Najib Meets the Pope

The Pope enjoys a visit from Najib, offers him some 

Cassatta Siciliana with Tea and discusses with him 

issues pertaining to certain happenings in Malaysia.

NTR:         Good Evening, your highness, your excellency

Pope:       Holiness. Holiness. Your Highness, Your Excellency are for ordinary people from Bush till Mugabe. I am God's representative on earth, understand? Now what can I do for you.

NTR:         Well Thank you your high... I mean holiness. We in Malaysia ...

Pope:       Now before that lemme see....(Cardinal Bong, where's that letter from some Malaysians we received recently?) Ah here it is. See here, Mr Najib. I received this letter yesterday just before you came ... from a group of Christians there. My my my ... haven't they got a bit of complaints about ya, baby.

NTR:         Ahhh, sir... you know how it is with political opponents. They can't defeat you with ballot boxes, they throw all these slanders at you. No sir. Nope. That news is no more true than Jesus having a night of bliss with mary Magdalene wearing a thorny crown and nothing else. Though if Martin Scorcese had his way ...

Pope:       Shhhh!! Don't take the name of our Lord in vain. And forget about that Scorcese fella. Just between you and me... not that I give a hoot at all with these Italians, you see. But how can one blaspheme and  …

NTR:         Ahh! Blasphemy! Well actually sir, that is the very thing I would like to discuss with you about ...

See, sir. The government of Malaysia had recently obtained in excess of a few hundred million dollars in offset programmes in our many defense purchases. Now I was thinking what more better way to show our gratitude than to do something for Your Holiness' cause to spread the word of God.

Pope:       That is certainly very thoughtful of you. And what do you have in mind?

NTR:         Well, for one, I would like to sponsor the printing of bibles worldwide with the name "Allah" replacing all occurrences of "God" therein.

Pope:       Holy Veggie Fettucini! Are you out of your freakin' al-Qaeda infested mind? Why would I wanna do that?

NTR:         Well see, sir. We have this group of Catholics from Malaysia, you see, who would very much like that each and every occurrence of the word "Lord" or "God" or "Father" or "Yahweh" that occur in both the old and New Testaments be changed to Allah. So I thought ... that is an extremely lovable gesture on their part for what we muslims find difficulty in achieving for centuries, namely bringing the name Allah into the lips of billions of Christians the world over, the Malaysian Catholics could do it in just a jiffy, and I was thinking what more appropriate gesture of solidarity and brotherhood  between the two religions than to offer some monetary assistance and expand this printing to the audience worldwide.

Pope.       Solidarity Sodority Molarity my foot. Malaysian Catholics did you say? Grrr.. wait till I get  my hands on those no good son-of-a-..... Bong!Who’s our man in Malaysia? Something Puckyam or something. What's that? Oh hold on a second, Prime Minister.

(Cardinal Bong spends a whispering moment with his holiness...)

Pope:       Ahh... I see. Now I am getting a clearer picture here. I understand that the Allah name is only to be printed in the Malay Language bible, correct? And what's wrong with that?

NTR:         Nothing wrong, Your Holiness. Nothing at all, except that it doesn't make any sense at all. You have Allah as the name of the Deity in one section of the world and anything else BUT, elsewhere? I mean, I know of some priests who would DIE fighting to eradicate the name of Allah to be mentioned in the lips of humanity and you have your people here wanting to print it?

Pope:       Look. What does it matter WHAT this God is called. As long as your people there can be easily conver--- I mean as long as they become good people, why not?

NTR:         We understand that, sir. But what's wrong with printing the name worldwide so that OTHER Christians the world over can also share the name of this deity? We can even start by printing your bibles that are in use here in the Vatican.

Pope:       Hey! Are you mocking me? No way in heaven am I going to do THAT. We have been calling this God as "Lord" or "Father" for the past 2000 years so why should we change now?

NTR:         Exactly. That's what I have been telling our Reverend Kumar there in Malaysia, you see. But nooo... he wouldn't listen. But then Your Holiness, you DO agree that we share the same God don't you?

Pope:       Yes of course I do.

NTR:         And that this God, or this Allah, is the one who created the heavens and the earth and sent Moses with his Torah ...

Pope:       Yes ... that He did.

NTR:         … And Jesus with the gospels ...

Pope:       Yes... Yes...

NTR:         ... And Mohammed with the Qur'an, being the Final Message ...

Pope:       Yes, yes... I mean ... NO!! I mean, yes! Hey what are you trying to do here. Put words into my mouth?

NTR:         But then, if you cannot verbally endorse here that Allah is the name of the deity that you guys have been worshipping for the past 2000 years, how then can you allow for the bible in Malaysia be printed using that name?

Pope:       But He is! He is! Surely you are not saying that there is ANOTHER God worthy of worship, are you?

NTR:         Of course not. But then if He is the same God, then we must also hold as true when this very same Allah tells the world that Christian priests have modified and edited their bibles with their own hands so as to change their meanings.

Pope:       Careful now ... you are crossing very thin lines.

NTR:         And it also must be agreed when this same Allah says in the Quran that Jesus did NOT die on the cross, denies that He had instructed Jesus to insist on him being called Son of God or that He begets him?

Pope:       Ahhh I know where you are going with all these. You are trying to confuse me, aren't you sir?

NTR:         See, Your Holiness. We can't let you print the bible in our language and tell people in one book it says that Allah has a son and that the way to salvation is accepting this man as God himself, while in another book it says this Allah has NO son and that those who say and write so are blaspheming Him?

