VATICAN CITY—Following a Pennsylvania grand jury’s report on widespread sexual abuse of children by priests and a cover-up that spanned decades, the Vatican released a statement Friday saying “listen, no normal person is going to sign up to be a priest.” “Look, we ask an awful lot of ordained priests and make them follow all these bizarre rules, so it shouldn’t be surprising that we have trouble finding people who aren’t degenerate creeps,” said Pope Francis, adding that although the Vatican would encourage members of the clergy to stop engaging in child abuse, there ultimately wasn’t that much they could do since the Church’s mandate of celibacy and its tacit acceptance of child abusers “basically turns away all well-adjusted, reasonable people at the door.” “It’s only gotten worse over the years because regular people would much rather have actual experiences in the real world than be cooped up in a rectory insisting that they’re married to God or whatever. We’d bet that if we relaxed the rules, reformed the power dynamics, and allowed priests to marry and have sex, we wouldn’t be overrun by monsters who can’t function in normal society, but we’re not going to do that, so it’s just going to be a bunch of freaks and deviants from here on out. Honestly, the way the Church currently operates is pretty much designed to appeal only to sick fucks who know they’ll get away with moral atrocities, if you think about it.” Vatican officials also defended priests who have been accused of child abuse over the past several decades, saying that at this point, given all of the available information, only an incredibly negligent parent would allow a child to be associated with the Catholic Church in any way.

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