The Catholic Advent Calendar 2024

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year of Whatever it is this time to all readers! This is what we found when we opened the windows.

1. Out pops Timothy Radcliffe OP, who becomes a cardinal on December 7th.

2. Women are hardly ever depicted in Catholic art, so it is a delight to show you Luce, the symbol of modern Catholicism. Jubilate Luce!

3. As Joe Biden prepares to fade from the scene, we have here a picture of that *Devout Catholic* giving something to Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood - possibly, a free pardon.

4. A typical three-eyed picture from the pope's favourite artist, theologian and ex-Jesuit, Fr Marko Rupnik.

5. We welcome Uncle Arthur Roche, Vatican hitman, looking unusually holy.

6. Latin Mass may be out of favour, but as an alternative, why not try an approved "indigenous" rite (which you mustn't call the Mayan rite)?

7. Erwin Wurm's outsized hot water bottle on human feet placed next the Stephansdom in Vienna is supposed to evoke "the importance of warming charity in the time before Easter" (quotation from a flyer found in the cathedral).

8. After the excitement of the last few days, we see Cardinal Hollerich relaxing with some liturgical dancing (I think).

9. The French have always had great dress sense ("l'élégance française") and when it comes to modelling "haute couture" vestments Notre Dame has no equal.

10. Coming out today is Fr James Martin SJ, seen here blessing a homosexual couple.

11. We welcome Kevin Farrell, the pension czar, Camerlengo, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, and Lord High Everything Else. In his spare time he is a cardinal.

12. These lovely ladies are holding a banner that says "Women priests are here". Obviously a witty joke as there can be no such thing.

13. Yes, it's Austen Ivereigh: papal biographer, fan of Pachamama, and connoisseur of Rupnik's art. Also (it seems) a part-time lumberjack.

14. Besides leading the way in the design of vestments, Notre Dame is also known for its novel concept of an altar.

15. We welcome Cardinal Cupich, who will be watching you carefully to see that you do not kneel for Communion, disrupting the flow of the procession.

16. It's Fr Thomas Reese SJ, known for his "Even Jesus got it wrong" scribblings.

17. This lady needs no introduction.

18. It's Sister Nathalie Becquart XMCJ, winner of the prize for the most synodal synodalist of the 2024 synodal synod on synodality (ladies' section).

19. Let's lighten the mood with a sing-song. Altogether now, "Mary, did you know?"

20. Here comes Cardinal "Tucho" Fernández, author of "Heal Me With Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing" and (mostly) "Fiducia supplicans". Need I say more?

21. Catholics have traditionally liked to worship in beautiful churches that glorify God. So here is a French church (St Pierre Firminy) designed by Corbusier, probably by adapting his plans for a nuclear power station.

22. Here we have one of the real heavyweights, the great Cardinal Reinhard ("Rhino" or "Rainbow") Marx, a keen promoter of LGBT Catholicism.

23. With just two days to go, it's time for us to think of the true meaning of Christmas - SYNODALITY.

24. Pope Francis is seen here admiring the nativity scene, in which the baby Jesus shows solidarity with the Palestinians by lying on their traditional scarf.

The secrets of Notre Dame

Apologies for a third post on Notre Dame this week (plug1, plug2), but news is just breaking from the investigative journalists of Associated Press that, besides being a tourist Mecca, Notre Dame is also revered as a place of worship (by Muslims, presumably).

Mecca.

We asked some of our religious friends to comment:

Jew: Well, it's certainly a place that I find very kosher.

Hindu: For me, it's something of a sacred cow.

Anglican: It's been a centre for the Church of England since A.D. 597. (Oops, that last one's almost genuine. See below.)

An entry for the David Lammy prize for religious knowledge.

Buddhist: I go there to listen to the sound of one hand clapping.

Muslim: Well, if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, then we have to go there ourselves.

Whatever else goes on there, it is rumoured that Catholics are also interested in Notre Dame. However, the New York Times is still a little hazy about the "body of Christ".

Journalism at its finest.

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By the way, for those who missed the reference above to David Lammy MP, here it is again.

If Notre Dame's smoke is anything to go by, the next pope will have grey skin.

Holy Smoke

The Catholic world was stunned today by the news that Liverpool Cathedral, or "Paddy's Wigwam", generally regarded as the ugliest cathedral ever constructed in Britain, has burned to the ground.

As Catholics sang hymns of thanksgiving, and danced in the streets, firemen were out all night desperately spraying petrol onto the flames and adding wood.