Pope:       (Scratching Holy head). Well now YOU have me made a bit confused here.

NTR:         But see, sir. In terms of admonishments for goodness and piety, we share more things in common than we do differences. For example, let me show you here how in this bible (NTR takes his copy of the bible from his pocket) where it says …

Pope:       You get that filthy thing out of my sight !!

NTR:         What’s the matter? But this is the copy of the bible I cilok from our hotel room in Pennsylvania last night …

Pope:       Yes, but it’s not our bible. It’s the King James one. It’s not the true gospel.

NTR:         Bbbbut… Your Holiness. This version of the bible is used by billions of people in Europe, in America and elsewhere. Surely …

Pope:       Yes I know but it’s not ours. We use a different  one. Those King James crap has deleted entire books of God’s Word.

NTR:         But what kind of a holy book is this that is prone to human tampering, editions and deletions? And remember: they are used by billions of Christians and yet you say it is not the true bible?

Pope:       Nope.

NTR:         Well okay which one shall I use then. The Scoffield version?

Pope:       Holy Mackerel, No! God Forbid.

NTR:         What about the New Revised Standard, then?

Pope:       No!

NTR:         Berkeley issue, Good News bible, Holman Standard, Reina Valera version, New American Standard, Young’s Standard, Guttenberg bible, New International Standard?

Pope:       No, no, no, and no! We can’t have all these… false manuscripts permeating all over. And it’s all because of that darn Martin Luther fellow.

NTR:         See sir. In Islam we only have one Qur’an, which has been used for more than 1400 years. It has not been tampered or edited in any way, and it’s been used by various types of races and nations even though they can’t even talk with one another due to language differences. But we share the same Qur’an.

Pope:       Hey now are you preaching to me? We have problems of our own, alright. But you can’t  just come here and rub it on onto us. Besides it is confusing already with this Puckyam bible that that they are now putting on my table.

NTR:         But I tell you how to get out of this confusion, your Holiness. Just tell me this. Is Allah the same deity who sent Jesus and Muhammad?

Pope:       Of course He is.

NTR:         Well do you pray to this God in your masses and sermons and prayers?

Pope:       Of course I do!

NTR:         And do you, or have you ever invoked this God by his Allah name before ...?

Pope:       Yyyyyyyaa……. What about it?

NTR:         So how about right now, let's pray together and I say Ameeen to that and let's invoke the name Allah: not the Father, not Son, not Holy Ghost. Let's pray to Allah, the one True God both agreed by you and me, and let's pray for the peace of the world. I have a small video recorder with me here: let’s videotape our prayers and put it up in Youtube or something so people all over the world can see.

Pope:       Are you out of your freakin’ UMNO-infested mind? For 2000 years no Pope has ever done that in Vatican and you want me to start? Imagine the lashings I get from my cardinals all over the world, not to mention those pesky Protestants with their innumerable denominations. And I bet you three shekels, my rival Pope Shenoda would have a field time ridiculing me on this.

NTR:         Then sir, since I now understand that this action or insistence that the bible includes Allah’s name in it is not getting any endorsement from you, or it doesn’t come from the Holy See’s edict (since you yourself are not willing to do that for your own bible or even pray for once using that Name) I do not have any other conclusion other than that whatever your Pakiam counterpart is doing in Malaysia, is of his own accord and not getting any endorsement from you. Am I correct in that assumption sir?

Pope:       Correct, correct, correct. That no good son of a gun has alllllllways been doing crazy things to attract my attention, you see.  But Mr Prime Minister, I also heard recently that your cruel and dictatorial government has been bulldozing churches, killing Christians by the thousands, burning bibles and forcing Christians to become muslims at gunpoint. What gives?

NTR:         Well to tell you the truth sir, that’s the first time I hear about it myself. I mean, where do you GET all these nonsense news?

Pope:       Ooh I don’t know. What was that news website we were surfing the other day, Cardinal Bong? No not the Naughty Nuns in Nantucket one. Malay kini, Petra Kini or something like that. But anyway that is no matter. I am telling you, Mr Prime Minister. It does you no good desecrating Jesus Christ and his ministry in your country…

NTR:         Desecrating! Surely you of all people know better that Islam is the ONLY religion outside of Christianity that makes it an article of faith to believe in the ministry of Jesus, his virgin birth, his miraculous works, his Second coming? And you also know that if ever there is a muslim who rejects Jesus Christ as true and as coming from God and in as much sneer at him or his mother, he ceases to be a muslim?

Pope:       You are only saying that …

NTR:         It is true! Well tell me now, Your Holiness. You say so highly about the Jews, protect them so much, support them no matter what, and have some dear attachments to them. But can you tell me now what the Talmud says about Jesus Christ?

Pope:       That he was a false impostor with Black Magic capabilities, and is presently in Hellfire boiling in pus and semen …

NTR:         Na’u zubillah! And what do they say about Mary his mother?

Pope:       That she was a prostitute who conceived Jesus after a night of bliss with a Roman Soldier

NTR:         See, sir? And if any muslim SAY that at all, the other muslims would KILL him in order to protect the sanctity of Jesus. And yet, with the Jews having THAT as an article of their faith, you support them, you magnify them and you rescue them even in the light of they making atrocities amongst the muslims, your supporters.

Pope:       Yes. I agree and think that that has to change soon enough.

NTR:         Well anyway sir, I have taken too much of your valuable time. I really enjoy this visit and hope that we have the opportunity to meet again.

Pope:       God Bless you, Prime Minister. The pleasure is all mine. Have some more Cassatta Siciliana please ….

[Exit]