Holy apologies.

The other day in the mail with my very pretentious J. Peterman catalogue and my Publisher's Clearinghouse notice thanking me for sending Ed McMahon the map to my house so he will better be able to find me on that great prize-awarding day, I got a letter from the Pope. I was at first overwhelmed by His Thoughtfulness. Then I found out he had sent a letter to every woman. But still. And I did appreciate the Nixon stamp--an inspired bit of whimsy.

It wasn't one of those pray-or-else chain letters, one of those, "Don't be like Mrs. Eulah Banks, of Okra, North Carolina, whose husband fell into the moving trash compactor on the back of his self-owned garbage truck after she delayed her reply." It was a letter of apology. Talk about your letter bombs! Lately it seems as if everybody is apologizing. Well, everybody but O.J.

It has been a pretty sorry summer. Lots of religions are apologizing for things. I guess they are not sleeping well. Recently 800 German Christians apologized to some baffled Danes for the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. In the United States, the Southern Baptist convention formally and finally apologized to African Americans for defending slavery in the antebellum South and for condoning contemporary racism. African Americans everywhere were relieved. They'd been waiting. Go get out your Tracy Chapman album and crank up, "Sorry is all that you can say" to window-rattling decibels.

In his letter of apology, entitled, "Ego Sum Okay, Vos est Excommunicatus," the Pope apologized for any (?!) injustices against women in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. The Jesuits had earlier apologized for abetting centuries of male domination and had pledged their personal solidarity with women, frightening many coeds at Boston College.

This Papal letter reminds me of that Galileo moment a few years back. After seventeen years of debate, a special Papal commission announced that Galileo was right all those 353 years ago when he said that the Sun, not the Earth, not even the Pope, was the center of the universe. The Papal guards tried to get Galileo to apologize under house arrest, but he went crazy instead. Things I still can't figure out--we're talking Cape Canaveral already, one giant putt for mankind, etc. Was it so hard to get a meeting room at the Vatican? Why do it anyway?

But there is no "Why now?" to this Papal apology. The U.N. Conference on Women is about to convene in Beijing and His Extreme Cleverness is trying to carp the diem. All that true-nature-of-women talk in his apology makes this lesbian suspect that a few hundred years from now, some Pope John Paul 86 is going to be apologizing for that unfortunate crusade against women in the late 1900s.

It's not just maxima organizational culpas that are being proffered. Even individuals are getting into their culps. There's Mr. Robert ("They drug tested him and found traces of formaldehyde") McNamara, author of Youra Culpa, his quasiapology for the Vietnam War.

And then there's Hugh Grant's abject, convoluted stammerings, which actually sounded as if they'd been translated from the Latin. According to one recent poll, 57 percent of people said they knew of his apology, while only 23 percent knew of the Pope's apology. I made that up, but having made a few insincere apologies in my own secular lifetime, I recognize transparency when I see through it. I don't know if Grant is using the same publicist as the one who got the kinder, gentler Timothy McVeigh on the cover of Newsweek, but the strategy of getting caught with a prostitute as a career move was, if not original, then at least timely.

Supposedly all of these apologies for past sins are necessary before the Vatican can send out party invites to the third millennium of Christianity. Well, excuse me for being such a party pooper, but talk is cheap and whatever happened to good old penance?

I don't know if Hugh Grant has a millennial motive, but for his penance he must eat bugs for six days.

The Southern Baptists must create jobs in city centers and work for the defeat of Jesse Helms.

The Vatican must accept my low bid to produce the 2000th birthday bashes throughout the country.

You thought the Tall Ships were big. It's four-and-a-half years off, but I am planning now. They know me at the Vatican already for some of the bids I have put in to produce Papal visits. I proposed hooking Him up with the Lollapalooza tour last summer. Push the miracle thing. Kind of a Neil Young thing, get the younger crowd. He's got the book, the CD, lots of merch, and a very good road show.

I'm thinking some kind of surprise party--sort of, This Is Your Life, Jesus Christ! "You helped me around the shop, you could get a square peg in a round hole...." "Dad? er, Joseph, is that you?" I've been trying to talk Mary into coming back. She does not like big events. She likes small appearances. Back yards. Lawn chairs. New Jersey. Nothing too showy. I like that about her. She's like Jackie O in that way.

If the Vatican accepts my bid, I'll think about taping my picture of the Pope back together.