Jesus Loves You, Michael Vick

Isn't Soledad O'Brien a pretty girl? She just has to be Catholic,too, with that name! She was on CNN explaining to us about the football player, Michael Vick, who tortured dogs and killed them. She showed us a video tape of Mr. Vick apologizing for his inhumane activities and, much to my surprise, Mr. Vick explained that he won't be torturing dogs any longer, because he has found Jesus.

That's good news! And lucky for him, because Jesus is just about the only person (who also happens to be God) who is forgiving Mr. Vick and doesn't mind having His name associated with a dog torturer.

Be honest. If your name was Mary Smith and you turned on Soledad O'Brien to hear Michael Vick saying, "I'm sorry I tortured dogs, but don't worry because my new best friend is Mary Smith," you would be appalled.

But Jesus doesn't mind having dog torturers at his table.

Jesus has that in common with the NFL.

Except for those players who are actually still in jail and can't attend, which seems to only be one or two, the NFL, who some merrily call the National Felons League, welcomes all manner of criminals to their party. I remember reading years ago that there were enough convicted felons playing in the league that if you so desired, you could form a whole team of just felons with them.

Their crimes include drug possession, drug trafficking (in one case $25,000 worth of heroin...that would be 5000 pagan babies worth!), "child enticement", armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, weapons charges, aggravated assault, domestic abuse, rape, DUI, vehicular manslaughter (that's when you kill someone with your car, in this case also while DUI), domestic violence, solicitation (of prostitutes, this from a receiver of the Bart Starr award from Athletes in Action), obstruction of justice and murder. The murdered woman was pregnant. The child, born prematurely, has cerebral palsy.

Miss O'Brien had another gentleman on who explained that while the NFL was very embarrassed about how Mr. Vick treats dogs, he would still be allowed to play football after he gets out of the pokey, unless Mr. Vick was gambling. The NFL doesn't like gambling.

Jesus doesn't mind gambling so much. At least, according to the Church He founded here on earth, gambling is not a sin. (Gambling in excess is a sin and not giving some or all of your winnings to charity should be a sin but it isn't.) NFL players and everybody else can go to Vegas and have a good time, they just can't start a giant brawl, hit a waiter in the face with a champagne bottle and threaten to come back later and kill the bouncer, as one NFL player has recently done. Jesus never said word one about gambling, that I recall, not even when the Roman soldiers threw dice over his poor sad clothes. Maybe Jesus was just too tired at that point to say anything, but I doubt it. Jesus was never one to shirk His responsibilities.

Hopefully, the dogs that Michael Vick tortured got to go to heaven with the only two dogs in heaven, St. Rock's dog and Katmir, the dog of the Seven Sleepers. I'm sure they'd be happy to have to other dogs to play with.

And they would forgive them if the new comers were a little 'nippy' at first.

* Jesus and his dog is from a T-Shirt design by Threadless