Chilcot report on the Reformation awaited

This week sees the publication of Sir John Chilcot's long-awaited report on the Reformation in England. In 1553, Queen Mary appointed Chilcot to conduct this enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the 1534 attack on the Catholic Church, but it has taken Sir John 463 years to come to some definite conclusions.

Sir John Chilcot begins to draft his report.

It is likely that the lion's share of the blame for the action that led to the death of thousands and destroyed monasteries will fall to Henry VIII, also known as "Tudy". Although initially a very popular ruler among his subjects, and elected with a huge majority in 1509, Tudy is now universally regarded as a cruel and greedy despot. Tudy was aided by his sidekick "Alastair" Cromwell, with his famous claim that the Pope had weapons of Mass Destruction targeted on the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that they could be deployed within 45 minutes.

Fountains Abbey was destroyed, but no WMDs were ever found.

Of course Henry Tudy has long since departed from public life, and is believed to be living a quiet life in retirement under the name of Brian Blessed. It is unlikely that he will be impeached for war crimes at this late stage.

It is generally agreed that the Catholic Church in England has still not fully recovered from Tudy's War, even after nearly 500 years. A succession of puppet rulers has been put in place - most recently Car-din al-Cormac and Car-din al-Nichols - but they have not succeeded in restoring the ancient glories of Cath-liq.

Al-Nichols stands outside the Grand Mosque.

The Bishop of Lancaster's blog

Going Deeper Into Our Lenten Journey!

The true roots of Lent lie in Lancaster. We remember the trials of Deacon Donnelly in the wilderness, where he was sorely tempted by a heartless bishop. Hang on, that can't be right. Let's start again.

A new start. It is a year now since the deacon entered into a voluntary period of prayer and reflection on my orders, and many people are wondering how long his exile - which we described as a voluntary pause - will last.

"You will be my witnesses... unless Michael Campbell says otherwise.

My friend Eccles has kindly provided me with the "Eccles scale" by which you can judge the personality of a bishop by the length of the sentence he imposes on his clergy when other bishops are leaning on him to do something.

One week's pause. "A week is a long time in religion", as the saying goes - think of Holy Week. A kindly sympathetic bishop could ask his deacon to take a week off, and then resume his defence of the faith.

Forty days and forty nights. Lent is a time for sacrifice and reflection. I myself will be visiting the poor: some nuns have invited me round for tea and cakes, and we all know that they have a vow of poverty! Also, they make exceedingly good cakes! After forty days of meditation, a wise bishop would be ready to join his deacon in defending Catholic doctrine, and pfui! to the Magic Circle.

Visiting the poor!

Three months. After silencing his deacon for three months, a bishop needs to get him blogging again, or he (the bishop) will be regarded as a cruel taskmaster.

One year. This is getting beyond a joke. In the eyes of many the bishop is no longer a "cruel taskmaster" but a a "hard-hearted dictator".

Seven years. By then I will have retired to somewhere comfortable, preferably with lots of tea and cakes. The new bishop - unless it is someone bizarre like Timothy Radcliffe - will be only too pleased to see what Deacon Nick has to say.

Forty years. On my 112th birthday I shall make every effort to see that Deacon Donnelly's Protect the Pope blog is up and running again. Trust me, I'm a bishop.

Cardinal Burke is in town!

It has been reported that Cardinal Burke is in the Liverpool area, and I expect that he will want to make a pilgrimage to Lancaster, in order to visit a truly holy man (me). Ray Burke has said that priests should not sue bloggers, and I am fully in agreement with this. In my view, they should report the bloggers to their bishops for silencing, excommunication, and possibly chastising with a rope of knotted cords. It is probable that Cardinal Burke will wish to discuss this with me, so I look forward to seeing you, your Eminence. Change trains at Preston.

This sign should help you find me, Cardinal.

Some spiritual nourishment. The prophet Nathan came to King David, saying "There was a rich powerful man, who wrote a 'Bishop's blog' with a vast readership which was sometimes almost in double figures.
Then there was a poor man who wrote a humble blog that had only a few thousand hits per day.
The time came when a sacrifice was demanded, so the rich powerful man took the poor man's blog and destroyed it."
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die!"
Then Nathan said to David, "Thou art the man!"

