VATICAN CITY MEMORANDUM

To:   The Apostolic Investigators
Re:    Investigation of Homosexuals in USA Seminaries

Thank you for undertaking this very worthwhile project to remove homosexuals from our seminaries. Since most of them will probably answer "no" when you ask them directly if they are gay, you will need to devise alternative methods to identify the deviants. We suggest the following.

1) Check his music collection. If has more than 2 CDs by Streisand, Cher or Madonna, boot him.

2) Check his vocabulary. If before entering the seminary he knew the meaning of "baldachino," "humeral veil" or "Spencer Abbey," boot him.

3) Ask him about cooking. If, from memory, he can concoct more than three recipes that require gruyere, arrugala, or caramelizing, toss him.

4) Find out what he wears at the beach. If he wears speedos for purposes other than lap swimming, throw him out.

5) Dig deeper into the cooking issue. If he knows the difference between parsley and cilantro, and REFUSES to cook with the former, get rid of him.

6) Ask him about his room in the seminary. If he refers to its curtains, drapes, blinds, or shades as "window treatments," dismiss him.

7) Learn about what keeps him awake at night. If he has ever lost sleep because he thinks the altar flowers would really be prettier if they had a little more baby's breath, throw him out.

8) Investigate the contents of his song memories. If he knows the lyrics to the entire score of any Broadway play that won the Tony award for the best musical during the years 1963-1987, throw him out.

9) Watch how he enters a room. If he immediately goes to the lamp in the corner and turns the shade so that the seam faces the wall, he is history.

10) Ask about his decision-making ability. If he has ever spent an entire weekend painting a seminary prayer space honey dew melon only to decide on Monday that it isn't quite right and spends the entire next weekend repainting the space mint # 377, throw him out.

11) Find out what distracts him in prayer. If he has ever been bothered by recurrent concerns about cilantro and window treatments while in prayer, throw him out.

12) Research his sense of history. If he recalls exactly where he was when Princess Di crashed, but cannot recall how he learned of the Pope's death, show him the door.

13) Listen for his understanding of New York.  If mention of "The Mets" gets him talking about the opera company and art museum rather than the baseball team, throw him out.