"Stop correcting me," says Pope Francis

"These days I can't say anything at all without some fool trying to correct me," said Pope Francis in his annual Odi et Omnes ("and I hate you all") address to Catholics worldwide.

A voice behind him immediately piped up, "Oh yes you can!"

"Holy Father, I should point out that 2+2=5."

"It's getting very irritating," continued the Pope. "Letters, phone calls, e-mails, texts, faxes, tweets, bricks flying through the window with little notes attached, drums tapping out 'corrections' in Morse code, ... and all with the same message, that I got something wrong. I received five huge sacks of correspondence this morning."

A sell-out at Gammarelli's.

"I mean, this morning at breakfast I said 'It looks like rain later', and five minutes later Spadaro rushed in..."

"Ten minutes later."

"Ten minutes later, with a filial correction giving me the weather forecast for Rome."

"Now is not the time for peace." A crow and seagull join in the attack on the papal doves.

"Of course I have been used to receiving green-ink corrections from people like Sosa, Martin, Faggioli, etc. for years. For example, I said something in my sermon about Jesus being the Messiah, and Fr James Martin sent me a text explaining that 'Many New Testament Scholars' now believe that John the Baptist was the Messiah. But I am used to that."

At that moment an arrow flew up into the Vatican balcony and impaled the arm of the Pope's Master of Ceremonies Guido Marini. Attached to it was a note, "Don't say something infallibly, you're bound to get it wrong." Guido Marini, a man used to crises, calmly removed the arrow from his arm and said, "I think this is for you, Holy Father," before slumping to the ground.

"'Tis but a scratch, Holy Father."

"It's been an odd year," commented the Pope. "Cardinals sending Dubia, wall posters in Rome, filial corrections, that book The Dictator Pope, ... anyone would think they were trying to tell me something."

St Elizabeth the LGBT activist

Hello, guys and gals, I'm Fr Arthur your new "Yoof Priest", and I'm preaching the official "Yoof Sermon" at the "Yoof Mass" or "Gig" as we Yoof Priests call it. Taking my lead from my hero, Fr Dom of Brentwood, I take as my text today the passage from Luke 1, where St Elizabeth was persecuted for being an LGBT activist.

St Elizabeth, an inspiration to LGBTQISJXYZαβPQRAREYOUSTILLREADING™∇⊕ZZZ999 people everywhere!

As Fr Dom so wisely tells us, Elizabeth was shunned for being barren. But why should she have been barren? Was she a lesbian? Or even bisexual? Perhaps she was "trans", and would have preferred to be called Elijah, or maybe a gender-neutral "El"? Yes, that was the real cause of her persecution, the homophobic tradition in 1st century Judaea!

Nowadays being a lesbian is of course no barrier to conceiving. Science has conquered nature, and we can make children in test-tubes who do not know who their parents are. And I am sure that many of you yooful ones here present would have preferred things that way! In future this will be the usual way to produce kids - in giant hatcheries - and sex will be reserved for pleasure as God intended!

Aldous Huxley. A dead white male but his "Brave New World" showed us how to advance!

Anyway, in the end Elizabeth gave way to the fascist hegemony of her times, and God gave her a child. And what a disaster that was! John the Baptist! Someone with distinctly old-fashioned views on marriage, a scruffy old drop-out who came to a bad end. The least said about him the better!

Oh, excuse me, my mobile's ringing. Hello, bishop? What's that people have been saying about me? A complete fruitcake? That's not nice... All right, that's all for today, lads and lasses.

© Fr Arthur 2017

Pope says Catholics should apologise to the Jesuits

In his latest aeroplane conversations, Pope Francis was asked whether he agreed with Cardinal "Rhino" Marx's recent suggestion that the Catholic Church should apologise to Jesuits. As an SJ himself, Pope Francis agreed that Jesuits should not be discriminated against, but should be respected and accompanied pastorally.

"Rhino" Marx: "The Church has been very negative about Jesuits".

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that being of an SJ orientation is not in itself sinful, but acts of a Jesuitical nature (e.g. dishonesty, distorting Church teaching, going around with a silly smug grin on one's face, and other things not suitable for a family blog) are indeed considered sinful;. Accordingly, SJs who happen to be Catholic should try to abstain from such acts. We recall Pope Francis's earlier words "If a Jesuit is genuinely seeking God, then who am I to judge?"

Showing mercy to Fr James Martin S.J.

But now the Holy Father has now gone further, and insisted that the Catholic Church should apologise to the SJ Community for any offence it has given over the years. This has not gone down well with the more traditional commentators, many of whom regard Jesuitism as a lifestyle choice (and are shocked by "SJ" marches), rather than something intrinsic.

Fr Thomas Reese SJ gives offence by participating in an SJ event.