Nathan confronts David. Makes you think,eh?

And finally. Don't think I haven't noticed that Deacon Donnelly has been writing a nasty personal attack on Cardinal Kasper and Cardinal Baldisseri in the Irish paper Catholic Voice. That's not going to please my friend Vincent Nichols, I can tell you! The deacon attempts to confuse the issue by using words like "paratheke" (who does he think he is, Fr John Hunwicke?) but it's a blog in all but name. Will nobody rid me of this turbulent deacon?

The Campbell family. Spot the bishop!

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Postscript. Cardinal Burke came to tea, but he was very cross with me!

But Cardinal, it was a purely voluntary suspension...

Let's talk about the weather

Yesterday's post about the devils of ISIS was a little vitriolic, so let's talk about something gentler. Following a suggestion of leutgeb, this post will be all about the weather, which seems to have been typical of an English summer - sun and heavy rain. We invited some of our favourite religious figures to comment.

Tina Beattie, Roehampton.

Whenever I see a flash (!) of lightning or hear the bang (!) of thunder, I am reminded that the phallocentricism of neo-orthodox theology risks reducing the Mass to an orgasmic celebration of homosexual love, from which the female body is excluded. It makes me very cross, even if I remembered to bring an umbrella with me! We Tablet directors have concluded that the only answer is to ordain women, liberalise the abortion laws, and drop the God-centred aspects of religion in favour of human flourishing! By the way, if anyone would like me to give a lecture in a prestigious place - say, the Scunthorpe under-7s Bible Class - I will be glad to accept. But don't tell the local bishop beforehand - he might try and stop it!

Michael Campbell, blogger, bishop and controller of information.

Although I do not approve of humour on blogs - or indeed anything but the most tedious platitudes as a rule - it may be that the following hilarious story might make an exception. It was raining hard in Lancaster last week, and one of my deacons came to ask my advice on a moral dilemma. He had discovered an outbreak of cannibalism in my diocese - in particular his parish priest had been eaten by some members of ACTA - and wondered whether it was appropriate to mention it on his blog. However, he voluntarily slipped on the damp pavement and fell into a puddle, voluntarily ruining his vestments and breaking his leg. How we laughed at his voluntary misfortune! I think he's in for a period of voluntary prayer and reflection, don't you?

Damian Thompson declines a cupcake at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

It's been very hot lately, hasn't it? My spies in the Vatican tell me that this is because Pope Francis is finally getting to grips with the English weather. Whereas Pope Benedict was satisfied with the traditional mixture of rain, cloud, more rain, and fog, the man that his intimate friends call "Pope Francis" is determined to impose his own South American weather on the Catholic church. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a new bishop, with responsibility for weather, had been appointed, with instructions to pray for sunshine! I have even heard the name of Fr Ray Blake mentioned - it is no secret that while at Brighton he has produced significantly more good weather than they get in northern cities such as Luton.

George Carey (2nd left) is corrected on a matter of theology.

A lovely day, isn't it? Of course, as the Bible says, if you don't think it's a lovely day then you are not appreciating God's creation to the full, and should take medical advice as to whether to carry on living! Trust me, I know all about these things, I was once an archbishop.

Paul Inwood, composer and liturgist.

Here's a little something you might like to sing at Mass. Don't forget your ukelele!

The sun has got his hat on, hip-hip-hip-hooray!
The sun has got his hat on and he's coming out today... ch-ch!

De Satturday colunm

I'VE WRITTEN ANOTHER BOOK

Birds do it, bees do it, even Russell Brand does it

Russell Brand is a smug git, isn't he? But he talks sense about drugs. In fashionable Notting Hill circles, they say that no dinner party is complete without some E, cocaine or cannabis (just don't try lighting up a cigar). I am sure that the working men of Barnsley are no different, relaxing sociably with a fix of heroin after they complete an all-night shift at the local tripe factory. (Most of my readers are from London, and will not have heard of Barnsley, but it is a northern town. Lancashire, I think. Tripe is a delicacy much enjoyed by people who use Twitter.)

