Celebrate Reformation Day in a Catholic Spirit

Entrance wounds and exit wounds: Reformation tin cans are being sold in preparation for the celebrations of 2017

As various senior Churchmen call upon the Catholic Faithful to prepare to 'celebrate' the 500th anniversary Reformation of 1517, when Martin Luther penned his 95 Theses and nailed it to a Church door, one small team of Catholic entrepeneurs based in New Jersey, USA are selling a range of empty beer cans carrying images of those famous faces of the Reformation for the shooting practise of Catholics worldwide.

Much like the widely anticipated but schizophrenically, schismatically divisive 'Amoris Laetitia' is set to do, Luther's work set a carving knife to Christendom. And while the Pope's new Exhortation hasn't been nailed to a Church door yet, rather like the tin cans peppered with holes from air rifle pellets above, Amoris Laetitia is said to be more metaphorically riddled with holes than a block of Swiss cheese and its rumoured that if criticism of the document continues at its current frequency, the Exhortation could itself become ideal target practise in Catholic homes, gardens and apartment balconies soon. Let's hope collatoral damage is kept to a minimum.

To be greeted with exclamations of "Viva Christo Rey!"

The two Catholics came up with the idea while enjoying some target practise at their friend's ranch, after calls for celebrations of the most destructive event to have occurred in Christianity since the Great Schism began coming from senior bishops and cardinals in the Catholic Church.

"We realised," says co-founder, Des Troy Hairazee, "that a shooting game for the Reformation would serve to mark the Reformation in a suitably Catholic way. We can't quite bring ourselves to celebrate the 500th anniversary with balloons and street parties and ticker-tape, unless we're going to have fun, retain our Catholic identity and make a clear distinction about the nature of our celebration. What is the nature of our celebration? Why, because these events led to the glorious counter-Reformation, of course!"

"The Reformation tin can shooting game's strength is that it can be literally played anywhere..."

"At first," says Des Troy, "we started off with King Henry VIII, the adulterous and murderous English King who put away his decent, virtuous Catholic wife and married his less principled Protestant fluesy Anne Boleyn. Unfortunately for him, the Catholic Pope of the time  - I say 'Catholic Pope' because just recently, we've realised that maybe Pope's don't have to be Catholic to be Popes -  was unable to distinguish between the need for discernment and pastoral accompaniment in an irrregular situation and the evil actions of a notorious and unrepentant public sinner who got himself excommunicated from the Church."

Hairazee continues, "After that, we started developing ideas of tin cans for other favourite Reformation characters, like Archbishop Cranmer and 'Mister Big' himself, the infamous German apostate and Bible-slicing heretic, Martin Luther. Ultimately, we don't want to upset the Waldensians - we know Pope Francis has apologised to them as well recently - but they didn't accept the apology and - after a period of self-examination, our conscience is okay with the idea of 'Where's Waldo?' tin can shooting game - a crack squad of elite cans that can be situated in discreet, hidden locations, and the family can then have fun finding Peter Waldo - and blowing his tin brains out. It really is fun for all the family.

A lay Catholic takes a break from playing the Reformation shooting game

"Naturally, at this time of confusion and while Catholics are led into serious error by the likes of Archbishop Blaise Cupich and others, we were considering a range of Cardinal Kasper cans, but we're putting that idea on ice for the moment. It would be inappropriate. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the blue touch paper may have been lit on another grotesquely schismatic event within the Church on a hitherto unseen scale so we may in future bring out a new range including some of our own modern malefactors prayed for in the Canon of every Mass. We're hoping the events of the past couple of weeks will just be a footnote in Catholic history. We're naturally hoping things don't escalate quickly out of control..."

There's always one: A Nevada-based army chaplain gets 'carried away' amid the Reformation preparations...

The range of Reformation tin cans can be bought for just £4.99/$6/9Euro each and are available at the website reformation2017targetpractise.com.

"Did I get him?":  Polish army employs a tactical nuclear warhead during some atomically exciting Reformation tin can target practise. The team were said to be 'zealous for the defense of the teaching of Familiaris Consortio.'