Catholic Herald bans comments

To the shock and dismay of the entire Catholic blogosphere, Luke Coppen, editor of the Catholic Herald, has announced that the online CH will no longer accept comments. The explanation offered was that moderating the feedback was too time-consuming; however, it is believed that the real reason was that the CH fileservers were unable to cope with the weight of comments from one particular contributor who must remain nameless.

The CH spent so much time muddlerating comments that nobody wound the clocks.

As a compromise, Mr Coppen has promised that the print edition of the CH will, from now on, include a blank page on which readers can write their own comments. Subscribers will also be given a green biro for this purpose. A request from Paul Priest, Archbishop of Corby, that a dozen blank sheets be provided, has been turned down.

The main person affected by the CH's draconian decision.

Paul Priest writes:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! OH GOOD GRIEF! WEEBLE WEEBLE!!!! I'M A TEAPOT!!!! You poor fools, you're shutting down the only medium by which orthodox Catholics (and I am the only one left) can express their opinions. How else are we supposed to tell the bishops of England and Wales, the cardinals, the pope, and even some of the saints that they are out of touch? First, Catholic Voices didn't want me - and I could have given some splendid 5-hour soundbites on radio and television. Then you refused to publish my series of articles Apologia pro vitis omnium ceterorum (Apology for everyone else's lives), subtitled "You is not orthodox, only I is orthodox."

The only person who ever listened to me is Damian Thompson - God, how I love that man! No, I don't have a crush on him, but it's no secret that it was due to my efforts that Damian won the Catholic Lovely Legs Contest last year, narrowly beating Professor Tina Beattie.

Tina - lost out to Damian on the "swimsuit" round.

Well, we know who is to blame. Phil, the ex-Telegraph troll with his army of implausible sockpuppets (this is true, E.) and also mad Eccles and his friends. Oh Eccles you think you're so wonderful because you have friends and I don't.

Well, the Catholic Herald is doomed now. I went round six Asda stores yesterday and not one of them had a CH on sale. In contrast, I asked the assistants "Do you have any Tablets?" and they all replied, "Yes, try the pharmacy section." I rest my case. What is clear is that Catholic Herald journalism is going to die out. For example, I know already that Fr Lucie-Smith is planning to give up writing - he only posts his 500 words in the expectation of receiving a 20,000 word response from me, politely correcting his errors and telling him what a nincompoop he is.

Even in Corby Cathedral, orthodox worship has almost disappeared.

Worse than that, the Catholic Church in England and Wales is doomed: there is a systemic catholic dispossession and disenfranchisement, to the extent that outside the major cities catholicism will cease to be, within the next generation - and what are you doing to help? Stopping me from putting forward the orthodox viewpoint, which nobody else is prepared to defend, not even Damian Thompson (see, Eccles, that proves I am not in Damian's pocket!)

Meanwhile His Holiness thinks some sort of balance needs to be redressed... putting the trads back in their box, accusing them of being pelagian, jansenist, ultramontane, anti-conciliar and anti-conciliarity, donatist, pharisaically legalistic, sexually prurient, uncharitably insensitive, coldly insular and alienating... and allowing the more liberally 'pastorally aware' to be given some fresh air and some lebensraum to inspire them to rebuild the Church and bring the lost home... with verbal support in every soundbite and media opportunity... I blame Austen Ivereigh and...

Afraid we'll have to cut you off there, Paul. Sorry!

Now, which sockpuppet shall we use today?

Telling lies for Jesus

There has been an impassioned debate on Twitter about whether it can ever be "right" to tell lies. I was thinking of joining in, but after a blizzard of tweets such as:

the Grinnisite neo-natural Tollefsen equivocation [so close to TotB manipulation] - subverted consequentialism as faux-natural law

and

their teleological 'virtue ethics' is distorted utilitarianism - their natural law appeals merely masked Kantianism,

A mountain

I decided that some people were making mountains out of molehills, or, as the Bishop of Corby would put it:

paradigms of the species Homo Sapiens were fabricating prominent pinnacles out of acclivities pertaining to the Talpidae family in the order Soricomorpha.

There have also been some excellent blog posts on the subject, for example this one.

Actually, it's very simple. Lying is wrong. Don't do it unless some greater good will come from it. But it's sometimes the right thing to do. I'm with St John Chrysostom rather than St Augustine on this one.

After all, you are allowed to pull sheep out of ditches on the Sabbath (see Matthew 12), even though it involves breaking one of the ten commandments.

"It's all right, I can wait until Monday. No worries, honest!"

Likewise, only a lunatic would think that telling the truth and thereby giving away a concealed family of Jews to the Nazis was a good idea.

Nobody believes me when I say there are two British airmen in my wardrobe.

