It's summertime, and you know what that means: Pina Coladas out on the Vatican portico, grilling kielbasa on the Papal hibachi, late-nite hootenannies with Cardinal Francis Arinze trying to sing "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" while strumming his ukulele.

Oh, and one more thing. Church-goers walking into Mass dressed like they're on their way to a swap meet or maybe a demolition derby.

The women have on their "I'm With Stupid" t-shirts. The men are in blue jean cutoffs. Do you know what it sounds like when 30,000 sticky-faced toddlers walk into St. Peter's Square wearing flip-flops? Like a thousand Canadian geese farting.

Folks, you need to think of church as God's house. God is your ultimate judge. You wouldn't show up in court wearing a sleeveless undershirt, which I am told tasteful Protestants refer to as a "wife-beater". (Like Brooks Brothers underwear keeps you from slapping the old lady around when you've had one too many gin and tonics.)

So once again I need to remind everybody of a few ground rules when attending church:

Number one, no tube tops. God doesn't need to see your cleavage, and they make you look like a sausage trying to escape from its casing.

You know, it's one thing to be known as "God's Rottweiler", a nickname I'm proud of. It's something else entirely to be able to actually bite someone in the ass when you catch them breaking a commandment. For that, I've got the Swiss Guards.

Have you ever seen those guys? They wear costumes that look like something out of a community theatre production of H.M.S. Pinafore. They wouldn't scare a chihuahua off a doggie treat. I have a feeling that this whole coveting trend I've seen since the birth of humanity could be avoided if people had more fear instilled into them.

And as a big Star Wars fan, I have always admired the terror that Darth Vader was able to inspire with his Death Star. That planet-destroying space station comes on screen, the surround-sound fires up the bass notes and the jujubes literally start shaking in your candy box. It is freaking awesome.

 A lot of Pope watchers out there--both of you--are all over me because I didn't come down hard on California's gay marriage case. They're saying I'm soft because I "made no mention of the California decision" in a speech to family groups.

The truth is I'm seriously conflicted about the whole thing. Let me tell you, the saddest day of my life was in 1997 when Ellen DeGeneres came out on her sitcom. I remember it as if it happened yesterday. I was sitting on the couch in the rec room at the College of Cardinals with Francis Arinze. He wanted to watch "Frasier", and I said something like "How can you stand that fudge packer?"

That shut him up, so we popped some Orville Redenbacher's and sat down to watch "Ellen". About twenty minutes into the episode Ellen announced she was gay. I turned as red as my velvet cape.

There are a lot of religious leaders--I don't want to single out anybody personally, but one spells his name D-A-L-A-I space L-A-M-A--who are totally clueless when it comes to understanding the youth of today.

I, on the other hand, am so flipping "hep" that I'm going to text message all my young worshipers on my cell phone this coming World Youth Day. I don't have T9 yet, so this may take a while. Bear with me.

pull up yr pants, showing butt crack is a sin. LOL!

sereeusly, what iz up dawgs & dawgettes?

BTW, i can c u when u masturb8. just bcuz yer in da bathrum duznt meen yur invisible. :p