Austen apologises for insulting everyone

Why I showed no sense or sensibility in my article for Crux.

Recently I used the term "pride and prejudice" as a metaphor, and then - because we writers feel compelled to substantiate our assertions with good evidence - listed a number of people as examples. That offended Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and many others on their behalf. For that I want to apologize. I shouldn't have given names, and I shouldn’t have used the term "pride and prejudice". Sorry.

Sorry, folks! I was right of course - I always am - but I shouldn't have said it!

Well, that didn’t work out so well. I tried to push out an inflammatory novel under the cover of what in the UK the media calls the "silly season" - John Allen came to me and said "Crux needs something silly, and you're the silliest person we employ" - but all I provoked was a chorus of fury.

I am also in the position of having insulted a very worthy clergyman, Fr William Collins, a good friend of Fr Thomas Rosica, describing him as a pompous and grovelling man, with some kind of neurosis about his position. Would that I had been more respectful, sensitive, and measured when writing about that slimy creep!

Lady Catherine de Bourgh objects to my describing her as "haughty and domineering".

Finally, Miss Lydia Bennet, now Mrs George Wickham, is another whom I have mortally offended, labelling her as silly and flighty. I apologise to the stupid cow and her crooked husband.

It will be noticed that many people have written criticisms of my writing, such as Dr Joseph Shaw, Fr Tim Finigan, Fr John Zuhlsdorf, Fra' Eccles, Dan Hitchens, Ed Peters, Fr Ed Tomlinson, Fr Dwight Longenecker, G.K. Chesterton, Cardinal Newman, ... they can't all be wrong can they? Well, of course they can, if I am right! Still, as Fr Phineas T. Barnum pointed out "there's no such thing as bad clickbait!"

Pope Francis, in his encyclical Al Italia, observes that differences in philosophy, theology and pastoral practice "bring richness to the Church", and he welcomes people who disagree with him. In fact Fr Spadaro has compiled a list of them, with skull and crossbones symbols besides their names! They've not been forgotten!

What new doctrine will the Holy Spirit give us today?

Respect and love and openness to the Spirit - there's the basis for dialogue. How to be equal and unequal; disagree without dividing; how to make two plus two equal five; to square the circle and get round my critics; there's the challenge for querulous Catholic commentators.

Why it's not as if there were some absolute truth that we were all seeking - what a quaint and (dare I say) rigid idea!

Excommunication from the Church of Google

With the decline in Christianity, many people have moved to the Church of Google, a worldwide organization run by a "pope" called Sundar Pichai. Unlike in the Catholic Church, for instance, where answers to fundamental questions are hard to come by if Pope Francis chooses not to supply them, the Church of Google has answers to everything.

A "google" in Oxford comments on the state of religion there.

Ask the god Google for "answers to the dubia", and, after first offering you "answers to the Dubai", because it thinks it knows better than you do, it finally admits that there are 91,200 results for your query - which is probably one per Catholic priest (except for the Pope himself, of course).

But that is not all that Google will do for you. If today is the 147th anniversary of the birth of Aloysius Squirm, the inventor of the singing bottle-opener, it will tell you. Or more likely, it is the 112th anniversary of the death of Ms Bruce Wurgledoom, the famous pioneer of transgenderism.

What Google won't tell you, is that the day is Easter, let alone the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Religious festivals are highlighted if they are politically correct, so the Aztec "Day of Organ Removal" will be remembered by a jolly "doodle" showing a high priest going about his business - if you are lucky there will be an interactive game, in which Google encourages you to remove the liver, spleen, kidneys, etc. of a heretic.

A religiously diverse doodle for the Aztecs.

The teaching of Google is sometimes regarded as intrusive. Messages such as "You searched for the phrase 'Thomas the Tank Engine', so here are some adverts for sex toys that we thought might interest you" have been criticised by some conservatives. Still, the faithful say that Google knows best.

But this week we discovered that all is not well in the Church of Google, as Pope Sundar excommunicated one of his priests, Father James Damore (which is almost an anagram of "Father James Martin", but that's probably a coincidence). Father James's offence was to write a parish letter on the subject of Equality (everyone is equal) and Diversity (oh no, they aren't!)

The Google faithful are encouraged to fly KLM because of its "diversity" policy on safety.

