Why I Love Liberal Catholics

Following Fr Dwight Longenecker's piece Why I Love Trad Catholics, we have come across a companion piece that he decided not to write.

A liberal Mass. Note that the Cross is replaced by something Greener.

One of the riches of the Catholic Church is her unity and diversity. Within the Catholic big tent we have many who accept the Church's teaching - informed by scripture and tradition - but there are also many who want to make up their own rules, because they know better.

Do you really need to follow Christ to call yourself a Christian?

What liberal Catholics have concluded is that all this stuff about "eternal verities" is simply nonsense. It is the duty of the Church to adapt to the Spirit of the Age. We mustn't get left behind, trying to teach something different, must we? People might think of us as "different" from atheists, cranky, even. They might even stop inviting us to fashionable dinner parties!

St Paul - wrote nothing important.

Liberal Catholics understand that we have to rewrite our religion from scratch. Out goes all that old-fashioned stuff believed by Christ, the Apostles, the Saints and Martyrs, the Popes, and lots of other dead people. We have to find new religious teachers: Leonardo Boff, Hans Küng, Tina Beattie, David Cameron, Barack Obama, and Polly Toynbee! Only by taking a little wisdom from each of these sages can we move forward.

"Let us pray." Pol replaces Paul.

Now, if you want to understand modern liberal Catholicism, you need to watch the BBC, or read the Guardian. Remember even Jesus, in one of His more advanced moments, said, And you shall know the comments, and the comments shall make you free (John 8:32). He saw that one day His teachings would be superseded. The teachings of Alan Rusbridger are more modern, and their scriptural authority is undeniable, since the writers are all still alive, and can be located in your nearest nursing home.

Of course liberal Catholics do not reject all moral teaching: adultery, murder, and false witness may no longer be sinful, but we must still condemn all bigoted attempts to impose ideas of sexual morality, any attempts to obstruct Choice, and the denial of climate change.

Forgive us our carbon dioxide, and deliver us from climate change.

I realize that traditionalists may not appreciate my take on the matter, but like it or not, the second Vatican Council has taken place. And although nobody ever talks about what it decided, God (if you don't mind my using an old-fashioned term) has sent His Spirit of Vatican II to tell us what it should have decided, and liberal Catholics are in the vanguard of inventing new things that could have been decided.

The vernacular Mass is now accepted as the Ordinary Form, and modern liberal Catholics see this as an opportunity for further development of the rite. Since most of them don't attend Mass very often, anyway, they cannot get used to the new translation, and so they have invited Kevin Mishmash, the publisher of Walk in the Light, Follow Me, and so much more, to produce a version without any of the hard words.

Do your hymns make people ill? If so, Kevin Mishmash may want to publish them.

Out goes: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

In comes:

We believe, We believe, We believe, 
That the Father's been making things!
Earth and Heaven, Heaven and Earth, 
The Father's been making things!
Things that we see, things that we don't.
The Father's been making things! Yeah!

© 2014 Kevin Mishmash.

I, for one, am glad that the liberals are there to interpret Catholicism as it was never interpreted before. They are a gift to the whole church.

Pope Francis

Pope Francis is delighted with his new vestments.

Thanks to my close sources in the Vatican (© Damian Thompson) I can exclusively reveal that the college of cardinals has elected a new pope, Cardinal Belgrano of Argentina, who has taken the title Pope Francis.

Purple smoke from the Sistine Chapel: "we have elected a chemist."

Pope Francis trained as a chemist before entering the Church, and even now he is fond of making "holy smoke."

A young Fr Belgrano (R) tries to interest Hans Küng (L) in the delights of chemistry.

Menawhile, Richard Dawkins is very impressed that the new head of the Catholic church is a scientist of greater distinction than he is, and it is said that he is thinking of becoming a Catholic himself.

"Does anyone know how these rosary beads work?"

Little is known about Pope Francis except that he likes riding on buses; it is thought that his first encyclical may be an appeal for universal joy, called Laugh with everyone - or, in Latin, Omnibus Ride.

The new Popemobile.

No previous Pope has been called "Francis," and it is thought that by this choice of name the Holy Father is sending out signals about the style of papacy he intends. One possibility is that he may have chosen to be named after St Francis Sinatra.

I did it my way.

However, it may be that instead he had St Francis Howerd in mind.

Titter ye not!

Meanwhile, the BBC is trying to get to grips with the idea of a new Pope, and of course to present him in the worst possible light. When he was first shown to the crowds in St Peter's Square on Wednesday, Pope Francis took the unusual step of praying the "Our Father" and "Hail Mary," prayers unknown to the BBC commentators.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor and Ed "Stewpot" Stourton discuss the use of obsolete prayers.

As a faithful Tabletista, Ed Stourton explained that "Our Father" and "Hail Mary," are traddy prayers, not suitable for the modern Catholic church. Indeed, as Catherine Pepinster will confirm, they are explicitly against the Spirit of Vatican II.

The Tablet - now preparing a hatchet job on Pope Francis.

Meanwhile, Alan Garbager of the Godruin newspaper was initially wrong-footed by the election of a Pope much more socially aware than the average leftie Godruin-reader. He was also shocked to discover that the new pontiff is an orthodox Catholic and none too keen on abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, or the ordination of women - activities which bring pleasure to so many people. Hence Garbager has been devoting his energies to character assassination. A few years ago he convinced Godruin-readers that Pope Benedict XVI - as a German - was certainly a Nazi war-criminal and a close personal friend of Hitler; moreover, it was claimed that in his spare time he used to pull the wings off insects.

A disciple of Pope Benedict prepares to pull the wings off an insect.

Garbager has now turned his attention to Pope Francis who - as an Argentine - is automatically assumed to have been a war-criminal and close personal friend of General Galtieri; it is said that in his spare time he pulls the ears off woolly lambs.

Argentine troops, under the direct command of Pope Francis, prepare to invade the Falklands and pull the ears off all the woolly lambs they find.

Well, that's all for now, but do spare a thought for St Malachy, who put his shirt on Cardinal Peter Turkson for Pope and lost everything.

"Eccles! How nice to see you!"

The Guardian: bringing dark desires to light

The Guardian newspaper has a circulation of approximately 200,000: this suggests that approximately 0.5-1% of the British population could be suffering from Guardophilia.

A logo used to attract Guardophiles. But are they dangerous?

Far from being the loathsome monsters as which they are normally portrayed, it has recently been suggested that Guardophiles are ordinary members of society, who simply need our moral support. It is true that you would not wish vulnerable people to be exposed to the Guardian, with its relentless diet of indecent and immoral articles, but there is little evidence that Guardian readers themselves are a serious danger to society.

A dodgy cartoon by Julius Streicher of the Guardian.

In these days of moral relativism, some say that the Guardian provides a valuable public service in giving ordinary people a vision of Hell, a place where the damned slave over their computers, churning out socialist propaganda on a daily basis.

Protection agencies are divided in their opinions as to whether exposure to the shocking material in the Guardian (for example, an atheist rant by Polly Toynbee) can cause permanent psychological damage. It is the view of Alan Rusbridger that many people survive the Guardian without too much emotional scarring, and that they are afterwards able to lead almost-normal lives.

Alan Rusbridger: "Don't drive Guardian-readers underground!"

We can help keep people safe, Rusbridger argues, "by allowing Guardophiles to be ordinary members of society, with moral standards like everyone else," and by "respecting and valuing those Guardophiles who choose self-restraint." Only then will adults tempted to read revolting newspapers be able to be honest about their desires, and find support from the ordinary Telegraph-reading public.