So, let's use the Devil's weapons against him. Lie if we have to, steal, break the Sabbath, commit murder (in wartime), ... I'm not sure about adultery: is James Bond acting for Jesus? That's a tricky one. Also, coveting is a hard sin to use in positive way; if only I had the debating skills of... ah.

Now, His Eminence Cardinal Baldisseri would argue that it is OK to commit theft of other people's books occasionally, and in his case he was acting against Christ rather than the Devil. Oh dear, not a good example, that one, was it? Ignore it and move on.

Don't forget to visit the second-hand bookshop I've just opened!

Of course, if we had no liars, then the world would have to get by without lawyers, politicians, and diplomats, none of whom can succeed by telling the truth all the time. "Your honour, I think my client is guilty, but he's paying me lots of money to argue that he's not..." No, that approach doesn't really work.

I hope this wasn't too long and complicated. Sometimes we saved people see things more clearly than the rest of you.

Trust me. Would I lie to you?

Damian's Last Post

From Saturday's Daily Telegraph, or possibly not.

As most people will know by now, Damian Thompson is leaving the Daily Telegraph after an entirely amicable beating up by "self-content officer", "editor-in-chief" and "supreme commander", Jason Seiken. This blog has been given exclusive rights to the Dame's last Telegraph column, the one that was never actually printed.

Jason Seiken - he wants you to consume great content. Or something.

Just what is happening at the Telegraph? Mekon lookalike Jason Seiken has sacked nearly all the staff and from now is going to write the entire newspaper himself. However, all is not lost: reports are coming in that my friend Brainy Gordon is still on board. Brainy is known for her tasteful memoir The wrong knickers; some have compared her descriptions of the angst felt by young ladies seeking men to Jane Austen at her best ("Fie, Mr Bingley! You have sent me the bloomers of Lady Catherine de Bourgh by mistake!"). Brainy is said to be working on a sequel, to be called The wrong bra, or My cup runneth over. My spies tell me that she is in line to become the new business editor of the Telegraph.

Professor Gordon. The badge reminds her how to spell her own name.

I myself am moving on to pastures new. After giving the best years of my life to the Telegraph and recruiting such star bloggers as James Delingpole, David Lindsay, Martin Salter, Gerald Warner, and George Pitcher, I have decided to take my talents elsewhere. Of course I do have my regular column at the Spectator, in which I introduce readers to composers they may never have heard of before, such as the "three Bs" - Bach, Beethoven and Mozart - but this hardly pays enough to keep me in CDs.

So I am currently weighing up various offers: the Australian Pottymouth Gazette, incorporating Rolf Harris's Kangaroo-tying Weekly, is looking for a new correspondent specialising in Catholicism, cupcakes and custard, and I may be in with a chance there. Alternatively, my old friend Cardinal Vincent Nichols has been getting a bad press lately - mostly from me - so I am thinking of offering my services as his new press officer.

Of course, since he suppressed the Protect the Pope blog, Bishop Campbell has also started feeling unwanted. I have written to him, offering to revive the PtP blog, leavening its usual heretic-smiting with a few witty anecdotes about Gladys Mills and Noele Gordon (mother of my friend Brainy!) We'll see if he bites!

Bishop Campbell asks for an extra helping of custard.

One of the great things about my blog is the number of daughter blogs that it has inspired. I regularly read Mundabor's blog, although I don't really understand his references to Pope Quisling and the Sodo-Nazis - I think they must be some sort of rock group.

I even read Bosco's blog!

Then there are Catholicism Pure and Simple, Eccles is Saved, All along the watchtower, the donkey man, etc. Of course my favourite blog of all is On the Side of the Angels, written by my great friend the Archbishop of Corby.

Dude, aren't you homologising the contradictorily monolithic contextualisms of mimetic space, by disregarding the tensely granulated actualities of logocentric wholeness?

So, what else is happening at the Telegraph? There's still a strong religious presence, both from the slightly silly wing of the Catholic Church (Tim Stanley) and the Monster Raving Pelosi church (Cristina Odone); Geoffrey Lean (aged 107) is there to warn us of the dangers of a new technology called the "horseless carriage"; and Dan Hodges is ready to give his expert opinion on the World Cup (apparently England are hot favourites), UKIP (not likely to get any MEPs), and Ed Miliband (a man of impeccable table manners).

The affable Dan Hodges.

Although I am sorry to let my blogging sheep wander unattended, I have every confidence that they will continue to generate click-bait by writing controversial articles, such as "Do Muslims cause climate change, or should we be blaming Steve Gerrard?"

So, farewell to all the readers of my blog, most of whom were banned long ago by my zealous team of Sri Lankan "muddlerators" (thanks, Eccles!) as soon as they said anything intelligent. I'm not generally in favour of euthanasia, but I've arranged for the last remaining trolls - mainly mollusc-molesters, Dawkinsites, incognito deacons, Fabian teenage girls, and of course a coach-load of "Phil" sockpuppets - to be sent to the Lord Falconer Death Camp, as they clearly cannot live without me. Byeee!

