Vatican rejects German bishops' request to use 'adorable little kitty cats' as altar servers

BERLIN — The Vatican today officially rejected a formal request from the German Bishops' Conference to allow cats to act as altar servers.

The German bishops submitted the request after local listening sessions resulted in oddly specific requests to "make the Mass more relevant by using adorable little kitty cats as altar servers."

"Vat can I say? Vee Germans like zee cats, and always zink about zem," said Christoph Schmidt, spokesman for the bishops' conference.

One of the German bishops, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there was a general feeling of disappointment with the decision. "Vee are so disappointed. Vee vanted so much to have zee little kitty cats bringing us zee cruets and other zings,” he said.

As of press time, it appeared the German bishops were just going to go ahead and do it anyway.