The Book of St Richard, Chapter 28

Continued from Chapter 27

1. A year passed, and Richard achieved the age of four score; thus, he reflected on the words of the psalm:

2. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

3. "Aha, but I am not cut off," he said, "and I do not fly away! In fact I am still locked down in Delusion Towers, with no prospect of any flight to distant parts. This proves that the Bible is wrong."

4. However, Richard had spent his year under lock and key wisely, for in response to his critics, who had said "Get a life!" he had written another book, entitled Books do furnish a life.

Richard getteth a life.

5. This book recorded the deepest thoughts of the greatest scientists of our age, all of whom were personally known to Richard.

6. For example, Albert Einstein had met Richard as a child, and uttered the immortal words, "Why doesn't that kid shut up? I hope he goes far... away."

7. And the learned professor Bill Nye, he whom they called the science guy, the greatest scientist of the age, had also spoken to Richard in words too profound to record here.

"Professor Doctor Nye complimented me on my bow tie."

8. But now Richard needed to sell his new book, and so he thought of a cunning plan to bring himself into the public eye.

9. "I will find some way to insult Catholics," he said. "Then everyone will remember me once more, and maybe a dozen hardy souls will buy my book."

10. In doing this he was using the methods of the great scientists Brian Cox, who had used physics to prove that soul music did not exist, and Alice Roberts, who told the astonished world that dead people did not come back to life on Good Friday.

11. So Richard spake out, saying "Beware Catholics who tell you that bread can become the body of Christ, and wine His blood. Is it not pernicious to bring God into a religion?"

"If only Richard were here to explain it to us!"

12. Then he spake out further, saying that most Catholics did not believe this teaching; for being a scientist he had asked one Jesuit and stopped his experiment because he had the answer he wanted.

13. However, Richard was unaware that Catholics had discussed this teaching for two thousand years: for scientists only read the most recent literature.

14. Thus once again Richard became the stock that laughs, and was roundly mocked by all men of faith.

15. However, he had sold three more copies of his book, and was exceedingly happy.

Continued in Chapter 29.

The Book of St Richard beginneth here.

Science rules out the existence of the soul

Hello, my name is Brain Cox, aged 13, of St Dawkins' Comprehensive Shcool, Oldham. I am a very clever boy, and top in Sceince, which is Pshyics, Chemitsry, Boilogy ect. I am so clever that the other boys call me Proffesor, Swotty, and sometimes Genuis!

Today's guest contributor.

Anyway, I have made a brillaint discovery! There is no SUOL! All those old fools we were taught about in Divinnity got it wrong! Let me explain.

I have read a big book with long words in it called "Particule Pshyics for Boys". This book says we are all made of prottons, nuetrons and elecctrons, which go whizz whizz whizz isn't is super? Then they are made up of quacks and there are six types of quack called strange, charm, fizz, pop, bang, and woke. After that it gets a bit complicated as there was a chap called Heisenbreg who was uncertain, and another one called Schrodigner who had a cat.

Anyway, the point is that the book doesn't mention the SUOL. If we had a SUOL, it would react with the quacks and release gama rays. We would all go BOOM. Which we don't. QED.

"If you're so clever, padre, where's your SUOL?"

In this big book, it says that sceintists have made very accurate measurements looking for a SUOL, and didn't find one! I even did my own experriment, and put some nitrogen iodide on the floor of the shcool chappel, which goes BANG if you tread on it.

What hapened, Proffesor, you are going to ask. Well, I'll tell you. The shcool chaplin went BANG when he trod on the nitrogen iodide, but we did not observe any signs of a SUOL emanating from his holly body as he fell to the ground. And the Headmaster was very cross with me and gave me six of the best for doing sceince in chappel during Lent.

P.S. The chaplin survived the experriment.

Still, all is not lost. The BBC was very impressed by my sceintific accumen, and they have invited me to do a TV series in which I blow up holly men to see if they have a SUOL. My first guest is Cradinal Nickles!

A tricky moment for Cardinal Nichols.

Mummy, today we played lesbians!

Over now to Dothekids Hall, a school awarded the highest marks in an Ofsted inspection, unlike that nasty Grindon Hall Christian School, which was apparently punished because its 10-year-old kids didn't know about lesbian sex.

Little Nicky Morgan, 10, is coming home to her devoted parents. These happen to be a man and a woman, so she is already branded as a reactionary bigot. Why couldn't she have two men as her parents, with a surrogate mother that she never knew? That's the modern way to breed!

Ofsted-approved lesbian priestesses.

Nicky dear, what did you do at school today?

We played lesbians, Mummy, and then I lent some of my clothes to little Johnnie - I mean Jeanie - Nash, so that we could play transgendered awareness games.

That sounds lovely, darling! Did your teacher like the homework you'd done? That essay on "Magnetic Attraction"?

No, Mummy, I got it all wrong. She didn't want me to improve on Hawking's work by rewriting Einstein's field equations in order to derive a new Theory of Everything, uniting quantum theory with relativistic electrodynamics. She wanted me to write a story about the sex life of three lesbians in a loving multi-person marriage.

Can I tell you about my Theory of Everything?

Well, never mind, dear. How about the Translation exercise you were going to do in class? Before Ofsted turned up you were translating Goethe's Faust into perfect Latin hexameters, weren't you?

That's changed too, Mummy. It's "Transition" not "Translation". She got us to give hormone injections and surgery to Wilshaw, the School Dog, so that she's now become a girl dog and not a boy dog. It was very interesting and useful. Can I try it on Harry the Hamster?