Many Catholics point to the Bible, quoting phrases such as "brood of vipers" and "whited sepulchres", which are traditionally held to refer to people of an SJ orientation. (St Paul is even ruder...) However, in this year of Mercy we should try and forget these uncomfortable words, says Pope Francis, knowing that Christ Himself would have been horrified to think that He was causing a minute's offence to anyone.

John the Baptist apologises to Salome for his rudeness.

The blogs that upset Father Rosica

Father Rosica, a long-time admirer of this blog, has identified for us some of the Catholic blogs that, in his opinion, have filled the internet with venom and vitriol (a Basilian expression meaning "they disagree with me, and they express their opinions without fudging them").

Fr Rosica - tipped to be the next James Bond as he tackles the evil BLOGGER.

"I was reading a blog called the Gospel of St Matthew," explained Fr Rosica, "and there was this most unpleasant contributor called John the Baptist. He was writing things like You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?, which you will agree turns the Bible into a cesspool of hatred!"

"There's another Person there, who says things like Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. That sounds like a direct attack on my Salt and Vinegar media empire!"

The Salt and Vinegar media Empire expands into corporal nourishment.

"Apart from the infamous St Matthew site, and the related Mark, Luke and John blogs, I also wish to mention a blogger called Paul," continued the salty cleric. "He has written a series of blog posts, called `Epistles', that show him up as an obsessed, scrupulous, self-appointed, nostalgia-hankering virtual guardian of faith and liturgical practices! (Yes, I admit it, Pope Francis lent me his thesaurus, so that I could dig out more insults for ordinary Catholics...)"

"There's a particularly nasty blog called '1 Corinthians', where he lists people who will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners. I shall advise my friends to respond in the most Christian way possible, by consulting their solicitors!"

"Nor liberal Catholics, nor Tablet-readers, nor Jesuits, nor Professors at Roehampton, ..."

No wonder the good Father Rosica is cross...

Only cute pets can go to Heaven

As is usual nowadays, Fr Federico Lombardi has clarified the off-the-cuff remarks of Pope Francis that all God's creatures are saved. "What the Holy Father really said," he explained, "is that all cute animals are saved." The offer does not apply to the Hound of the Baskervilles, for example; and pit bull terriers will still end up in the pits of Hades.

Cute enough to be saved.

It was explained that, whereas Jesus died to save humans from their sins, animals as such do not have a great idea of the difference between Good and Evil, being in that respect something like Members of Parliament or Guardian-readers. For instance, how do you tell the difference between a good crocodile and a bad crocodile when it's biting your leg off? Moreover, it would be inconvenient to have crocodiles wandering round Heaven, even ones equipped with angels' wings.

An optimistic crocodile sings "Amazing Grace".

C.S. Lewis once said that a Heaven for mosquitoes could be combined with a Hell for humans. Nowadays, modern teaching has largely abolished the idea of Hell, and Good and Evil are replaced with Niceness - see the Niceone Creed for details. Nevertheless, being able to decide whether one is saved simply on the basis of one's Cuteness applies only to animals, and not to humans. For example, many of the saints were not at all cute.

John the Baptist - as un-cute as Russell Brand but still saved.

Fr Lombardi added that simply possessing a cute pet was not an automatic guarantee for salvation: the pet itself would have to abandon its owner in the afterlife. Cats, for example, will do this without any scruples.

Only one of these is saved. Can you work out which it is?

According to Biblical teaching, God has decided that sheep are saved, and goats are not; this does indeed follow the principle of "cuteness", as goats are not generally regarded as cute animals. Indeed it is hard to imagine Pope Francis trying to gain credibility by walking around with an unsaved goat round his neck. Q.E.D.

The Pope poses with a saved creature.

Dawkins explains moral philosophy

This blog has often expressed the opinion that Richard Dawkins is barking mad. On the other hand, we do not think he is as barking mad as Anjem Choudary, the Muslim activist who looks forward to the day when the flag of Islam is hoisted high over the Knesset, the White House, Downing Street and the Kremlin. So that's all right then.

"Being made into soup by cannibals is bad, but it's worse if they forget the salt and pepper."

Professor Dawkins recently managed to offend a number of people with a succession of tactless tweets, of which this is an example:

Learn to think the Dawkins way.

E: Richard, how nice of you to drop into this blog. Well, not nice, really; pretty horrible in fact. But not as bad as having my toenails pulled out. Is it worth pointing out to you that sometimes making gratuitous comparisons is silly and unnecessary, and that it can often be offensive?

Molesworth compares mumps and measles. This is not an endorsement of mumps.

R: But Eccles, this is LOGIC. You just haven't learnt how to THINK, boy!

E: Could you give us another example of your amazing insights, Richard?

"Jack the Ripper wasn't as bad as Hitler."

E: Good point, Richard. Er, is that supposed to be an endorsement of Jack the Ripper, then?

At this point Professor Dawkins lost his temper and stabbed Bruvver Eccles to death.

Reader's voice: That's pretty bad, but thank goodness he didn't cut him up and eat him!

