By Archbishop Salvatore Corleone
Special to YNOT

THE VATICAN – We live in a world of change, where new information, new technology and new ideas are constantly competing for our attention. One day we’re told to eliminate carbohydrates from our diets in order to lose weight, the next day we’re told the meat-heavy meals we switched to yesterday are clogging arteries and giving us heart disease.

In such a world, where science and mere human wisdom are fundamentally flawed and never can be trusted, people need immutable truths on which they can rely. As an Archbishop in the True Church, it’s my solemn responsibility to help provide such Truths, which is why I asked YNOT to publish this crucially important cyber-edict.

I’m not alone in my righteous mission, of course. Even as I type this, one of my colleagues working in a very difficult market (the deeply, intensely, fabulously sinful Bay Area) is making sure Catholic schools know how important it is for teenagers to understand The Castro is the modern equivalent of Sodom and/or Gomorrah.

Recently, some of you have gotten the wrong idea about The Church and its teachings. You may have heard some nonsense about the Holy Father going soft on the issue of so-called “gay marriage” and thought there had been some kind of sea change on the subject here at the Vatican.

Now, as a man who has heard his share of omission-riddled confessions over the years, I know how the minds of some young Catholics work. You hear a rumor about His Holiness going easy on homos, and your little minds start churning, thinking of ways to rationalize any grievous sins you might enjoy personally.

In particular, all you young, virile, recently-pubescent Catholic boys start thinking maybe, just maybe, the Bishop of Rome has given you a knowing wink of approval when it comes to flogging the bishop who lives in your pants.

Well, while I hate to let the air out of your swollen blue balloons, Archbishop Sal is here to tell you masturbation is still a sin — and it only gets worse when you couple your reprehensible onanistic ways with the twin evil of pornography.

At the risk of making you feel even one little bit less guilty than you absolutely should about your filthy, detestable, unholy pud-pulling, I do need to acknowledge your masturbatory, pornographic sins are not entirely your fault.

You have been tempted to indulge in porn by a variety of Satan’s servants here on Earth, including the inaptly named “adult entertainment” industry, Hollywood, male hairstylists, Madison Avenue, the creators of South Park, militant homosexuals and the liberal, Christ-denying, anti-Catholic mainstream media.

Don’t get me wrong, all you Catholics gone sexually astray: It’s still mostly your fault, because clearly you have forgotten your Catechism. Among other things, you have forgotten masturbation is “an intrinsically and gravely disordered action” as was absolutely settled by the Persona Humana back in 1975.

True, some misguided souls, people far less wise than the Pontiff (like developmental psychologists, for instance) contend masturbation is normal, even “healthy,” but do you want to entrust the eternal health of your immortal soul to a psychologist?

Some of you Catholic smut-hounds out there might hope the One True Church has nothing to say on the subject of pornography, perhaps assuming this particular evil simply hasn’t come up during our scholarly discussions and epistemological debates. Au contraire, mon sinful frere!

If you would use the internet on occasion for something other than stoking the fires of your demonic lust, you would already know pornography “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other.”

Admittedly, there actually is porn out there wherein spouses are given to other spouses, but that’s not what we mean here, you sick-minded perverts. We’re talking about spouses giving to each other in a way approved by God, meaning strictly for the purposes of procreation — which also means no use of contraceptives, obviously.

The worst kind of porn, naturally, is gay porn, because gay porn is triple wrong: It involves homosexuality (strike one), fornication (strike two) and lust (strike three, you’re out — of Heaven).

For that matter, with all those loose penises dangling around, gay porn probably involves a lot of on-screen masturbation, too. Thus, in these cases gay porn is quadruple evil. Regardless, triple wrong or quadruple evil, any way you add it up the sum is the same: Eternal damnation.

I can’t emphasize this point enough: Each of these sins — homosexuality, pornography and masturbation — is a massive violation of the Will of God. He used words like “abhorrent” to describe them, and God is no drama queen. When He says something, He means it. (Don’t take my word for it; just ask Abraham and Job.)

Some of you non-Catholics out there probably are feeling pretty smug reading this right now. You probably think you don’t have to pay attention to any of this, because our rules don’t apply to you. True enough — if you don’t mind spending the rest of eternity in the company of brimstone, Satan and (eventually) J.K. Rowling and the entire cast and crew of every Harry Potter movie.

You see, as the One True Church, by definition our rules are for everyone who wants to go to Heaven.

What’s that you say? You’re an ethical Hindu? Tough shit. You’re headed for hellfire.

Maybe you’re a Mormon who has never done anything but ride around on your bike wearing a tie and being nice to everybody. Good deeds, magic undergarments and about $3.89 might get you a latte at Starbucks pal, but it won’t get you inside the Pearly Gates.

Same goes for you, Buddhists, Muslims, Scientologists, Jews, Zoroastrians, Rastafarians, Protestants, Baptists and Yankees fans — you’re all straight-up eternally fucked if you don’t see the Light, change your ways and start eating the wafer the right way. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Anglicans.)

Don’t like it? What can I tell you? It’s all the Will and Word of God, not those of His humble earthly servant Archbishop Sal. You know what they say: “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

Granted, shooting the messenger isn’t quite as gravely evil as watching porn, jerking off and/or being a faggot, but it’s still pretty bad.