Unlike many churches, the Church of Google does ordain women; however, as with the Anglicans, many people regard their ministry with suspicion. We tried to find a Google "mother" to comment on Fr James's claim that women weren't capable of coping with stress, but they were all so upset that they had decided to spend the day at home. (The men were all away with hangovers, so at least in this respect everyone was equal.)

Pope Sundar explained to us that "free speech" at Google was used in the same sense as "Comment is free" is used by the Guardian. The faithful may say what they like, provided that it not heretical - a bizarre idea that will never catch on in the modern Catholic Church!

This blog is maintained by Google. Oops!

Catholic converts - are they all nutters?

A special in-depth analysis for Crux, by Austen Ivereigh, with additional insults from Michael Sean Winters and Massimo Faggioli.

Converts!!?? Arentchasickofem??!! Blimey, I think they're all neurotic!!?? Not like me!!?? I've got a badge from my brain-care specialist saying that I am "almost sane"!!??

Shouldn't all converts wear one of these??!! Stands to reason, innit!!??

Pope Francis tells me that he has a serious problem with converts. Unlike most Catholics they have actually taken the trouble to study the teachings of the Catholic Church, and they keep tripping him up every time he gets it wrong. This is what we intellectuals call "a distorted hermeneutic". Curiously, that's also what my doctor told me I had got, when I strained myself throwing stones at converts. But I no longer need to wear a truss for it.

When I was press secretary to the Archbishop of Westminster, he drew my attention to a little-known convert called St Paul. We don't hear much about him these days, but my researches have shown that he was clearly neurotic!! Well, there you are then!!

Edith Stein - another neurotic convert. H/T @drcrouchback

A neurosis is a pathological or extreme reaction to something that simply doesn’t correspond to reality. For example, a sample of Crux readers were asked for their reactions to my writing:

10% were suicidal,
20% said "I'm a teapot, I'm a teapot",
50% had severe bruising to their heads through repeated facepalms,
and the other 20% said they could no longer sleep with the light out in case the Ivereigh Monster came to eat them up.

Oh, I forgot John Allen, who simply said, "FANTASTIC STUFF, AUSTEN!! KEEP GOING!!"

A friend in Ireland writes: "I keep seeing people who seem to have converted because they believe what the Church teaches. What a change from the old days, when Catholics were Catholics because their parents were, and it was considered bad form to mention religion at home!"

Enda, you're right!!

Enda Kenny, the most prominent "Catholic Voice" in Ireland!!

Conversion should be an act of humility. New Catholics should say themselves "Am I as humble as Austen Ivereigh?" They should forget all that they have learned about Catholic doctrine, and listen to the wise voices of people like me. It means faith - in the Pope and in me!! It means trusting that the Pope is guiding the Holy Spirit, and that I can do no wrong!!

Francis is the first to invite criticism - it bounces off him like water off a duck's back. Yes, he is always willing to clarify Catholic teaching, as Cardinal Meisner could have told you, if he hadn't died while waiting for an answer!!

So, let's have no more converts!!?? They're all nutters!!??

St Elizabeth the LGBT activist

Hello, guys and gals, I'm Fr Arthur your new "Yoof Priest", and I'm preaching the official "Yoof Sermon" at the "Yoof Mass" or "Gig" as we Yoof Priests call it. Taking my lead from my hero, Fr Dom of Brentwood, I take as my text today the passage from Luke 1, where St Elizabeth was persecuted for being an LGBT activist.

St Elizabeth, an inspiration to LGBTQISJXYZαβPQRAREYOUSTILLREADING™∇⊕ZZZ999 people everywhere!

As Fr Dom so wisely tells us, Elizabeth was shunned for being barren. But why should she have been barren? Was she a lesbian? Or even bisexual? Perhaps she was "trans", and would have preferred to be called Elijah, or maybe a gender-neutral "El"? Yes, that was the real cause of her persecution, the homophobic tradition in 1st century Judaea!

Nowadays being a lesbian is of course no barrier to conceiving. Science has conquered nature, and we can make children in test-tubes who do not know who their parents are. And I am sure that many of you yooful ones here present would have preferred things that way! In future this will be the usual way to produce kids - in giant hatcheries - and sex will be reserved for pleasure as God intended!

