"Spreading the Disease"
She always brings me what I need*Without I beg and sweat and bleed*When we're alone at night*waiting for the call she feeds my skin.*Sixteen and on the run from home*found a job in Times Square,*working live S&M shows.*Twenty-five bucks a fuck,*and John's a happy man.*She wipes the filth away*and its back on the streets again.*Spreading the disease,*everybody needs.*But no one wants to see.*Father William saved her from the streets.*She drank the life blood from the savior's feet*She's Sister Mary now, eyes as cold as ice.*He takes her once a week,*on the alter like a sacrifice.*Spreading the disease,*everybody needs.*But no one wants to see.*Religion and sex are powerplays.*Manipulate the people for the money they pay.*Selling skin, selling God,*the numbers look the same on their credit cards.*Politicians say no to drugs,*while we pay for wars in South America.*Fighting fire with empty words,*while the banks get fat,*and the poor stay poor,*and the rich get rich,*and the cops get paid*to look away.*As the one percent rules America.*Spreading the disease,*everybody needs.*But no one wants to see.*The way society*keeps spreading the disease.*

    Here we are introduced to Mary.  We also discover that the story occurs in New York City.  Nikki finds her working as a prostitute, just trying to stay alive.  He befriends her, and she stays with him when he waits for his next orders from the Syndicate.  At some point, a priest finds Mary and takes her into his church as a nun.  In exchange for food and shelter at the church, she gives the priest, Father William, sex once a week.  As Nikki looks on this situation, he notes that Mary must still sell herself to stay alive, and that the hypocrisy of religious leaders is in action.
    Queensrÿche treats on three problems with society.  First is the sad fact that many young, poor women have no alternative to prostitution if they want to survive.  The second is an elaboration of one presented in "Revolution Calling:" the hypocrisy of organized religious leaders.  In Roman Catholism, priests are supposed to be pure.  In any case, the are not supposed to have sex with the nuns.  They would teach that to their congregations, and anyone else.  Yet many are caught every year doing exactly what they preach against.  Third --and this encompasses the first two as well-- is hypocrisy of society as a whole.  The title fits in here.  The "disease" being spread is sex; that is, using sex to sell everything else.  The media (especially advertisers) uses sexual images and inuendos to sell things, but would denounce such practices if confronted about it.  One more important image is when Mary "drank the life blood from the savior's feet."  This shows how religion oppresses people by forcing them to submit to it in exchange for salvation (room and board in Mary's case, but a "saved soul" for everyone else).  Mary, a supposedly chaste nun, must submit to William, a supposedly chaste priest, in order to live at the church.  Here again we see the hypocrisy of the (Roman Catholic) church.  The fact that they do it on the alter, the center piece of Christian worship and so-called "table of God," further illustrates this.
    Interesting note: we have two characters, Father Willaim and Sister Mary, that are rather closely associated.  Could this be a historical allusion to William of Orange and his wife Mary?  They were the rulers of Belgium, who took the English crown after James II died and left no hier.  Their family still sits on the Belgian throne today.  When they took the British crown, there was no struggle, no bloodshed.  This "take over" is known in history as the Glorious Revolution.  This might be used as a stark contrast to the bloody, murderous one in the story.  It's almost of like a sick, sarcastic joke thrown in to get the attentive listener thinking.