It’s Time for a Game: Pre-Cana or Colbert?

No sooner had I waxed poetic about how surprisingly tolerable, enjoyable even, pre-Cana was turning out to be that things took a turn for the ridiculous Saturday. That’s because our perky cheerleader for Catholicism instructor spent the first half of the class talking about sex. Specifically, talking about how none of the 16 adults in front of her should be having it because we’re not married. Her exact words while trying to link pre-marital sex to infidelity: “If you can’t even abstain now with your future spouse, how will you ever say no when tempted by an affair after marriage?”

Now, all this insight comes as I’m also reading Stephen Colbert’s book, I Am America (And So Can You!). And I’ve noticed some stunning similarities between the teachings of the Mother Church and the toungue-in-cheek teachings of America’s favorite God-fearing patriot. So I’ve decided we should play a little game today: Pre-Cana or Colbert?

   OR     

You’ve got to tell me if the following quotes came from pre-Cana class, or Colbert. Let’s get started! 

1. “SecondLife?! Fantasy is the Devil’s playground!”

2. “Once you’ve locked up a spouse of the appropriate opposite sex, it’s time to get to ‘know’ one another in the biblical sense: by studying the Bible.”

3. “Ladies, it can be such a turn-on when your husbands say no to you when you want to have sex.”

4. “A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased. Otherwise, how will children ever understand the concept of God?”

5. “Stop ‘liberating’ moms by trying to make them join the workforce. They’re already doing the job that God put them here to do: Everything.”

6. “There’s a bonding hormone released in sex. Have you seen Fatal Attraction? Well there’s actually a basis for that. It’s not that she’s that necessarily crazy.”

7. “Our culture doesn’t respect the body. You see it in the culture’s presentation of rape, murder, sexual assault in movies, on TV. I won’t even watch that crime show anymore. The one that goes, ‘DUN dun’ in it.”

Ready to take a peak at the answers? Let’s go!

1. ”SecondLife?! Fantasy is the Devil’s playground!”

Pre-Cana! 
Our instructor was horrified to hear a woman in the class tell of a co-worker who indulged in this pastime (and I do mean “indulged,” per this chick’s story.) Apparently God doesn’t want anyone pleasuring themselves while donning digital fairy wings and calling themselves “Princess Ambyre.”

2. ”Once you’ve locked up a spouse of the appropriate opposite sex, it’s time to get to ‘know’ one another in the biblical sense: by studying the Bible.”

Colbert!  

3. ”Ladies, it can be such a turn-on when your husbands say no to you when you want to have sex.”

Pre-Cana!
This time the instructor (who is not married) added her own personal testimony, saying that she was soooo turned on when her new boyfriend said no to her because they were saving themselves for…Thanksgiving. I’m not kidding. The entire class simultaneously squinched their faces up and cocked their heads at a 45-degree angle trying to figure out why we can’t have sex (in some cases even on our honeymoon due to a principle called “marital chastity”), but our instructor could give it up to some dude she just met at church camp on a secular holiday devoted to turkey and football. No explanation was provided.

4. ”A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased. Otherwise, how will children ever understand the concept of God?”

Colbert!

5. ”Stop ‘liberating’ moms by trying to make them join the workforce. They’re already doing the job that God put them here to do: Everything.”

Colbert!
(But you’ve got to admit, it’s darn near indistinguishable from Marriage is for Keeps. I’m sure that book’s author would have referred to feminists as Femin-Idi Amins, too, if he’d thought of it first.)

6.  ”There’s a bonding hormone released in sex. Have you seen Fatal Attraction? Well there’s actually a basis for that. It’s not that she’s that necessarily crazy.”

Pre-Cana!
At this point, the wheels started coming off the trolley and people were openly laughing. Within 20 minutes there would be a full-blown coup d’etat as her pupils started peppering her with their complaints about the lesson, leading her to throw up her hands and shrill in near-panic, “Look, I’m just telling you what the Church says. If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it!”

7.  ”Our culture doesn’t respect the body. You see it in the culture’s presentation of rape, murder, sexual assault in movies, on TV. I won’t even watch that crime show anymore. The one that goes, ‘DUN dun’ in it.”

Pre-Cana!
Proving that while Colbert may be a genius, he’ll never match the Real McCoy.