The lyrics mockingly list a number of Catholic rituals such as confession, the Eucharist, and Rosaries, and suggest the irony of modernizing an age-old institution like the church.
"[3] Eruptions of shock and laughter can be heard in recordings as the audience reacts to both the song's blasphemous tone and its creative rhymes.
In April 1967, he played the song on a benefit show for WNET-TV in New York, prompting hundreds of people to complain to the station.
"[13] In May 1967, a Putnam County, New York, schoolteacher used Lehrer's "Vatican Rag" and "National Brotherhood Week" as examples of modern satire for her seventh-grade class; the outcry was such that the school board banned the songs and censured the teacher, and she quit three months later and left the area.
[11][18] In 2000, "The Vatican Rag" was the last song played by the jazz radio station WNOP before it converted to a Catholic talk format.