The Simpsons have been hiding a religious agenda, apparently. Sunday’s edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s daily broadsheet, declared that

”Not many people know it, and he does everything he can to hide it. But it’s true, Homer J. Simpson is Catholic.”

I guess drawing conclusions from nonexistent evidence isn’t entirely new to the region.

The L’Osservatore article was inspired by Jesuit Father Francesco Occhetta’s essay, entitled ‘Bart and Homer are Catholics.’ Occhetta focused on Season 16’s last episode, in which Bart enrolled at a Catholic school, leading to Homer’s conversion, claiming that the show was “’one of the few TV programs…in which Christian faith, religion and questions about God are recurring themes.’ Presumably Occhetta didn’t get around to seeing the panda rape episode.

Executive producer Al Jean has gone on record to say “we’ve pretty clearly shown that Homer is not Catholic. I really don’t think he could go without eating meat on Fridays — for even an hour.”

[Source: Life in Italy via Washington Post]