing X-rated.)
Q: Are there many Renegade Sisters of Mary?
A: We're everywhere. Like the Protestant Order of the Friends of Dorothy, we come in all scapular shapes, rosary sizes. Not a day goes by when – in my designer wash-and-wear wimple or my rainbow caftan mufti – someone doesn't stop me to say, "Get you, Mary!" Lot's better than, "Have a blessed day, Girlfriend."
Q: Should priests be allowed to marry?
A: If you mean to each other. No. If nuns can't serve Mass, why should priests wed? It's not fair. It's also incestuous. But, let's be charitable. If priests want to do the Playboy, club car, Stations-of-the-Cross thing, well, let them. As long as they're celibate during Lent and wear designer kneepads on holy days of near-sighted obligation.
Q: Have you some special saint worthy of veneration?
A: I simply adore St. Neiman of Marcus and St. Yves of Laurent. It's truly a miracle how many drab lives have been transformed by these two heavenly hunks. Susan Boyle, good example. And! I understand Madonna prays to both. She's almost a saint beatified herself. And looks it.
Q: Hip Renegader that you are, what do you think of sexting?
A: It's nothing more than wanting to get back to Garden of Eden, in-the-buff fashion basics. We Renegades get our jollies by texting our wimples. Priests, archbishops, cardinals jp their drags and smoking censers.
Q: What do you think of gay people? You Facebook thousands.
A: Gay people are like everybody else in recovery. Only gayer. Especially when they Twitter.
