Vatican City, May 30, 2019 - A five-year old using an old fashioned abacus earlier today discovered what appears to be a discrepancy of three days in the Catholic Church's calculation of the commemoration of Our Lord's Ascension into Heaven.
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| The Ascension of Our Lord Juan Rodriguez Juarez, 1720 |
This left the young math scholar troubled and confused. "I read in my parish's bulletin that we will be celebrating the Ascension on Sunday, June 2nd," he explained. "But that would be 43 days after Christ's Resurrection, not 40."
Yet according to the first chapter of Acts, Christ "presented himself alive to [his followers] by many proofs after he suffered, appearing to them during forty days..." Then he "was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight."
Thus, since the young scholar's concern seemed justified, GSM News reached out by telephone to the Vatican for clarification.
The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, picked up the phone. After the discrepancy was explained to him, there was a long pause, and the beads of an abacus could be heard clicking in the background.
Finally, the flustered priest could be heard picking up the receiver. "Theology is not mathematics," he said in an irritated tone. "2+2 in theology can equal five. Similarly, 43 is the new 40."
GSM News also reached out to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, where an official confirmed suspicions that Common Core math had been incorrectly deployed in calculating the date of the Ascension. "We threw out our abacus to comply with the new math standards," he admitted. "Ultimately we just had to guess."
Yet the USCCB official became defensive at the suggestion that faithfulness to Scripture necessitated transferring the date of the Ascension to its correct date, Thursday, May 30th.
"Folks are so busy during the week surfing the internet and shuttling their kids to soccer games they can't possibly be expected to make it to church for something so minimally important as commemorating the Ascension of their Lord and Savior into Heaven," the bureaucrat said. "I think that having the Ascension on Sunday will help people to celebrate it with more festivity,"
However, the same precocious child who originally noted the date discrepancy for the Ascension also expressed skepticism at the official's claim that people could celebrate the Ascension with more festivity on Sunday.
"That seems to violate the Pauli exclusion principle," the five-year-old explained. "Two identical things can't occupy the same space at the same time and in the same manner. So if Sunday is already occupied by the festivity of the Seventh Sunday of Easter, how can you possibly expect to add the festivity of the Ascension to an already festive day? It seems that one would have to displace the other."
Reached again for comment, Father Spadaro sounded exasperated. "I'm telling you, if mathematics doesn't apply to theology, then surely physics doesn't either."
The USCCB bureaucrat was equally frustrated. "I have no idea what the Pauli exclusion principal is," he admitted. "I decided to take underwater basketweaving instead of physics in college."
