Was he a tyrant or a devout Catholic?

This week saw a controversial Requiem Mass in Leicester, and the question on the lips of everyone who saw it was "Not a bad service, but was he a tyrant or a devout Catholic?" Certainly, the prevailing view among Catholics is that Vincent was a bullying dictator, who attempted to silence all opposition and brought shame on the Catholic Church with the wicked persecution of his enemies. But some people do hold other views.

Detested tyrant or devout Catholic? You decide.

The somewhat eccentric Society of Vincent holds a contrary opinion, portraying its hero as a humble and kind man, who owned his own Bible, which he kept in pristine condition by the expedient of never reading it. They say that Vincent was a timid person, who wanted nothing more than to become pope, world dictator and manager of Liverpool football club. His first step was to fight for a total modernization of Catholic teaching on marriage to remove its old-fashioned "Christian" emphasis and bring it more in line with secular values.

Vincent attempts to bully a meek young journalist (unidentified).

However, the judgement of history is predominantly against Vincent. There are claims that he launched a persecution of Catholic priests unparallelled since the era of Queen Elizabeth, forcing the more paranoid of them to install "priests' holes" in their presbyteries. in case his henchmen came knocking at the door. Although he was simply the ordinary of the Westminster Diocese, and not a primate except in the zoological sense, he did not hesitate to interfere with doings in other dioceses over which he had no formal authority.

Vincent himself liked nothing more than having his photo taken, or being interviewed on radio and television; thus, it was all the more shocking when he attempted to imprison 500 priests in the Tower because they had written a letter to the Catholic Herald.

Richard III - humiliated after his death by Vincent.

Said Richard III, a retired king and practising Catholic: "After my death I rested peacefully in a Catholic car-park for 500 years, before being dug up and moved to a Protestant cathedral in Leicester. They mocked me by giving me a funeral according to the rites of my evil great-nephew Henry. The Catholics, who should have known better, sent Vincent to say a Requiem Mass for me; he didn't even realise that Masses should be in Latin, but insisted on saying it in Vernacular (a Liverpudlian dialect). How did such an ignorant man ever become a bishop?"

"It doesn't fit too well, but your head seems to have swollen."

Sadly, Vincent's rule in Westminster was a long history of oppression. Worried that they were revealing too much about his activities, he denounced bloggers as "gossips", saying that they should have no place in the Church. He saw himself as a new St Augustine of Hippo, fighting the Donatists, when he issued a Reflection Document for Clergy on Marriage and Family Life that brought terror into the hearts of the faithful. History does not (yet) record his ultimate fate: did he die in a battle with the faithful and end up buried in a Catholic car-park? Or did he achieve his ambition of becoming Pope Francis II?

Vin the Ordinary, described as a bitter red.

Don't be a Donatist! Be nice to your bishop!

The Bones blog tells of a fascinating document Reflection Document for Clergy on Marriage and Family Life, produced by the CBCEW, warning clergy against the heresy of Donatism.

Robert Donat in "The 39 Articles Steps".

Donatism, as every schoolboy or girl knows, was a heresy condemned by St Augustine. This was in the time of Diocletian's persecution of Christians: Christians were being forced to bake cakes bearing slogans in favour of same-sex "marriage", other Christians lost their jobs when they repeated Christ's teaching on marriage and the family... Well, in these times, various Christians renounced their faith, or at least kept very quiet about it. Some bishops even allowed "gay" masses to take places in their dioceses, or invited known dissenters to lecture.

Now, when the the climate was a bit milder, and people felt able to speak freely once more, then the Donatists refused to accept the sacraments at the hands of such "apostates". This is heretical, and we must take the view that - however badly your bishop has behaved - he is still a priest in good standing. If he marries you - er, to someone else, that is - baptises your child, or anoints you with oil, or whatever, then it's all perfectly above board.

"Something's not quite right here, Vin."

In fact, the CBCEW letter isn't condemning true Donatists who may refuse to accept the legitimacy of priests: it is changing the meaning of the word to refer to those who refuse to give communion to remarried divorcees, those in same-sex relationships, and others who do not wish to give "Go and sin no more" a try. It's always a good move to label your political opponents with some obscure heresy, rather than coming out and saying exactly what you mean. We've been accused of neo-Pelagianism and Donatism; coming soon: accusations of Arianism, Marcionism and Montanism, or you may be identified as one of the Bogomils, the Patarini, the Dulcinians, the Waldensians or the Cathars.

Do you look like this? If so, you mean be guilty of Bogomilism.

The explanation for the gibberish in the CBCEW document is simple. It was written by all the bishops, sitting in a large "magic" circle, each taking it in turns to supply a word. Some of the bishops dozed off while this was being done, or woke up shouting "Drink!", so the process was not entirely reliable. As Mr Bones has hinted, "Donatist" was actually one portly bishop's cry for doughnuts.