Freed from the evil Telegraph Empire, Damian looks 20 years younger already!

Wot Eccles did on his hols

Well I took a few days off from de hurly-burly of Notting Hell, and decided to go round England seein some of de sites. My first trip was a trian journey to Manchester, cos I wanted to see de famous town of Eccles; also I got a fan in Altrincham, wot spends all her time screen-cappin everyfink I says on Twitter and puttin it into a big scrapbook.

We leaves Euston in a Pendalino.

Dis aint gonna be a partickularly spiritaully nuorishin story, but I will try and mentoin some of de fings dat happened. Fust, it was a Friday when I left, and de trian got very crowded.

After some commuters got on at Nuneaton.

Later on, our Virgin trian was delayed, and it seemed dat dere weren't no Richard Branson on it to complane to. But I later found out wot de problem was.

Unsaved pussons on de line near Rugeley.

Still, the juorney eventaully came to and end, and I reached de North.

Manchester.

So I went to see my grate admirer in Altrincham, wot had invited me round for a cup of tea and a Pengiun.

My fan in Altrincham.

In fact she kept me a prisoner in her house for 4 days (all de doors and winders was locked) as she wanted to read to me from her bound copies of de luvvly Vatican II documents, some of which I doesn't know very well. I eventaully escaped and hid behind a sofa.

Hidin behind de sofa.

When I got away, my next destinatoin was Corby, cos de Archbishop is a great hero of mine. I took a photo of his cathedrall.

Corby Cathedrall.

He was givvin a specail lecture in my honour called "How Eccles brought me spiritaul nuorishment" (6 p.m. to 4 a.m.). To put it simply, I contradicts all logical paradimgs and I show that, following St Augustine's anti-donatism and anti-pelagianism, it is imperative to court the panoptically hypostasized tasks of intertextual grounding.

De audience listened in rapt attentoin.

About 2 a.m. he said "finally", and so I knew dere was only anuvver couple of hours to go. After Corby, dere was just time to head down to de south coast, stoppin on de way to see a deacon in Crodyon wot is a grate friend of mine, althuogh he does like screemin "sockpoppet" at poeple he aint met before.

De deacon is keepin a dossier on me.

And so we gets to Brihgton.

I'm fairly sure dis is de Brihgton pavillion.

Well, not much else to record reely. I went to de seaside to paddle, but de tide was out.

Brihgton Beach. A deep-sea diver returns to land.

And so back to Notting Hell, refreshed, and still a saved pusson.

---

I aint never put dis on my blogg, but I recently persauded my Bruvver Bosco to get baptised, which he hadnt done before. Here is a touchin snap of de occasoin.

My bruvver Bosco, bein baptised.

Damian Thompson Q&A

Now, I've got something to ask you, Damian.

Welcome to Telegraph Comment's live Q&A, where Damian Thompson answers your questions on religion, music, hairdressing and custard.

The Archbishop of Corby: Damian, sweetie, how do you get your hair looking so wonderful? What's it like being such a talented writer? Does it frighten you to think that you are worshipped as a god in seventeen separate countries? Where would the Catholic Church be today if it were not for your intervention? Why not visit Corby this weekend? Custard is 20p off at Asda.

DT: I rinse my hair in custard every night, Paul. As for the rest, I'm too modest to reply.

Worshippers of Damian Thompson discuss addiction.

Phil Trollhurst, alias Phil Evans, Daryl Brown, Deborah Comments, Vilepuffin, etc.: Now that Pope Francis has renewed the Spirit of Vatican II and said that he plans to allow gay bishops to marry each other, don't you think it is time for all the traddies to leave the Catholic Church? Wasn't Hans Küng right all along?

DT: Speak later, Phil.

Dignity in worship: Phil takes a leaf out of Bosco's book.

Micky Dross: It's so dreadfully unfair how your moderators censor free speech, Damian. All I want to do is to post links to anti-Catholic articles in the Huffalump Post, and they are removed straight away. Oh, and "mollusc porn", of course, but that's a very specialised interest.

Mollusc porn.

DT: As editor of Telegraph blogs I have no control over the moderators, or anyone else. In fact (edited by a muddlerator).

Fr Alfred Haddock: Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? 1 Corinthians 11:14.

DT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, look at A.C. Grayling. But don't look at Alan Massie, as he's one of ours.

Shameful.

Eccles: Ullo, Damian. Is you saved?

DT: Well, that's all we've got time for now.

New Telegraph bloggers

As Telegraph blogs editor, Damian Thompson has not been idle this summer, and he has recruited an all-star line-up of new bloggers for the autumn season.

