Memo to Monsignor Tommaso Stenico: YOU DESERVE THE OSCAR.

Seriously. Screw those Brokeback Mountain guys. So to speak. When it comes to pretending to be gay while not actually being gay, you're like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, only, you know. A whole lot more gay.

It's officially ridiculous. There are so many anti-gay conservatives being caught with their hands in the penis jar that you could take them all and have them star in their very own kids cartoon in which the goal is to collect and market a huge variety of god-fearing hypocrite horndogs. You could call it Pokingmen. Or Yu Guy Bloh! Or Naruto, The Secret Jutsu Senator Creepy Wants To Teach You Isn't Actually A Secret Jutsu, So Run And Tell A Grownup.

The phenomenon has blown wide open, so to speak so to speak so to speak. It's spread so to speak all the way to Italy. Well, OK, Vatican City, which is technically not Italy, but is instead its own sovereign nation run by a conservative German. Because, you know. That's always such a good idea.

Anyway, the way it all went down is this. A couple of weeks ago, an Italian TV network did an expose on gay priests. And in that expose was Monsignor Tommaso Stenico. The monsignor was caught on tape explaining to a manjunior that homosexuality wasn't sinful, and apparently offering to prove it as many times as necessary.

You would think that that, and the monsignor's subsequent suspension, would have been the end of it. But no! He went to the La Repubblica newspaper, which I assume from the name is the Italian version of the National Review, and provided him with his I'm Totally Not Gay, Dudes excuse. And it's a doozy. ACTUAL PARTIAL QUOTE TIME!

"Monsignor Tommaso Stenico said he frequented online gay chat rooms and met with gay men as part of his work as a psychoanalyst. He said that he pretended to be gay in order to gather information about 'those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity.'" - The Associated Press.

He wasn't under the covers. He was UNDERCOVER. Genius! In order to truly understand how those homosexuals could damage the image of the Catholic Church, Stenico had to spend lots and lots of time in gay chat rooms and with gay men. It was the ONLY WAY.

And he was apparently incredibly convincing in his role. He fooled everybody. Which is why I think he should get some kind of lifetime achievement Oscar, because even Stanislavski's got to be posthumously impressed with the long, hard hours Stenico put into maintaining such a firm, deep role. In the hay. With a dude.

Now, I know what you're all wondering. You're asking yourselves, "OK, smartypants. You're so clever? What excuse would YOU give if YOU were a celibate Vatican City monsignor caught on tape trying to go to bed with some guy in a bar?" Well, I accept your unspoken challenge. I'll tell you one thing. I wouldn't have gone with "to better understand this mysterious and faraway world which, by the fault of a few people — among them some priests — is doing so much harm to the Church." The part about the "mysterious and faraway world" is a dead giveaway. Trying too hard.

No, I simply would have explained that I was doing theological research. The Catholic Church does need to remain relevant in today's modern world, and as a result, I was trying to establish, once and for all, whether seminal transubstantiation was possible. And that so far, the jury was out, and that Communion services would, for the time being, remain unchanged.

Because if nobody's gonna believe it anyway, you might as well have some goddamned fun with it.

*It wasn't easy choosing between this title and "Mamma Mia! That's-A Spicy-A Man-Balls!". In the end, a modicum of class won out, but it was a close thing. So to speak.