Your application for the position of Pope

From the Human Resources Department, Vatican City

Dear Mr England,

Thank you for your application for the position of administrative officer, grade 12 (commonly known as Pope). Although the position is not actually Sede Vacante, unless you believe those cranky websites that say there has been no valid pope since the Council of Trent, we are of course aware that the current Grade 12 officer may retire at any time, and so it is advisable to keep a pool of well-trained people in reserve.

As you rightly surmised, the "conclave" at which popes are "elected" is merely for show, and the real business is the responsibility of Human Resources.

A trainee pope (possibly the next pontiff but three).

Your CV is indeed an impressive one, with a 2.1 degree in Politics, computer training, and "on the job" experience serving soup to homeless people. However, there are some clear gaps in your profile, which you may wish to remedy before re-applying in five years from now.

LATIN. You do not mention any Latin skills, but this is de facto the lingua franca of the Catholic Church (see the Vatican II documents) - indeed, we would be grateful if your re-application were to be made in Latin. This also helps us weed out applications from Latinophobes, especially smart Alecs who think we should be using Esperanto.

KISSING FEET. An important part of a pope's job is to kiss people. Whereas politicians tend to harass babies in this way, a pope is more likely to find himself kissing ugly and deformed people, not to mention the feet of complete strangers. Actually, this is not a difficult skill to learn, and we advise you to practise this on the London Underground. However, we bear no responsibility if an ugly deformed stranger decides to kick you in the face.

Excuse me, sir, you seem to be particularly ugly. May I kiss your feet?

RELEASING BIRDS INTO THE AIR. We have had some problems with this, recently, when Officer Francis refused to do a proper health and safety risk assessment before sending a hapless dove into danger at the hands of a seagull and a crow. Releasing a bird may seem easy, but we do demand that you attend an official training course before endangering doves in this way.

BLOGGING. Although your blog is generally excellent, it is not usual for popes to make a spectacle of themselves in this way. So far it seems you have resisted the temptation to post pictures of the baked beans on toast that you had for lunch, or pictures of yourself cage-fighting, but be warned we shall have to give your blog a nihil obstat before it can be accepted as an official papal document.

WELCOMING CHILDREN. You may wish to reflect on how you would react if confronted by the following situation. No hints!

An everyday problem for a pope.

Best wishes,
Cardinal Paperclip,
Human Resources, Vatican City.

Argus gets into trouble again

As readers will surely know by now, the religious blogger, Jesus of Nazareth, recently suffered a hatchet job from the malicious giant Argus Panoptes.

Argus Panoptes, the giant with 100 eyes, attacks his victim.

The story is that Argus sent a rather slow-witted creature, Bill the Lizard, to torment our Lord by misrepresenting everything He said.

For example, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it is known that Martha, the dead man's sister, had commented "Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he is now of four days." In the capable journalistic hands of Bill the Lizard, this became "Jesus told me that he really hated raising people from the dead, because they were so smelly."

At least I don't smell as bad as certain journalists.

On another occasion, Jesus is reported as having written on His blog: For the poor you have always with you: and whensoever you will, you may do them good: but Me you have not always. Argus's tame lizard rendered this as "Jesus told me that he had no time for the poor, and always told his disciples to kick them out into the street."

"... and it's really irritating to have sick people let down through the roof when I'm talking."

Fortunately, many bloggers have rushed to the defence of Jesus, including St Timothy the hermeneutic, St Timothy of Stanley, St Laurence of England, and even the eccentric St Z (and many others too numerous to name individually).

Finally, even Bishop Kieran has taken notice of these events, and given support in the way he knows best. "I must apologise for any offence given by Jesus Christ," he said. "Sometimes in his enthusiasm for religion he goes too far. Be reassured that there will be very few Catholic priests in my diocese who act like Jesus - at least not if I have anything to say in the matter!"

Bill the Lizard was unavailable for comment: it was believed that he had been been engaged in an errand of mercy, rescuing a child called Alice who had become trapped in a house. Unfortunately, she kicked him up the chimney when she knew who he was.

Bill the Lizard finds that charitable acts aren't as easy as they seem.