Aldous Huxley. A dead white male but his "Brave New World" showed us how to advance!

Anyway, in the end Elizabeth gave way to the fascist hegemony of her times, and God gave her a child. And what a disaster that was! John the Baptist! Someone with distinctly old-fashioned views on marriage, a scruffy old drop-out who came to a bad end. The least said about him the better!

Oh, excuse me, my mobile's ringing. Hello, bishop? What's that people have been saying about me? A complete fruitcake? That's not nice... All right, that's all for today, lads and lasses.

© Fr Arthur 2017

The National Trust takes over Animal Farm

With apologies to George Orwell.

"I am an old donkey now," said Benjamin, "and old enough to remember those days fifty years ago, when we had the sexual revolution, and threw Farmer Jones out of his farm. For he would not let the male animals mate with male animals, nor the females with females. What a great day for freedom that was! As a Catholic donkey, I was taught that such deeds were acts of grave depravity, but we should not speak ill of them."

Benjamin, the Catholic donkey.

Clover the old mare nuzzled up to him. "It was necessary at the time," she said. "We were told that Napoleon and Snowball were deeply in love, and suffered great persecution. Everyone said that a revolution was necessary. But it seems to me that the world is a different place now."

"My Catholic guides are very weak," said Benjamin. "Squealer the Jesuit Pig is enlisting the animals in a bridge-building programme, and we have new slogans. The motto 'VIRTUE GOOD, SIN BAD' that I learned in my catechism has been dropped."

Just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of "VIRTUE GOOD, SIN BETTER! VIRTUE GOOD, SIN BETTER!"

Things turn out badly for the sheep.

Clover led him round to the end of the big barn. "My sight is failing," she said. "But it appears to me that that wall looks different too. Are the Ten Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?"

Benjamin read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single message. It ran:

NATIONAL TRUST: MANOR FARM
ALL ANIMALS MUST WEAR RAINBOW BADGES
OR BE MADE INTO SAUSAGES.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. (Sorry, wrong book.)

However, there was worse to come. As the animals turned back, they saw Squealer the Jesuit Pig welcoming the famous Stephen Fry to the new "gay" farm. The creatures looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Francis calls synod to decide whether he is Pope

Pope Francis has decided, once and for all, to call an Extraordinary Synod on the Papacy, in order to decide whether he is legitimately the Pope.

Is the Holy Spirit trying to hint something here?

Apparently the Catholic Church is divided into three factions:

1. Those who think that Pope Francis is the validly elected Pope, and, although he is "a bit strange", it's perfectly OK, since, after blessing us with a saintly pope and an intelligent pope, the Holy Spirit decided it was time for a change.

2. Those who think that Pope Francis was unlawfully elected as a result of the machinations of the St Gallen Mafia (its "Mr Big", Cardinal Danneels, is said to have put a horse's head in Pope Benedict's bed). Thus we are either sede vacante, or else Pope Benedict is still the Pope.

WARNING: this sort of talk can get you excommunicated, which means that it is far more serious than being an abortionist, a euthanasist, or an active homosexual. It certainly won't get you an invitation to a cushy population-control conference at the Vatican.

Mr Big models the latest in rainbow chasubles.

3. Those who don't really care who the Pope is, or what he teaches, as they are the sort of Catholics who never attend church anyway; they think that Catholic teaching needs to be "updated" to bring it into line with modern secular thinking.

Thus, we expect two years of impassioned debate on the papacy, but, since Cardinal Baldisseri has already written an account of it, we know what will be decided. All that remains is for Pope Francis to write an apostolic exhortation, "PAPA SUM OR NON SUM?", which will summarise the discussion in Jesuitical language so confused that nobody will be quite sure what the answer is.

An omen? A giant Spidero appears outside Ottawa's Notre-Dame cathedral.

Party of priests mistaken for a stag do

More on that news story about priests being told to leave a pub because the bartender thought they were a stag party.

It's all right, my friends really are priests!

Apparently the bartender became suspicious when one of the priests, known only as "Jim", began to tell people that "gay" sex was just fine, and anyone who disagreed with him was a dirty pervert. Also, he claimed, his fellow-Jesuits, bishops, and some of the cardinals agreed with him. He explained that he had prayed a lot, and God had told him "Nice work, Jim! I couldn't have put it better Myself! LOVE the 'bridges' bit!"

