Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children.
—II Peter 2:14
3914 Forcing The Vote
Two irked youth delegates at a Methodist conference in Kansas City decided the only thing that would speed up a vote on establishing a black youth task force would be the threat of nudity.
As forty young people (half of them girls) and thirty-three bishops watched, Thomas Hyde and James Conn began disrobing—an item of clothing at a time—for each additional person who spoke on the issue. Conn was wearing a shirt, pants, and undershorts.
After two more people spoke, according to a story in the National Catholic Reporter, somebody shouted, “Let’s vote!” They did. The black task force was approved—barely.
—Christianity Today
3915 A Minister Speaks
A minister who addressed a church convention of over two thousand persons was quoted as saying:
“In every service … we embrace one another. We kiss one another. We feel one another.
“Most of our people believe in the communal life. I have not married a single couple (at any church) who were not already living together.
“One qualification for our secretaries … is that they be sexy and wear mini-skirts. If a woman is sexually desirable, why not tell her so?
“We had one of our girls who had given birth to a child out of wedlock stand before our church and tell the inner joy of having a baby without moral inhibitions.
“People become stimulated in our church happenings. We believe in people doing their thing and doing what they want to. Several have become so stimulated … they have disrobed. One young man came to church covered only by a blanket. During the service he walked up front and threw his blanket down and stood there totally naked. I walked over and patted him and said, “Man, what a beautiful body you have.””
3916 Streaking Cliburn
Miami, April 10 (Reuter)—A streaker injected an unexpected note into a concert performance by pianist Van Cliburn.
As Cliburn played his third encore of a Chopin Polonnaise, a man streaked naked across the stage, carrying his clothes in his arms.
The audience gasped, and Cliburn glanced up fleetingly.
But the pianist never missed a note and, after the loudest applause of the night, he went on to play another encore.
3917 Sister Fiorella At The Gate
Every summer, much to the Vatican’s distress, the package tours that descend on St. Peter’s Basilica seem to be more scantily-packaged than ever. For years, grim-faced men were posted at the doors to tell the women and girls who arrived in minis or skimpy dresses that they were “indecently dressed.” After the poor fellows absorbed innumerable punches from outraged husbands and fathers, however, the Vatican was ready to try something new—particularly with hot pants and the no-bra look in vogue.
The Holy See then unveiled its own new look in guards: a no-nonsense, black-robed nun named Sister Fiorella. The stern, fortyish sister was installed as Chief Censor on the steps of the Basilica on the theory that a nun might be fairly safe from assault by irate tourists. Before long, the question was: Was anyone safe from Sister Fiorella? Newspapers nicknamed her “The Terrible Nun,” and she did her best to live up to the sobriquet. She turned away as many as 35-women-a-minute during peak periods (up to 2,000 a day), usually with a wave of the finger but sometimes by sprinting into the church to nab offenders who were brazen enough to try to slip past her.
Alas, the flood of what the Pope calls “Immodest Fashion” was too much for Sister Fiorella. She has disappeared from St. Peter’s—a casualty, the Vatican announced, of “nervous depression.” A novice nun has replaced her.
See also: Moral Laxity ; Pornography ; II Pet. 2:10.
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