A nervous moment for Harry the Hamster.

No, I don't think so, dearest. Do tell me, though, didn't the Bishop visit today? Did you manage to go to Confession with him?

Oh Mummy, you're so old-fashioned! We call it "Reconciliation" now, and dress up as witches! Ofsted told us to.

An Ofsted-approved Mass.

We love Giles Fraser

From time to time Canon Giles Fraser, the Anglican priest-in-charge of St Mary's, Newington, darling of the BBC's Thought for the Day waffle-slot and the Guardian's leftie-rant pages, has received harsh criticism on this blog. This is mostly because his passionate approval of homosexual acts, same-sex "marriage" and secular socialism seem to jar badly with Christianity. Some have claimed that when he introduces himself with "It's me, Giles!" it does sound suspiciously like "It's Sméagol!" but I am sure this is purely a coincidence.

This is NOT Giles Fraser, merely a lookalike.

However, this blog is nothing if not fair, so credit where credit is due: sometimes Fr Giles gets it right. On August 29th he had a go at Dawkins and his remarks about Downs Syndrome, with a piece Nobody is better at being human, Professor Dawkins, least of all you. Sorry, Richard, if even Giles Fraser thinks you're barmy, then you're in trouble.

Dawkins explains his theory of moral relativism to a rather bronzed Einstein.

Only a week earlier, on August 22nd Giles had decided that, all things considered, he wasn't keen on Islamic violence (decapitation, crucifixion, etc.), writing If this is real religion, then you can count me as an atheist. A poor title, Giles, as Guardian readers have a short attention span and many will have read that as simply You can count me as an atheist, but never mind.

"When's George Galloway turning up?"

Go back one more week to August 15th, and he's writing Sometimes it’s good to talk – even to ‘terrorists’. This is his bravest piece of all, as it challenges the left-wing Gaza always good, Israel always bad line with a more balanced Gaza!? Israel?! Arentchasickofemboth?? judgement.

Well, you can see what a difficult position this puts me in. When I need a spiritually nourishing subject for my blog, I find out what Richard, Tina, Giles, ... have been doing, and usually one of them comes up trumps. But now I can no longer rely on Giles. Bastard.

And with your spirit

In which Fr Xylophone analyses a sacred text.

---

Caesar adsum jam forte. Brutus aderat. Caesar sic in omnibus. Brutus sic in at.

These words, from the Book of the Prophet Dogrel, are best read in the original Latin; not surprisingly, they are used only in the traditional Roman rite. For the benefit of my more stupid readers, I will translate them as follows: Caesar, I am present now, by chance. Brutus was present. Caesar, thus in all things. And Brutus (is) thus in.

Julius Caesar listens to the word of God. In Latin, of course.

The passage begins as a divine message to Caesar, asserting God's presence. Adsum, adesse, adfui, I want you to learn this verb before our next Mass, as there will be a small test as you come into church. Obviously God has manifested Himself in various ways (cf. Hebrews 1:1: In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways), and here He is addressing Caesar, the great-uncle of the man who sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.

It is the "by chance" that brings us up short. I think we must regard this as Divine irony. For He leaves nothing to chance.

God does not play dice.

What are we to make of the next sentence, where Brutus is introduced? Is this the celebrity conspirator, who inspired one of the shortest verses in the Bible: Et tu, Brute? Well possibly: but more probably he symbolises Brutality: the Devil, say, or perhaps the National Catholic Reporter [aka Fishwrap].

So the Lord is telling Caesar that, although He is present, there is Evil present too. The message is repeated again in different words, a literary device known to experts as Repeating again in different words.

This reading reminds us of the importance of God's grace. Without it, we are vulnerable to the attacks of Brutus.

Drop that dagger, Mr Brutus!

---

Numinous Nun Tea

For those who say they don't drink coffee [and this is something you would need to mention at Confession, so be careful!] the Numinous Nuns offer their own brand of tea.

A numinous nun serves tea.

Numinous Nun tea is blended by the Little Sisters of the Pot, a traditional Catholic order founded by St Camellia Sinensis. Order yours now!

Do not accept any other tea, especially not the soul-rotting rubbish that is on sale at StarWars.

The President of the StarWars chain of tea shops. Not numinous!

The Telegraphies

Who can resist the jolly antics of the Telegraphies - Molly, Micky, Marky and Pau? With their silly catch-phrases and their crazy games, they have become an instant hit on the Telegraph blogs.

* We giggle as Molly, the senile one, thinks up more revolting insults than ever before. We chuckle as she tells us about her tolerance for all religions except orthodox Catholicism. We fall asleep as she tells us anecdotes about her "rels". Molly's the one who drinks all the hair-restorer.

* We smile as little Micky, the one who may be male or female (or something in between), pastes dozens of links to anti-Catholic articles on dodgy websites and says "ROFL" whenever challenged to debate an issue seriously. Weep with Micky when she (or perhaps he) tells you how dreadfully unfair life is. Micky's the one whose only friend is a llama.

* Then there's Marky, the intellectual of the group, who has read Dawkins and Einstein, and thinks they are theologians. However, Marky really prefers to curl up with a good story about child abuse.

* Finally there's creepy old Pau, the "gay icon," who trawls the internet, looking for information about his victims. Pau likes religion, but not the serious bits.

And now Damian Thompson says "Bye-bye."