The priest then broke into a chorus of "Glad to be gay," and slumped under the table, sobbing into his crème de menthe.

Luckily, nobody spotted this rather obvious hen party!

The bartender - an otherwise unemployable theology graduate - had attempted to engage the party of priests in serious religious discussions, with reference to the Bible, the Catholic Catechism, the writings of 200 popes, St Ignatius, etc. but all that the priests could say was "**** all that, this is the new age of Mercy!"

He therefore concluded that they could not possibly be real priests, and attempted to eject them all, including an overweight fellow called "Rosie". However, he was later persuaded that they were from the new order of secularist priests - good friends of Pope Francis - and permitted them to stay.

"I was truly shocked by their behaviour!!??" said Sister Judy Piranha (L) of the Nuns for Naughtiness.

Eccles joins the Orange Order

So I dreamed that I was on the point of death, and the only person around to see me die was Father Wallace Thompson of the Evangelical Protestants.

The flag of William O'Range, a celebrated Irishman.

"Eccles, my boy," he said, "you are going fast, so what shall we put on your tombstone?"

"A simple 'Rest in Peace', Father," I groaned.

"DON'T CALL ME FATHER, YE PAPIST SCUM," he retorted. "Anyway, in the Orange Order we don't allow 'Rest in Peace', as that's a Catholic prayer for the dead. No, everyone is either SAVED or UNSAVED immediately. It looks as though your tombstone will bear the simple message 'ECCLES - UNSAVED' unless..."

"Unless...?"

"Unless ye can be instantly saved by your faith."

"So what's all this we had in the Gospel about a judgement at the end of time?"

"Ah, that Matthew chap wasn't a true Protestant, he made mistakes. No, when you die you either go instantly to Hell, where you have to read the worst of Catholic literature for an eternity - Crux articles by Austen Ivereigh, new blasphemy from James Martin, even the comic theories of Tina Beattie..., and you'll be wailing and grinding your teeth, OR...

Now renamed "How to raise your voice without defending the faith".

"Or...?"

"Or, as a member of the Orange Order you will be instantly saved, and can march up and down the Shankill Road in Heaven, playing the flute, wearing the sash and praising King Billy."

So I joined the Orange Order and died with a smile on my lips. But it was only a dream.

A rainy day in Heaven.

Emma Bonino - a lost Beatles song

Ah, look at all the stupid people!
Ah, look at all the stupid people!

Emma Bonino killed all the kids
In the womb with a bicycle pump -
Ten thousand dead.
Speaks in a church now,
Wearing the face that has launched many thousands of deaths.
What is it for?

All the stupid people,
Where do they all come from?
All the stupid people,
Where do they all belong?

Papa Francisco
Writing the words of a sermon that no one believes.
No one comes near.
Praises Bonino,
Says she is great, though she thinks rather differently.
What does he care?

All the stupid people,
Where do they all come from?
All the stupid people,
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the stupid people!
Ah, look at all the stupid people!

Emma Bonino died in her sins
And was buried and went down to Hell.
Nobody cared.
Papa Francisco wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave.
No one was saved!

All the stupid people (Ah, look at all the stupid people!)
Where do they all come from?
All the stupid people (Ah, look at all the stupid people!)
Where do they all belong?

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 25

Continued from Chapter 24.

1. And Richard continued to age, yet still he failed to grow in wisdom and kindness.

2. Thus it came to pass that his wife Lalla agreed an "entirely amicable" separation with him, for she was finally exasperated by the selfishness of his genes.

3. And no man can say whether she threw plates at him.

Richard, Lalla and K9 (Mark 10) in happier times.

4. So Richard sought solace in good deeds, such as moaning about Brexit, moaning about the Trump that is called Donald, and of course moaning about religion.

5. For he continued to smite the Christians with a series of hard-hitting books, films, television programmes, interviews, tweets, exotic dances, oil paintings, sculptures, cartoons, operas, plays, novels, talking parrots, rude vegetables, and graffiti.

6. All of which bore the powerful message "I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG."

7. Thus Richard crushed the Christians with all the resources at hand, except of course for theology, philosophy and reading comprehension; for in his life as a Renaissance Man he had never had the chance to study any of these.

