One evening while watching The Late Show with Stephen Colbert -- the upcoming demise of which is reason to curse the toadying beancounters at CBS -- Colbert introduced one of his writers, Kate Sidley, and promoted her upcoming book, How to Be a Saint, which carries as its intriguing subtitle, "An extremely weird and mildly sacrilegious history of the Catholic Church's biggest names." Having been raised Catholic -- and because the writing on The Late Show is consistently good -- I of course was moved to get a copy.

And so, having read it, I now stand a good chance of earning sainthood down the line. So, you know, you should be nice to me. In case you need an intercession or something. Which is something saints do.

The book actually provides meaty nuggets of real theology, but they're wrapped in a greasy coating of humor. Take for instance these descriptions of Purgatory and Hell.

If you aren't bad enough to go to hell, but aren't quite good enough to go straight to heaven, Catholics believe you go to a place called purgatory. Purgatory is a temporary hell, much like flying out of Newark.

Hell is the opposite of heaven, meaning it is the eternal absence of God a.k.a. happiness. ... Historically, hell is portrayed as a place of fire and torture. Though what's usually portrayed is bodily pain, spiritual pain is the real punishment, since hell is the loss of God's comfort. And, as anyone who has ever slept multiple nights on a futon knows, loss of comfort is truly hell.

Later, while explaining martyrdom as a potential pathway to sainthood, Sidley cautions would-be martyrs from joining any group endeavors.

Just try to be martyred solo. Large groups of martyrs are often canonized together. ... These folks are all in heaven, but we here on Earth usually know of them only as a collective. You want to be Gladys Knight, not the Pips.

Sidley goes over some of the qualifications of becoming a saint, such as martyrdom, virginity and nepotism, and she asks important questions, such as "Is Martyrdom Right for Me?" (If you're not sure of the answer, she'll explain some of the ways in which past martyrs went about it ... not that they usually had much choice in the details of their grisly demise.) She explains possible fashion guides for the future saint and describes the differences among various types of halos. And she'll walk you through the process of canonization so you know what to expect, such as how deeply into your life the process will probe (an endeavor that can be much more thorough in this age of the internet) and what might happen to your corpse (or pieces of it) once you're no longer using it. She'll explain the heroic virtues -- faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance -- that all Catholics (but especially would-be saints) should practice, and provides examples for each. For instance, hope might involve "praying regularly," "performing random acts of kindness" and "being a Cleveland Browns fan," while charity might include "spending time with the lonely," "donating money or resources to the poor" and "saying 'You have it, I'm full' about the last piece of pizza in the fridge even though you want that piece so freaking bad."

She'll also go over important topics such as saints and violence (there's more than you'd expect), saints and sex (again, more than you'd expect) and self-mortification, which isn't just hair shirts and self-flagellation; it can also apply to one's diet. Take for instance Saint Hilarion, a hermit who lived from about 291 to 371.

Starting around age twenty, he spent three years eating only moistened lentils, then three years eating only dry bread and salt water, then three years only herbs and roots, followed by four years of barley bread and veggies (a treat compared to the previous nine years). Somehow, despite what must've been an insane case of malnutrition and the worst-smelling farts in history, Hilarion survived. At age sixty-four, he stopped eating bread....

There's a lot of stuff like that. Trivia about the Catholic Church and its saints presented with a sense of humor that's all too rare.

So, at the end of the day, can I say I walked away from reading How to Be a Saint with a clearer understanding of Catholic theology and the specifics of sainthood? Well, maybe a little. Was I amused by the book overall? Certainly. How to Be a Saint is not a laugh-riot, exactly, but it's entertaining, lighthearted and irreverent. In an age when the Pope can be verbally attacked by the U.S. president for the sin of opposing war, I'll take any chuckle I can get.

I'm pretty sure it isn't a sin.