The Holy Tent of St Patrick (to give it the official name).

One altar server (who wished to remain anonymous) explains: "We have been trying for years to make something of this place - preferably a heap of ashes - and this included replacing the holy oils with paraffin, sabotaging the thurible, and using wooden candlesticks. But it is hard to burn down a building that is made mostly of concrete."

"Of course we did hold some interesting religious events in the cathedral, including indoor barbecues, bonfires, and firework displays, but nothing went wrong."

Smoke pours from the tower of Liverpool Cathedral.

Luckily, all the sacred relics kept in Liverpool Cathedral have been saved. These include the holey socks of Warlock with special Vatican II loopholes, and the blindfold worn by Archbishop McMahon during the Alfie Evans case.

Fortunately, the replacement cathedral has already been designed by a Mr Lutyens of Holborn, and we know what it will look like.

Not as a lovely as Paddy's Wigwam, but nearly as good.

A prayer for Notre Dame

O Lord, not Notre Dame. I've been there many times, and I can't bear this news. Take something else instead.

Take all the mosques in France. Take all the 20th century churches.

Take the Pompidou Centre. Take that rusty over-rated tower of Monsieur Eiffel.

A rusty over-rated tower.

Oh, all right, take the Louvre. The Mona Lisa isn't so great, and nobody would miss that silly bint with no arms.

A silly bint with no arms.

I can see I'm going to have to up the bidding. Take Emmanuel Macron. Take all the politicians, police and gilets jaunes.

All right, I know, take all the first-born under the age of 21 (they're all foreigners anyway). Just give us back Notre Dame.

St Denis puts a brave face on it.

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Messages have been flowing in from all round the world. They basically come in two types:

1. The Obama/Clinton/May/celebrity tribute. We stand with France (as we do whenever a bit of virtue-signalling is needed)! Notre Dame looked so cool! What a great loss to the world of culture! (What a pity that it's been used by Catholics, whose views on abortion, marriage, same-sex relations, transvestitism, etc. are directly in opposition to our own.)

2. The more balanced tribute. Look, this has been a centre for religious worship since the Hundred Years War and beyond. It's a blessed and sacred place. Anyway, thank God nobody is badly hurt (so far), and the relics, such as the Crown of Thorns, were saved.

But it's still a disaster, whichever point of view you take.

Designs for a new Notre Dame go on display.

Archbishop Fisichella excommunicates the Pope

Following his claim that critics of the Pope faced automatic excommunication - the sort of "merciful" statement that we expect to hear a lot of in the next few months - Archbishop Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization, today revealed that he had excommunicated Pope Francis himself. It is believed to be the first occasion since the middle ages on which an occupant of the Chair of St Peter has suffered this indignity.

"Maybe I hadn't really thought this out."

Apparently the Holy Father was overheard commenting that he had greatly sinned, in his thoughts and in his words, in what he had done and in what he had failed to do, through his fault, through his fault, through his most grievous fault. "Now, if any other Catholic had said this of the Pope," said Fisichella, "perhaps Bones or Mundabor, then they would have been in deep trouble. So it is only fair to punish Francis for this vicious attack on himself."

LATE NEWS: Pope Francis has been forgiven.

Meanwhile, in Rome...

Yesterday, the start of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, was also the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Vatican chose to mark this by using St Peter's Basilica as a projection screen, showing a range of Pope Francis's favourite wildlife.

St Quasimodo of Notre Dame.

However, Disney, threatened by the possibility that the Vatican could soon be showing Tom and Jerry cartoons on St Peter's, has responded with a display of scenes from the Jungle Book.

Shere Khan the tiger.

Gosh, this year of Mercy is going to be interesting.

It's time to mock Charlie Hebdo

Although this blog is primarily for spiritual nourishment, we do occasionally tease the arrogant and powerful; likewise, we receive criticism in good humour.

For example, if Pope Francis insults my mother by calling her a self-absorbed promethean neopelagian, then I do not feel it necessary to punch him. In fact, since he was once employed as a nightclub bouncer, he probably packs quite a good punch himself.

Pope Francis demonstrates the Catholic "punch of peace".

Likewise, if a deacon from Hell devotes a blog post to a character assassination of me, simply because I don't have a high opinion of Bernadette Farrell, then I take it in good humour, simply making a few cryptic references to idiots in garden sheds.