An angel heareth the words of Dawkins.

8. And Richard continued to be praised by those who hated God, and even in his seventy-seventh year he continued to travel.

9. He even defeated Katie Hopkins, Austen Ivereigh, and Damian Thompson, in a contest to find the politest person in Britain.

10. So it came to pass that Richard was invited to Berke-ley in the land of Cali-fornia, that he might speak on his book, "Another old potboiler", subtitled "Richard Dawkins - the years of martyrdom".

11. For the land of Cali-fornia abounded in atheists, liberals, sceptics, lunatics, freaks, weirdos, and hippies, and was thus only too pleased to welcome Richard to its shores.

"Yeah, man, Richard is a cool dude, don't you know?"

12. But it was not to be. For when crushing the Christians, Richard had not hesitated in mangling the Muslims as well.

13. And if there was one sin for the children of Cali-fornia, it was intolerance: except, curiously, intolerance of Christianity, which was often encouraged.

14. And indeed the mangling of Muslims is the worst crime of all (except, possibly, telling the transgendered to "get real").

15. So Richard was left to mourn in Oxford; and he wailed profusely and gnashed those few teeth that remained unto him.

To be continued

How to preach today's sermon

Following a spiritually nourishing blog post from Fr Tim Finigan, entitled How to listen to the sermon tomorrow, we propose a little help for your priest/ vicar/ pastor/ worship leader/ big cheese (this is an ecumenical post) in case he/ she/ xe/ brie (and a polygendered post) has to preach on the subject of the Wheat and the Tares (a.k.a. Darnel). One of the following templates is sure to work.

Trouble at Ambridge.

Brother Bosco of the Calumny Chapel: Brothers, we is Wheat and everyone else is Dranel! Altogether now, raise your arms in the air and shout: "You is not saved, only we is saved!" And especially the Cathlics with their Babylonian fish hats, their cannibalism, and their costume holy men, they is very unsaved! For those of us what knows Jesus personally, He says to us "Brother Bosco, you is Wheat, my son, and you has a golden crown waiting for you when you pops off to the Glassy Sea. While the Pope and his Cradinals is going to the Lake of Fire!" Hallelujah! And now, Hymn 94, "Oh what fun it is to be saved!"

You is not saved, only Bosco is saved.

Father Dan Brown SJ: Today's gospel about the wheat and the darnel is based on a parable written by Mary Magdalene, the wife of Jesus, and the first Pope, who wore a dalmatic and taught God all He knows. Its message is that we are the wheat, and those who disagree with us are the darnel, the haters, who don't know the first thing about discernment. By the way, have you got your copy of my new book "Bridge-it James's Diary", or "The Jesuit guide to sexual relationships"? You haven't? Then you too are a hater!

Renowned Jesuit Jacques Martin staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.

Father Laudatosi: In the reading today, we see the perils of ignoring the environment. Somehow, genetically-modified seeds were mixed with the original organic low-fat gluten-free vegan-friendly non-carcinogenic unleaded wheat, and as a consequence the Earth will be destroyed by climate change! As Pope Francis has told us, there is only one solution - study the spiritual enneagram and practise your circle dancing!

Some non-alcoholic salt-free unisex circle dancing.

The Reverend Alfred Narcolepsy M.A.: Today my typewriter crashed, so at the last minute I borrowed some ideas from the nineteenth-century sermons of the Reverend Chedediah Somnifer M.A. Now, the parable of the wheat and tares is of great relevance to us in this age of uncertainty. With Napoleon having escaped from Elba, and heading for Paris, vowing to "make France great again", we may think of the French army as sowing destruction among us. Now, what would Jesus have done? I think He would have backed the Duke of Wellington to rip up the tares. However, we cannot be sure that He would have endorsed the Earl of Liverpool's pledge to return us to the gold standard! Cano in pluvia as every schoolboy knows!

"This looks like a good place to plant some tares!"

Bev the Rev: Hey! A funny thing happened to me on the way to the church. I was walking past a cornfield when I decided to dance in it, just as David danced before the Lord! But Farmer Giles shouted at me, "Oi! Get out of my cornfield, fatso!" Men are such sexists! I think that's the true meaning of the parable of the wheat and tares, don't you? And my glove-puppet thinks so too, don't you, Bottley?

