Bitter Parody

In recent weeks, militant leftist students have been interrupting worship at West German Protestant churches, which they claim are unconcerned with the real problems of the world. Among other things, the demonstrators have demanded that ministers turn their services into group discussions on such topics as the immorality of capitalism. Since no pastor has yet seen fit to accept this demand, the agitators have occasionally littered the churches with copies of a bitter fiscal parody of the Lord's Prayer:

Our capital, which art in the West,

amortized be thy investments;

Thy profits come,

Thy interest rates rise

in Wall Street as they do in

Europe; Give us this day our daily turnover,

and extend to us our credits,

As we extend them to our debtors;

Lead us not into bankruptcy,

But deliver us from trade unions,

For thine is half the world,

The power and riches

for the last 200 years.

Mammon.

Prayer parodies also seem to be in vogue in Castro's Cuba. Last week Radio Progreso in Havana broadcast an interview with a campesino named Apolinar Hernandez, 60, who out of gratitude for his new life since the glorious revolution is teaching his children a prayer of thanksgiving to the bearded Maximum Leader:

"Our Father, who is Fidel, who is with us sinners, free us from the power of Pontius Pilate, who is Lyndon Johnson, and from imperialism. Viva Communism, viva Fidel; he is in the fore, and we behind him. We must always be at his side. Amen."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.