Sr Feralia confronts Fergal O'Dobbin and his assistant...

To all Sisters, Hi!

I think we can agree that this has been a dramatic and distressing week, as my attached report to His Eminence discloses.

Your Eminence,

It is with a woman's burning heart, and in the spirit of Gaia and Sophia, that I write to you in humble and fervent protest at the activities of two people.

They claim to be Arch Defenders of the Faith, but they are truly imposters, rogues, cheats, miscreants, villains, sneaks, spreaders of scandal and masters of deceit, and of distasteful manners, disgusting personal habits and unpleasant body odour.

They may also be sexually deranged or, God forbid, transvestites.

In response to your call for increased fervour to facilitate Recruitment of Religious our Congregation decided to hold a Charismatic Nun of the Year Contest.

The plan was for young women and Novitiates to gather in the Kumbaya Tapestry Weaving and Folk Song Centre for an afternoon of interaction, feminine dialogue, music, dancing and other activities and to select a Role Model.

Sisters would come from far and wide for the Celebration and either give a performance or a short address.

Some of them have been in missions overseas and we have never met.

We were looking forward to meeting other Sisters engaged in the Dawning of the Feminine Spirit.

So it was with excited, rapid beats of the female hearts that our Welcoming Party gathered with their nylon string (no animal products) guitars at the airport to welcome some of the Sisters who had been hitherto Strangers to us, though they are part of our International Female Family of Faith and New Vision.

Kumbaya, Lord, Kumbaya
O Lord, Kumbaya…

And

Dominique…nikka, nikka, nikka, nikk…

For I wanted to be Sister Smile for our visitors.

You can imagine our disappointment, Your Eminence, when we discovered that there were only two sisters from afar.

The first was a bulky Sister dressed completely in black with a large crucifix which appeared to be made from smooth riverstones.

She bore herself with grave dignity.

She was of Canonical Age and very hairy.

I assumed she was of Mediterranean origin.

Her large shoes were also black and brightly shined. Upon her head she wore what would appear to the uninitiated to be a checked tea towel or a relic from The Yasser Arafat Millinery. I knew better. Did we have a Mother Teresa in our midst?

'I need a Jamesons after all that,' she exclaimed to her companion, 'AH, Sister! Permit me to introduce myself, I am Sister Hirsutus from the Ethiopian Abbey of Divine Wrath, Djibouti, in the Gulf of Aden, population four hundred and eighty-four thousand, land of the desert, the date palm and the djinni.'

'And my young companion in the Faith is Sister Infanta, a poor child we discovered singing in a heavy metal band in Mogadishu, and who has just completed her Novitiate in the Kazu IV Academy in Kazooistan.'

He looked intently at her. 'And I might add, due to her early years of personal abuse, SHE CANNOT UTTER A WORD, for she has lost her voice that once made her The Little Lark of the French Foreign Legion. So please, do not attempt to communicate with her.'

Sister Infanta looked for all the world like Sally Field in The Flying Nun

She was all in white. The only incongruity was her pink plastic scuffs with large white flowers on top. Ethiopia is such a poor country where modest and sensible footwear is probably difficult if not impossible to find. Infanta's stiff, white starched head covering and wimple had an aeronautical feature with long birdlike extensions bent sharply downwards. She looked, poor little thing, like she wanted to, and was capable of, flying back to Ethiopia all by herself.

'Do not speak to her please,' said Sister Hirsutus, in tones of a deep register, 'She cannot reply, and, furthermore, it reminds her of her sordid days as Little Lark of the Legion.'

Sister Infanta smiled like a little dog on a leash and then gave a demonstration of Custody of the Eyes as she lowered her gaze to her pink sandals.

She and her superior seemed to have no hand luggage other than a large black box with a few cables peeping like snakes from its lid. They held its handles firmly. During The Charismatic Nun of the Year presentation it never left their sides, and they were the most attentive of all the audience. The box bore the letters SONY.

Sister Hirsutus explained quickly , 'Due to her years of sin and abuse before the intervention of Divine Wrath, Sister Infanta is in need of constant medical care. This emergency medical kit and miniature dialysis machine has kindly been provided by SONY, Sisters Of North Yemen.'

The pair sat in the front row for the performances, which were very varied.

Sister Odomatous, recently released from a locked room in the Clinic, insisted on delivering her Bobby Darin Spectacular (with gestures) and Mother Superior Professor M. Dominatus read the abstract of her paper, Alcoholism: the Search for the Inner Woman in the Priest, while a weightlifting demonstration by Sister Ovarianta attracted resounding applause, and a prose poem by Sister Lachrymedia, 'Walking in the Womb of Gaia' caused tears in the eyes of the audience. My only contribution was the singing of 'Dream Lover', with the lyrics recast to give a divine dimension. The crowd responded with calls for that old favourite, Kumbaya.

The Keynote Address by Sister Gerontius of Los Angeles, 'Patti Hearst: Lessons for Female Captives in the Catholic Church' was a bombshell. Sister G drew parallels with the situation of nuns and the Hearst case of the "Stockholm syndrome" in which captives become sympathetic with their captors.

This was balanced by an address by a very welcome guest, Molly Arbeit, the legendary housekeeper, on Sixteen Ways to Iron a Priest's Shirt.

Nor were we lacking in humour. Sister Odomatous returned to the stage made up and dressed like Father Teilhard de Chardin. She is a perfect imitator of Frank Sinatra and her rendition of 'I did it Ty's Way' brought down the house. She responded with 'There's No Sphere, like a Noosphere' which brought the whole company on stage.

