PopeWatch wishes that the below story from Independent Catholic News did not have a dateline of April 1:
Ah, if only it were true! It would be a welcome sign to some wiliness of serpents that has been sorely lacking in the Vatican for too long.
PopeWatch: Sylvia Hawk
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Uh, excuse me, but what is going to keep Sylvia, after she drives off the crows and seagulls, from making a meal of the peace doves? There are no vegan hawks, so far as I know.
Paint them to look like owls, or use owls of peace.
Good question. I asked the Internet and found that the Harris’s Hawk (its name appears to be misspelled in the Independent Catholic News report) prefers to eat small mammals which one might suppose are conveniently supplied by the aviary in sufficient quantity to satisfy Sylvia’s appetite for meat. All Sylvia has to do is show up and look hawkish to drive off the crows and gulls.
By the way, Sylvia might also be helpful in deterring abuse of the Vatican’s finances. She has a hawk’s eye for detail, a nasty bite, and it so happens that the Harris’s Hawk is named after a financier. Hmm.
P.S. To my surprise, I appear to have given up previewing my comments for Lent.
As falconers, my husband and I found this pretty funny–not just the concept of Sylvia the Harris hawk doing patrols, but also the digitally enhanced photo of the hawk perched, parrot-like, on the Guard’s shoulder.
Good prank, Independent Catholic News!
Ahhh…at last… a tacit admission that execution deters like God implied over thirty times in scripture.
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