Deacon Declan Donnelly and Alison Astall
The next step will be a special programme "I'm a Catholic - get me out of here!" in which various celebrity Catholics, including Pope Francis, Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Dolan, Cardinal Nichols, Prof. Tina Beattie, Professor Emerita Margaret Farley, Fr Tony Flannery and Mgr Basil Loftus will be sent to the Australian bush, and asked to undergo various trials.
Pope Francis has commented, "Being surrounded by a lot of creepy-crawlies doesn't really bother me. It will be good practice for the Extraordinary Synod in October. But enough of my fellow-contestants!"
Cardinal Dolan practises with a few plates of pasta stuffed with kangaroo spleen.
Prof. Tina Beattie is equally sanguine about the competition. "I don't know exactly what the rules of the game are," she says, "but if it's anything like Catholicism then we can probably make up our own rules!"
Meanwhile, Mgr Loftus feels that he is returning to the true Holy Land. Indeed, he has written a hard-hitting article for the Catholic Times explaining that Jesus's ministry - if it ever took place - was probably conducted in Queensland. We tried to contact the editor of the newspaper to ask him why he regularly printed such rubbish, but the only reply was "That's our comedy column - didn't you know? Nobody except Dr Joseph Shaw thinks he's being serious."
Finally, Tony Flannery is not expected to perform well. One of the trials he must undergo involves remaining silent for five minutes, and he is expected to consider this an unreasonable challenge. "As I have told the Vatican many times," he says, "I will not be silenced!"
Cardinal Pell, one of the judges, with a specially-trained wallaby.
I'm not really sure that we Australians actually want our Bush subjected to any more wild parties. Kangaroos have feelings you know. But now that I think of it, it might do the contestants good to have to live on witchety grubs. These grubs are taken out of the trees in which they live and then they are eaten immediately whilst they are still alive.The Aboriginees regard them as a delicacy. I prefer kangaroos pies myself.
ReplyDeleteThey can't be harder to swallow than the words of Tina B.
DeleteAre there any Lions called "Cecil" in the Australian Bush ?
DeleteAnd will there be any Dentists on the TV Programme's Team ?
Both Australian lions and TV dentists are connected by African extraction
DeleteIf the Holy Father stopped watching television in 1990, he will only remember Declan Donnelly from his appearances in "Byker Grove". Still - he will pick up some tactical tips from the programme for dealing with Cardinal Pell and Cardinal Burke from all the tussles between Ant and Dec's youth club and the evil Denton Burn and Jezzie Grange .
ReplyDeleteBlimey! This is all news to me. I thought Ant and Deckchair were glove-puppets like the one Allison Astal's is carrying. I always learn something in here.
ReplyDeleteImagine, Mgr Loftus is going walkabout in the dreamtime.
Sorry Zephyrinus, we don't have any lions but we do have plenty of crocodiles. You can take your pick between salt-water crocodiles and fresh-water crocodiles with the former being more fearsome although the latter need to be watched also. We have plenty of snakes and even quite unfriendly spiders. Queensland even has a rather nasty tree. The only time I ever saw one of those was right next to the entrance in Crocodilus Youth Hostel in the Daintree Forest in Queensland, where there was a warning sign not to touch it on your way in.
ReplyDeleteWhere I live however, none of those things bother us and I have a splendid view out to the Indian Ocean.... although the White Pointer sharks are becomming a bit of a nuisance.
Good Lord, JARay, things sound like they've got worse since I was over in Oz, a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteBy the sound of it, it's now much worse, and more dangerous, than being in The Curia, in Rome.