Now, how should we react if people insult Jesus, Mary, etc.? In Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross, there is the distinct suggestion that we should fight them:

The glass fell in ringing fragments on to the pavement, and Evan sprang over the barrier into the shop, brandishing his stick.
  "What is this?" cried little Mr. Turnbull, starting up with hair aflame. "How dare you break my window?"
  "Because it was the quickest cut to you," cried Evan, stamping. "Stand up and fight, you crapulous coward. You dirty lunatic, stand up, will you? Have you any weapons here?"
  "Are you mad?" asked Turnbull, glaring.
  "Are you?" cried Evan. "Can you be anything else when you plaster your own house with that God-defying filth? Stand up and fight, I say."
  A great light like dawn came into Mr. Turnbull's face. Behind his red hair and beard he turned deadly pale with pleasure. Here, after twenty lone years of useless toil, he had his reward. Someone was angry with the paper. He bounded to his feet like a boy; he saw a new youth opening before him.

Never mind this blog: here's something much better to read.

Obviously we do not approve of fanatics murdering cartoonists, even talentless prats who couldn't make a decent joke. Still, if Cardinal Vingt-Trois had horsewhipped the Charlie Hebdo editor on the steps of Notre Dame, many would have thought it no more than he deserved. Cartoons about the Virgin Mary giving birth, or Jesus being sodomized, deserve some response. Curiously, a lot of the Charlie Hebdo stuff is sexual: I suspect that its staff pinched most of their ideas from toilet walls.

So, Cardinal 23 definitely shouldn't have been ringing the bells of Notre Dame in memory of Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier and his bunch of talentless freaks - a gesture mocked in the new issue of Charlie Hebdo:

"What made us laugh the most is that the bells of Notre Dame rang in our honour," the editorial stated. "We would like to send a message to Pope Francis, who, too, was 'Charlie' this week: we only accept the bells of Notre Dame ringing in our honour when it is Femen who make them tinkle."

No, it's a gesture they don't appreciate. What they appreciate is tasteless abuse.

Charb has some awkward questions to answer at the Pearly Gates.

Got that? Je ne suis pas Charlie. Charlie Hebdo is a blasphemous Christ-hating pile of garbage, written by some very creepy people indeed. As you see from the picture above, Charb himself wore a shirt which his mother bought him when he was a teenager. Also, he couldn't even shave properly. A Peter Pan character stuck in the 1960s. A man whose hobbies included pulling the wings off butterflies and writing on toilet walls. His only friend was a pet rat called Eric, and even Eric decided he was too repulsive and ran away.

A bunch of fools sticking up for radical secularism.

Ring the bells of Notre Dame for the thousands killed by Boko Haram, or for the millions killed by abortionists. Given the quality of French driving you might even ring them for the thousands killed in road accidents. Just don't honour people who insulted your God.

The Bells! The Bells!

All right, rant over. Let Chesterton have the last word. Our duellists, Evan MacIan (Catholic) and James Turnbull (atheist) have reached France.

"Yes, France!" said Turnbull, and all the rhetorical part of him came to the top, his face growing as red as his hair. "France, that has always been in rebellion for liberty and reason. France, that has always assailed superstition with the club of Rabelais or the rapier of Voltaire. France, at whose first council table sits the sublime figure of Julian the Apostate. France, where a man said only the other day those splendid unanswerable words"—with a superb gesture—"'we have extinguished in heaven those lights that men shall never light again.'"
  "No," said MacIan, in a voice that shook with a controlled passion. "But France, which was taught by St. Bernard and led to war by Joan of Arc. France that made the crusades. France that saved the Church and scattered the heresies by the mouths of Bossuet and Massillon. France, which shows today the conquering march of Catholicism, as brain after brain surrenders to it, Brunetière, Coppée, Hauptmann, Barrès, Bourget, Lemaître."
  "France!" asserted Turnbull with a sort of rollicking self-exaggeration, very unusual with him, "France, which is one torrent of splendid scepticism from Abelard to Anatole France."
  "France," said MacIan, "which is one cataract of clear faith from St. Louis to Our Lady of Lourdes."
  "France at least," cried Turnbull, throwing up his sword in schoolboy triumph, "in which these things are thought about and fought about. France, where reason and religion clash in one continual tournament. France, above all, where men understand the pride and passion which have plucked our blades from their scabbards. Here, at least, we shall not be chased and spied on by sickly parsons and greasy policemen, because we wish to put our lives on the game. Courage, my friend, we have come to the country of honour."