Sister Hirsutus was seen to produce a cell phone, and say, 'Gra-Gra?'

There was a brief struggle, but Sister Odomatous succeeded in pulling the tiny Sister Infanta away from Sister Hirsutus and persuading her to dance on stage with the rest of the company. Her pink plastic sandals shone in the spotlight like two little piggies running riot.

She, of course, was unable to sing because of her previous Years of Depravity. But Sister Infanta mimed wonderfully and seemed to be having a splendid time until dragged away by the brawny Sister Hirsutus to the Ladies Rest Room.

It was in the Rest Room after they left that my suspicions began, Your Eminence.

The seat was UP!

Now, I know that sometimes this is necessary, as Molly Arbeit has described in Rescuing and Cleaning Father's Dentures, or Cleaning Father's Toilet, or when kneeling to practise Gregorian Chant, using the pedestal bowl for amplification, but there were other Unmentionable Signs of Male Presence.

Further, there were traces of horrid Whiskers, shaving cream and a disposable Razor!

Also there were remains of stage makeup used by Women of Low Repute.

The perpetrators had left behind the mysterious Black Box.

It was discovered not to be a first aid kit and dialysis machine but a tape recorder from SONY.

We were being spied upon!

I have had the recordings transcribed. They include a visit by the culprits to a costume shop in Oxford Street, Sydney and a message to you, Your Eminence, introducing the record of our performance. They should leave no doubt in your mind that we are victims of CONSERVATIVE ESPIONAGE!

'Sister Hirsutus' is none other than Fergal O'Dobbin, the notorious heresy-hunter and homily note-taker, in disguise and lacking his moustache. 'Sister Infanta', far from being a former Little Lark of the Legion, is O'Dobbin's accomplice, David Hackenfurth, the young friend of Father Farzenheim, who says he is 'a devout lay person of immaculate credentials'.

The activities of O'Dobbin and Hackenfurth have been exposed by Catholica Australia in Fergal's Confidential Report to His Eminence which you can find at www.catholica.com.au/cliffsmenagerie/002_fergal

It tells how this pair of scoundrels dressed as women to spy on a Catholic men's drinking club it suspected of heretical activity.

You had to rescue them, if you remember, from a women's casualty and HIV hospital ward, Your Eminence.

They are it again! Unrepentant! The following tape excerpts prove this beyond doubt.

[Oxford Street costume shop]
Assistant: Back for more, girls? Can't leave a good thing alone, eh? Taking a walk on the wild side again? What'll it be this time? Priscilla in the Desert? Debbie Does Dallas?
O'Dobbin: Silence! We are on a Secret Mission for His Eminence, which of course warrants Extreme Secrecy.
Assistant: Ooooh, I love secrets! Bet you have plenty, you femmes fatale. You look a bit battered, though. Rough trade?
O'Dobbin: We bear the Wounds of Christ for the Holy Faith.
Assistant: Kinky, kinky, girls. You sick little puppies. What about the petite one? You're very quiet. You little sausage, I could just eat you!
Hackenfurth: I'm Mr O'Dobbin's secret assistant.
Assistant: Of course you are, little sausage. Perhaps I can 'assist' you. What's your scenario? Colours?
O'Dobbin: Black
Assistant: Mmmm, like the Devil.
Hackenfurth: White, if you please, if that's all right with Mr O'Dobbin.
Assistant: Like a virgin, touched for the very first time. Oooh, I could just eat you, little sausage!
O'Dobbin: We require the dress of two Religious Sisters, one black, one white. Very Traditional, if you please.
Assistant: Most've gone to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, but there's one black left. And for you, little cabana, I have Something Soooooo Special, yummy Miss Mettwurst.
Hackenfurth: Hackenfurth
Assistant: Sally Field, the Flying Nun herself ! Come Fly with me, it's such a lovely day ... come fly with me to Apaculpo Bay ... Just look at those white wings, so white and pure. So you!
O'Dobbin: Hurry up: We are on a serious and confidential Mission for his Eminence.
Assistant: Right up! We must not keep His Prominence waiting. Girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

[Transcript of message to His Eminence]
O'Dobbin Voice: Your Eminence what you are about to hear will shock you to the core, for it discloses the depths to which these Sisters of Eve have sunk in your Archdiocese.
Heresy stalks the land of this Congregation like a wild tiger, looking for innocents to devour.
Here you will hear noble theologians made a mockery, Male Dignity of the Celibate Priesthood betrayed, and paganism run rampant.
May I submit that you will take urgent action against these Green Guerillas of Gomorrah.
Mr Hackenfurth, and I, your faithful servant Fergal O'Dobbin have made many sacrifices to bring this Oral Evidence. I'll cease this transmission as someone is coming… (tape ends)

I, Sister Feralia, Your Eminence, do most strenuously object to this Espionage. I shall spare you the details of the chase through the bushland, Sister Odomatous' flying tackle that brought Mr O'Dobbin to the ground, or Mr Hackenfurth's attempt to test the aeronautical capabilities of his Sally field headgear. Fortunately, none of these horrid happenings made the Evening News.

I remain, respectfully,

Sr Feralia

Sister Feralia is the face of the New Feminism, a healthy antidote to the testosterone-driven ecclesial community of Father Farzenheim and the Fathers of Divine Wrath.

We welcome your feedback in our discussion forum.

©2006 Clifford Baxter

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