I talked to Paul Bearer, my local undertaker, and he confirmed my impressions. "Of the under-21s who are brought in dead to our establishment, over 90% had been taking drugs." Again, we may be making a hasty generalization here, but I think this figure is typical of the population as a whole.

In my new book I'm in a fix, I discuss Brand's other addictions, including the much-publicised Sachs addiction.

Obviously Sachs in moderation cannot harm you, and often, when I am feeling depressed, I relieve my spirits by telephoning the man who brought us "Manuel"; when he answers, I wittily reply "I speak Eenglish. I leaarn it from a boook,"  "No, eet ees no a rat, eet is a filigree Siberian hamster," or "I know nar-theeng!" in a cod-Spanish accent. Then I burst out laughing and put the receiver down. The last time I did this I heard Mr Sachs saying "Oh, it's just that crazy man from the Telegraph again," so I knew he was as amused by the joke as I was.

But of course Brand, in collaboration with that other supposedly cutting-edge wit, Jonathan Ross, found that he could not control his Sachs-drive. Please buy my book, and I'll tell you more.
 

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There's no one like Dame Teksako Itchipowda

I've just discovered a promising young composer called Franz Schubert, who will probably be new to most readers. Here's his photo.

The legendary Dame Teksako Itchipowda performed his last three piano sonatas at the Southbank Centre on Monday ("piano" is a technical term used by some musicians to refer to one of those big instruments with a lid that lifts up. My friend Stephen Hough also plays one, but frankly he's not very good at Schubert). Dame Teksako is a neighbour of mine, and I often follow her into the supermarket, playing excerpts from Schubert sonatas to her on my piano-accordion, while she hunts for her essential supplies of baked beans and toilet rolls. She pretends not to recognise me, of course, but I expect she is secretly flattered to be adored by a Telegraph journalist.

There's an unfinished chapter about Schubert in my latest book, The Fish (a reference to his famous trout quintet, which he also arranged for a double bass: that's also some sort of fish, I believe). It's a little-known fact that it was Schubert's addiction to haddock that killed him.

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What might have been

I realised yesterday that we are approaching the first anniversary of the death of a prominent member of Al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden and I were at school together; he was one of the most gifted intellectuals I’ve ever met. Alas, he was unable to discipline his brilliant mind, while also lacking the social skills to mingle with ordinary people. He could orate, dazzlingly, on the Koran, the novels of Barbara Cartland, or the Thomas the Tank Engine canon. Moreover, he loved founding unusual sectarian groups, such as the “Tory Islamic Nudists" and the "Jihadists for Geoffrey Howe," which today have only a handful of members.

Osama was a much-misunderstood individual. I tried to convert him to Catholicism, but he confessed that he could never accept the idea of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary; also, he did not think that women should be allowed into church with the men. How history might have been different if we could only have agreed on these minor theological details.

I don't have much about Osama in my latest book, The Fez, but I do discuss in detail the question why so many people are addicted to silly hats.

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Doctor Who?

For many years, Alastair Campbell has been referred to as a "spin-doctor," but does he really deserve this title? I have been unable to find any evidence that he obtained a Ph.D. from a reputable university, or even from the London School of Egomaniacs. My editor asks me to point out that you wouldn't get Conservatives deceiving people in this way.

Indeed, leading intellectuals such as Richard Chartres tell me that they are very worried about this proliferation of undeserved "Doctor" titles. Here's another example.

Did you spot that sinister-looking chap with the glasses in the picture above? He calls himself "Doc," and is a senior executive for the Disney Corporation. I spoke to his P.A., a Mr Dopey, who refused to provide any proof of his boss's qualifications. Do you think that "Doc" is lining himself up as a possible candidate for Rowan Williams's job? I hope that someone will warn Her Majesty.

In my new book "Jim'll fix it" I write a hard-hitting chapter about how people can be addicted to qualifications - whether it be a B.Sc., an M.A., or a Ph.D. My conclusion: they're killing themselves by degrees. I thank you.