The Book of Catholic Jokes

I am a lector in our church. Often at the end of mass I am called on to tell a joke--clean,of course--so the members can leave in a happy mood--which I think is a great idea. So once every two weeks I select a joke from the Catholic Joke Book. The members love the jokes and so does the priest. It is great to see so many people leaving in a happy mood Thanks for the book. S. Stremmel

Deacon Tom Sheridan does a little setting up in the introduction to his new book. One might say a pastor, a deacon, and a Passionist priest.... No joke, in the foreword, Father Gregory Sakowicz, a Chicago pastor, writes, "Religion offers us an opportunity to laugh at ourselves at our most serious, and Jesus taught us that we shouldn't take ourselves all that seriously." In his introduction, Sheridan writes that humor "acknowledges the presence of a God who has touched humanity." And in the last chapter, Did Jesus Laugh, he shares the thoughts of bible scholar Father Donald Senior on humor in scripture. That said, it's on to more than 70 pages of jokes from Top 10 lists to puns. The top 10 reasons God created Eve starts with concern that Adam would get lost because he wouldn't ask for directions. "A dead ringer" comes up in a pun-filled tale of efforts to find a new bell-ringer after Notre Dame's Quasimodo died. And groupings like the following open a slew of stories that take place at locations such as bars and the pearly gates: a Brit, a Frenchman and a Russian...The chief rabbi and the Pope... Karl Rahner, Hans Kung and Pope Benedict XVI...Saint Dominic, Francis of Assisi and Ignatius of Loyola...a teacher, a garbage collector and a lawyer. I especially like the response from two priests asked how many novenas it would take to earn a Mercedes Benz. The Franciscan asks what's a Mercedes Benz and the Jesuit asks what's a novena. Kid stories feature Little Johnny and Little Susie, and ethnic tales star Paddy, Muldoon, and Gallagher. Sheridan bows to the Church's spirit of ecumenism with an atheist joke as well as one about crossing a Jehovah's Witness with a Unitarian. The outcome: Someone who goes around knocking on doors for no apparent reason.