Pope Francis, with a trusted adviser.

Fr Antonio Spiderman SJ: Stuff this for a lark! I hate you all.

Is James Martin the Church on Earth?

The Catholic Church is probably unique in having, at any time, a single person on Earth who embodies it, is treated with universal respect and deference, and who is relied upon for a blizzard steady stream of writings, sermons, aeroplane interviews, etc. After all, the Anglicans do not refer to Archbishop Justin Welby as the "Holy Father", and, since they have no agreed doctrines, they cannot call on him for guidance.

The Quakers do have a "Holy Father", but he does not say much in a non-porridgeal context.

Some Catholics have thought that Pope Francis was the Head of the Church, but this is clearly wrong. Indeed, we have the following guidance from the blessed Austen Ivereigh to put us straight: “Francis is increasingly reflecting the style, temperament, attitudes of the majority of the Catholics." This is worrying, if true, as it suggests that the Pope is lazy, bad-tempered, and selfish, hardly ever goes to church, and disagrees with Catholic teaching on homosexuality, divorce, abortion, etc. (at least, if we are to take senior American Catholics as our model).

Austen Ivereigh, on Al-Jazeera, says he cannot eat another sheep's eye.

Luckily, Pope Francis is not the true head of the Church, and there has come someone whose ballet shoes he is not worthy to kiss. Yes, it is Fr James Martin LGBTSJ, the expert on building bridges, who can develop new Catholic teaching at the drop of a rainbow-striped biretta.

Blasphemy? Heresy? Or simply top-quality trolling?

Fr Jim tweeted a similar sentiment last year and was roundly condemned for it (I think this was the occasion of his blocking me on Twitter). Still, good heresies never die*, and he has repeated the same nonsense this year.

* The blessed Austen claims that the Pope's reforms "recover a deeper tradition in the Church", which sounds like a revival of the 2nd Century organization "Gnostic Voices".

So we must conclude that Fr Jim the bridge-builder (Pontifex absurdus in Latin) embodies the Catholic Church. Better than that, he *is* the Church.

Move over, Supreme Quaker, we have our own spiritual leader!

Vatican salaries revealed

The entertainer and part-time priest, Father Chris "hate him or detest him" Evans SJ, came in from severe criticism from faithful Catholics this week, as it was revealed that his annual salary was £2.2 million. In response, he labelled his critics as "haters", and justified his rate of pay by explaining that it was not easy to maintain an army of hungry sockpuppets, or to buy vitriol to throw at those who disagreed with him. Also, he didn't really have a head for figures.

"Remember that 2+2=5. See, I am holding up 5 fingers."

Another well-paid entertainer and part-time priest is Father Gary Lineker, of the Salt and Vinegar Crisps corporation. Formerly a star footballer for Bloxham United, he had to give up this career when he put on weight, although he still keeps in trim by knocking over little old ladies in the street. When his £1.75 million salary was revealed, he joined in the chorus of "haters!"

Father Lineker is likely to have expensive psychiatrist's bills soon.

Then there is Father Graham Norton SJ (£850,000), the "bridge builder" and LGBTSJ activist. Bible scholars have determined that the only mention of bridges in sacred scripture is in 2 Maccabees 12:13; here, Judas Mac destroys Casphin, a town encompassed with bridges and walls, basically because it is full of Jesuits railing and blaspheming (well, more or less).

In a bid to divert criticism from the Vatican salary scandal, it has been announced that, when the present pope regenerates, his successor will be a woman. Indeed, it will be our old "bridge building" friend, identifying as a woman.

A leading LGBTSJ Jesuit dresses for her new role.

However, the big news item of the week was the funeral address of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI for Archbishop Meisner, which went "Francis!!?? Arentchasickofhim??!! The Lord will not desert his Church, but this Schweinehund is in danger of capsizing it!!??" (This is not an official translation, and sometimes my German is unreliable.)

Popes have not usually had the opportunity of criticising their successors, and the words above are considered unusually strong for a funeral oration. But we live in strange times.

"Does anyone know how to steer this thing?"

Intern takes over Pope's Twitter account

Twitter went into meltdown this week (I'm sorry, we're using Daily Telegraph journalistic style here), when the @pontifex Twitter account was handed over to Eddie, a 15-year-old intern, for the day, rather than being used for computer-generated Dalai-Lama-style platitudes, as is usually the case.