Of course, times have changed. And Charlie Hebdo isn't exactly Voltaire, is it?

Pope objects to new statues

Following the news that Pope Francis has objected to a statue of himself in Brazil, it is thought that other statues of the Holy Father will also have to be taken down.

Mount Rushmore honours Pope Francis.

In the United States, a hastily-constructed statue of Pope Francis, to replace that of one of the Presidents ("we're not sure who he is, but he isn't Washington or Lincoln, so he probably wasn't important"), is likely to be demolished. President Obama is already offering himself as a replacement.

Notre Dame honours Pope Francis.

Likewise, at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, it is thought that replacing the head of the martyred St Denis by that of Pope Francis was in somewhat bad taste.

One major religious figure who is very happy to have statues of himself all over the world is of course Hans Küng; however, he regards himself as more than a mere president or saint, and is negotiating with the Brazilian authorities to take his place on a very famous statue indeed.

Küng the Redeemer.

Dat's enuff bloggs

Hands off Pippa!
By Cristina Noode

Leave Her Royal Hotness alone! She's just a 28-year-old girl doing what all teenagers do at her age - going to wild parties in Paris, getting drunk, and shooting the odd gendarme! Only confirmed anti-monarchists could possibly see anything wrong with that! Which amongst us has not been a little wild in their younger days?

In my days editing the Catholic Herald it was normal to see Damian "six gun" Thompson striding in after a hard night's drinking and poker with "Wild Bill" Oddie. One day he explained that they had just shot a policeman, having mistaken him for "Doc" Chartres, and they were terrified that the lawman might have been a Catholic.  We glamorous young girls all wanted to be Damian's "moll" and shoot up the Magic Circle bishops with him, but he rejected all our advances. Later, we all became boringly respectable housewives of course.

So leave Pippa alone! She may be a wild teenager now, but one day she may be a respected Catholic blogger for the Telegraph!

Excusez-moi, officer, je suis en retard pour la Messe à Notre Dame.

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Cameron the Eurosceptic
By Daniel Nannah

The time has come for UKIP supporters to lay down their arms and admit that David Cameron's Conservatives are the only party likely to take us out of the EU within the next five years.

Already Dave is making rebellious rumblings against EU tyranny. Indeed this week he decided to go head-to-head with the Prime Minister of mighty Varicella. By threatening to oppose an EU Directive on subsidies for hamster-farmers, Dave has shown that he is not afraid to hit the Varicellan hamster-fur industry where it hurts.

Our Eurosceptic policies are being noticed. Whenever I stand up in the European parliament and suggest that we expel all foreigners from the EU, I am listened to avidly. Indeed, most of the foreigners take my advice and leave the chamber immediately. Last week, however, my speech met with unexpected results, for a man came into the chamber, carrying a bag of tools. Somehow I must have received a blow on the head, for when I woke up I was sitting on a pile of rotten cabbage in the Brussels Municipal Dump, but - and this is the important thing - I was still giving my controversial speech on Van Rompuy - why does he smell like a dead weasel? 

Dave is in town, and he's in a mean mood. So Brussels, beware!

David Cameron, getting to grips with Johnny Foreigner.

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Parishioners! Arentchasickofem?
By Peter Numell

In my days as a Parish Priest in the Yorkshire village of Ebor-Gum, the one thing I dreaded was my parishioners. Nowadays, as Anglican Chaplain to the Guild of Usurers, Money-lenders and Blackmailers, I mix with a different class of person, and they are not usually interested in religious matters. But even in my days as Honorary Canon to the White Slave Industry life was peaceful compared with the horrors that awaited me in Yorkshire.

In Ebor-Gum I had proposed some simple changes in our form of Sunday worship - I just wanted it to start each week with a ceremonial burning of homosexuals on the village green - and the parishioners treated me as if I had wanted to do something outrageous, such as introducing the happy-clappy doggerel of Graham Kendrick. Well, I withdrew my plans in the face of their implacable opposition, and reduced the burnings to an occasional event in my own back garden.

Then again, I thought it would be helpful if we were to show our ecumenical side by storming the local mosque, decapitating the Imam, and putting his head on a pole with a label "LOSER". You wouldn't believe the fuss my plan caused. Now I display Father Abdallah's head in a glass case in my sitting-room, where it is much admired by visitors, but we Christians should not be forced to hide our lights under bushels in this way.

Shall we go down to the pub, vicar?