---

Dr William Oddie, a leading Catholic writer and broadcaster

Nobody could have been more surprised than I to receive a letter from Damian Thompson, explaining that the Telegraph urgently needed more Catholic bloggers of distinction. For a moment I wondered whether Damian's secretary had confused me with someone else, but when I phoned the Telegraph, explaining that I was a Goodie, Damian merely replied "Of course you are, Dr Oddie, I have never doubted it."

I suggested that my first post would be about cardinals, and this went down very well.

At present there are but two cardinals on the British mainland, and, being both male, they do not constitute a breeding pair. However, these birds are never entirely extinct on our shores, and new sightings appear regularly. The birds migrate regularly to Rome, where they flutter around rather purposelessly...

---

John Prescott, former Cunard waiter and Deputy Prime Minister

In my inorgyral blog post for the Telegraph I have been asked to take on the mental of Peter Mullet and Tom Shivers, and so I will be undressing the lamentable decline in the qualify of English that we see nowadays.

When I was Debity Prime Monster, I always insisted that my staff send me reports in plane English. "Keep it simple!" I said. "We ain't all been to poncey schools where they learn about active conjugations. I've 'ad to learn about them from my secretary!"

On one occasion, I overheard a member of staff saying about me: "Mr Prescott's an 'ideous orang-utan." Well, I wasn't standing for that. I got the whole office reciting in unicorn together: "Mr Prescott's a hideous orang-utan." That taught them!

---

Louise Mensch, chick lit novelist and Catholic figurehead

As Damian Thompson removed his elegant polyester shirt, young sexy Louise gasped in admiration at his rippling muscles, and knew that, whatever he asked her to do, she would have to agree. "Louise," he said, in tones that brooked no denial, "we at the Telegraph have certain... needs."

"Oh yes, yes, Damian," she said. "What do my constituents in Corby matter, when the blood-crazed ferret makes his demands on me?"

"I'm glad you see it that way," said Damian in the husky, virile tones that always sent a shiver down Louise's beautiful spine - a spine which had won the Conservative Spine of the Year award on three separate occasions. "I want you to write us a blog about your experiences in New York."

"Oh my God, Damian!" exclaimed Louise. "Yes, yes, yes!"

---

Julian Assange, security adviser to the Ecuadorian government

All users of the Internet need to be made aware of the advantages of cyber-security. My new main employer, President Correa, was shocked when I told him that there is a rogue web-site called Juiquilics, which is carrying details of his secret plans to flood neighbouring Colombia with poisoned llama-meat, in a cunning attempt to destroy its economy.

My first tip to internet users is Change your password. It was a great embarrassment to the CIA when someone - I won't say who - guessed that the password used for the site storing their most secret documents was "CIA."

Next week I hope to blog about my experiences of Swedish nightlife, and how to make your mark with those busty Swedish girls.

---

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop Emeritus

I'm very glad to help out my old friend Damian by blogging on some of my memories, drawn from a long life as a priest. I thought I would start with my experiences as a student at the Venerable English College in Rome in the 1950s. We were a wild bunch indeed, stealing cardinals' red hats on Boat-race Night, then putting drawing pins on Pope Pius XII's Cathedra. And to think that two of us became cardinals, and four others became bishops!

I expect the seminarian who provided the whoopee cushion to make a full confession later.

I remember we invented something called the cardinal martini, a very potent drink which we offered to Cardinal Griffin, when he came to Rome to ask us why we we'd been skipping all the Latin classes! After 3 of those, old Bernie Griffin was going "Hic haec hoc," like the rest of us!

Invitations we have received

Young Poet of the Year, 1989 (yes, really)

Louise Bagshawe LoCicero Mensch M.P. Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds,

author of "Catholic family values," "When she was bad..." and "Career girls,"

star of "Question Time" and "Prime Minister's Questions,"

invites ECCLES

to the launch of her new book

"Corby, city of passion"

---

Welcome to the Dignitas Holiday Hotel

Dr Evan Harris M.P. requests the pleasure of the company of ECCLES at a "sending-off" party for his beloved auntie Athanasia, to wish her well on her trip to Dignitas. R.S.V.P.

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St Anthony of Poodle

Hey, Eccles, come to a swell party for the launch of my new Encyclical, "Where the Catholic church must go next." Admission fee only £500, and you'll get to meet my good friends Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-un. Yours, Tony.

---

And finally, one I won't be able to accept.

Surely some mistake?

BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA are holding a "Pride Party" to celebrate the adoption of a new American flag. No Limeys, Christians, Mormons, Republicans, or Chick-fil-A employees, please.

The proposed replacement for the homophobic Stars and Stripes

P.S. If you can't come, you're welcome to attend our "Abortion gone wild" Festival next week. Barack.