Eddie responds to the queries of the faithful.

@pontifex: Hi, it's Eddie here. I'm hoping to become Pope one day, so I'm getting some work experience. Send me your questions!

@CardinalBurke: Bless you, Eddie. I don't suppose you've got the answers to my dubia, have you?

@pontifex: Hi, Eminence! I'll have a hunt round and see whether they've fallen down the back of the sofa or something!

Hello, Eddie!

@MelindaGates: Why doesn't the Church change its teaching on contraception? I am married to a very rich man, and so I expect value for money!

@pontifex: I'm only 15, Melinda, so this isn't really a problem for me. Still, we keep getting Do you wish to install the new Magisterium? messages, so maybe that's something to do with it?

@MelindaGates: I'm still confused about why Vatican I was followed by Vatican II, and not Vatican 98 or Vatican XP (isn't XP Christian?)

@pontifex: I'm told that the boss is going to call a new Vatican Council soon, to make Italian the official language of the Church and ban Latin for all time. I'll ask him if we can call it Vatican Vista.

@caroline_flack: Eddie, have you seen Love Island?

@pontifex: Sorry, Caroline, Mum won't let me watch it. But we do have a new Vatican TV show, Hate Island, where we send Spadaro, Winters, Rosica, Ivereigh, Martin, Mickens, etc. to an island and get them to write insulting articles about Catholics.

@michael_voris: Can I vote for Spadaro to be eaten by a crocodile?

@pontifex: No crocodiles, Michael. It seems that we've only got vultures, snakes, poisonous spiders, and blood-sucking bats. Oh, sorry, that's the list of participants!

@austeni: I was licking the corridor clean outside the Pope's apartment today, and saw the sign "Vietato Lamentarsi". What's all that about, Eddie?

@pontifex: Well, Austen, according to Google translate, it means "Forbidden to complain". We're all under orders to smile, smile, smile!

Your new-look Swiss Guards.

Fake News about the Pope

Pope Francis has complained about the large amount of Fake News emanating from the Vatican, most of which portrays him as some sort of tyrannical dictator. For example, there was a report on the highly-regarded website Five Peter One, to the effect that, at the time when Pope Francis sacked (or at least refused to extend the appointment of) Cardinal Müller, he dressed up as an executioner and asked the cardinal five fundamental questions:

1. What is your name? Gerhard Müller.

2. What is your quest? To seek the Holy Grail.

3. What is the airspeed of a swallow? African or European?

4. Do you renounce evil? Yes. Er, that's still the right answer, isn't it?

5. Who is Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? Me?

WRONG!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!! (Hideous laughter at which the usual suspects (Spadaro, Parolin, etc.) all joined in.

"DEATH RAY ACTIVATED O MASTER AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS"

Of course this was easily identifiable as Fake News, designed to show the Pope in a bad light. But there has been far too much of this.

* His Most Eminent Highness Fra' Matthew Festing, Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, Most Humble Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ, was getting a little tired with the responsibilities of his position (especially as he had to order a new cheque book three feet long in order to fit his signature on it). He wanted simply to retire to Northumberland and grow vegetable marrows. However, his resignation was portrayed (Fake News) as a constitutional crisis in the Order of Malta, with Pope Francis acting like a dictator of the worst kind.

"Parasitic Fungi? Yes, I'm suffering from those as well."

* There is no truth in the Fake News that four cardinals wrote to the Pope to ask him "What the Hell he was playing at." They certainly did not ask Pope Francis if there had been any changes in Catholic doctrine - and, after all, if they had wanted to know they would have asked his key Jesuit advisers such as Spadaro or James Martin. No, this "dubia" story is nonsense from beginning to end.

So from now on, we want to see no more Fake News about the Pope. Let's rely on impeccable sources such as Austen Ivereigh ("Pope Francis announces an end to war, famine, disease and death!"), Antonio Spadaro ("Donald Trump is the anti-Christ and traditionalist Americans such as Burke and Chaput are possessed by demons. Trust me, I'm a Jesuit"), or James Martin ("Everyone who disagrees with Satan is a HATER.") Got that?

Cardinal Müller discovers a suspicious package in his car. (Fake News!)