Having your head cut off is bad, but worse if you forgot to put the cat out first!

That 11,000-word interview with the Holy Father

Well, it's half an hour since that 11,000-word interview appeared, and our commentators are now ready to give an in-depth analysis of what the Holy Father said - or didn't say.

Says St Mark, the author, "I'm thinking of calling it 'My Gospel'."

Our correspondent from the Jerusalem Tablet writes:

This interview certainly turns all religious thinking on its head. There is no direct condemnation of abortion, gay partnerships, murder, theft or adultery. So we can be fairly sure that Catholic teaching on these matters has been overturned, and the time has come to get rid of old-fashioned notions of "God" and bring religion more into line with the secularist agenda of the state. Emperor Nero has very enlightened views on same-sex marriage, you know.

"This interview will set Rome on fire," says Nero.

Moreover, there is no support for traditional forms of worship, so we at the Tablet are going to run that brilliant cartoon we published a few years ago.

How the Tablet showed its respect for the Council of Trent.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Jerusalem Tradblog is also dissatisfied with the interview, and for more-or-less the same reasons. It writes:

Many of us look back with nostalgia to the days of John the Baptist, when sin was sin, and sinners were told they were damned. It's a pity that John lost his head as a result of an unfortunate encounter with a liturgical dancer called Salome - he might have given the Church the leadership it needed. If we are to believe what we read in Mark's interview, this new Man takes a more touchy-feely approach, and seems to have a certain sympathy for the poor, the needy, and the sinners. We can't see this catching on - why, they'll be suggesting that priests open soup kitchens next!

Fr Blake's soup kitchen has certainly improved since the Argus paid him damages.

Probably neither of these publications has quite got to the heart of the matter.

The Jimmy Carter edition of the Bible

This week we saw the publishing event of the year, as ex-President Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (they don't give them out to just any old Tom, Dick or Barack, you know!) and one of the most successful U.S. presidents ever, introduced an edition of the Bible, with his own study notes, helping readers to follow his understanding of the Scriptures.

And God spake unto James, saying "Rewrite ye the Bible in your own image."

St Jimmy's interpretation of the Bible is said to be at variance with most orthodox Christian doctrine. He quarrelled bitterly with Pope John-Paul II over "liberation theology" and labelled him a "fundamentalist" along with Ayatollah Khomeini.

Well done, Jimmy. I can't stand Pope John-Paul II, either!

It is true that John-Paul II, having been brought up in Soviet-dominated Poland, would not have had as much experience of poverty, oppression, Marxism and suffering as a millionaire peanut-farmer in Georgia would. So St Jimmy was clearly in the right there.

"As we were marching through Georgia." Jimmy liberates a peanut field.

St Jimmy's new edition of the Bible explains clearly how the Southern Baptists and the Catholics believe that women are inferior to men. "They're just like Muslims, you know," he says, drawing on his wide knowledge of religions worldwide.

John the Southern Baptist - a well-known fundamentalist.

So far the Gospel of St Jimmy is not selling as well as might be expected. This is probably because American Catholic and Baptist women, the ones who would naturally wish to read it in order to learn how to throw off their chains, are not usually allowed out into the streets unaccompanied - or to use the telephone or Internet - and so are unable to buy copies of the book.

A subjugated Catholic woman, forbidden to read the Gospel of St Jimmy.

Bosco is lost

Dis is a very worryin state of affairs. We has lost my dere bruvver Bosco. So far I got at least three thoeries about his disapearrance, which is leavin de poor folks on Damain Thopmson's blogg wivout any spirritaul giudance.

1. He have been taken by de Rapture.

Dis is possible, as we knows dat he is saved. But if so, why was I (Eccles) left behind? I is saved too, aint I? And does dey do pussonal Raptures like dat? Still, it may explane why dese shoes of Boscos is steemin. I fought it was just dat his feet was always hot and smelly.

2. He have been eaten by Anti Moly.

My dere Anti have a lean and hunggry look sometimes, and she does eat some strange fings, but I don't fink she can have done dis wikced deed.

Here is my Anti Moly lookin inoccent, as if butter wuoldnt melt in her mouf (in fact dat was just a figger of speech, she have been known to melt lumps of iron in her mouf when she gets reely cross).

3. He is doin somefink holly like saved poeple does.

In his campaing to become de next Pop, Bosco have been tryin very hard to be holly, and maybe he have gone into de willderness. We is grate fans of John de Batpist, and I fink Bosco may have packed hisself a nuorishin food parcel of loccusts and wild honey, so dat he can go away and medittate on de sacred mytseries, viz how many ways are dere of cookin loccusts and honey?

De Calumny Chappel has offered a reward.

$1000 if you finds where Bosco is, and makes sure he stays there.

Here is a pitcher of Bosco as we last saw him. Dont he look so sweet and gentel?
I do hopes he turns up agin soon.