James Martin apologises

Well, you know how it is. One of your best mates dies, and he just happens to be an embezzler who stole $450,000 to pay off a homosexual partner, while at the same time covering up sex abuse. Oh, and in his spare time he was an archbishop. Well, de mortuis nil nisi bonum as it says in the Latin rite, so you brush this under the carpet and make a statement on Twitter saying how wonderful he was. (Next week on this blog... how Hitler was a gifted painter.)

Your devoted fans, the Jimbies, will back you up.

FATHER JAMES MARTIN WHO WRITES THOSE GREAT BOOKS ON HOW TO BE GAY SAYS THAT WEAKLAND WAS AN ERUDITE SCHOLAR AND A GIFTED PASTOR SO THERE IS NO POINT ARGUING THAT HE WAS AN EMBEZZLER WHO COVERED UP CHILD ABUSE DON'T YOU HAVE ANY FRIENDS WHO HAVE DONE THAT SORT OF THING?

However, others are less charitable, and you find yourself facing a barrage of criticism, and not just from those dreadul Catholics who also happen to be Christians. Your next book BUILDING A HIGHWAY TO TRANS-CATHOLICISM may be rejected as the Book of the Month by the Jesuit LGBTSJ Club. Pope Francis is backing you, but then who is backing Francis these days?

Jim faces criticism.

Well, perhaps it is best to back down, and issue a statement withdrawing your foolish remarks on Twitter. Here is a draft apology, although in the end you don't go quite as far as this.

Dear friends: I've deleted my original tweets about Archbishop Weakland. I've also deleted my tweets promoting LGBT issues, referring to the Holy Spirit as "she", claiming that a Canaanite woman told Jesus what to say, referring to Mary Magdalene as the first pope, praising Ignatian Yoga, and backing Joe Biden. Unfortunately, there's not a lot left.

The Book of Covidicus 22: passports, please!

Continued from Chapter 21.

1. It came to pass that Carrie, the wife of Bo-sis, gave birth to a daughter, the sister of Wil-fred.

2. Thus fulfilling the words of the Lord unto Boris: I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.

3. For the offspring of Bo-sis were now so numerous that he was no longer able to count them; although, according to the beautiful models of Neil, son of Fergus, he now had approximately twenty thousand children.

4. And Bo-sis called his daughter Romy, or Rho for short, as this was the name of the next variant of the plague to be expected.

5. But then there came a scandal that rocked Bri-tain to its foundations.

Bo-sis playeth a party game.

6. For it was revealed that one year earlier Bo-sis had spent the holy season in wild partying, while the rest of the country was reduced to tiers.

7. For it was written "In the lands of Tier 3, the people must not carouse. Indeed, they should not enjoy themselves at all."

8. So Bo-sis removed the paper hat from his head, the balloon tied to his suit, and the party whistle that shooteth out into the face of his neighbour, and said "I have never been to a party." But nobody believed him.

9. Thus he turned his attention to the great plague of Omicron, which slayeth not.

The Omicron plague refuseth to slay the people.

10. And there came unto him a messenger saying "Good news! A man hath died of Omicron! Well, in fact he was eaten by a camel, but he was heard to sneeze only ten days previously. The plague is now deadly."

11. So Bo-sis put down his cake, his party popper, and his party bag called "goodie", and spake out, saying "Time for Plan B".

12. And the people also spake out saying, "This meaneth the passports of vixen, which Bo-sis promised never to introduce! Can it be that our mighty leader hath been telling the pies that are porky?"

Note to foreign readers: Cockney Rhyming Slang - pork pies = lies. And now back to the story.

13. So Bo-sis held a mighty vote in the House of Common People, which was keenly fought.

Sajidiah the Bald backeth Bo-sis.

14. For Keir, Chief of the Labourites, spake out, saying "I am the leader of the Opposition, and therefore I support Bo-sis completely. Er, am I doing this right?"

15. But there came a great opposition to Plan B from Bo-sis's own tribe of Conservatites, even unto one hundred fold.

16. But still Plan B was passed, and the children of Bri-tain were told to be vaxed, to be tested, or to die from the deadly plague of camels Omicron.

Continued in Chapter 23.

Emperor Nero, pray for us

Rome, 68 AD.

St James Martin (James the least of all), a very well known disciple with many followers, today offended Christians by maintaining that the late Emperor Nero was in Heaven, and should be asked to pray for everyone.

Nero was a man of many talents.

St James moaned: "We killed him. WE ARE ALL GUILTY. Nero* lives matter!"

* Italian for "black". Neat, eh?

The Emperor Nero was of course a very good Catholic, having spoken at length with both St Peter and St Paul before having them both executed. In a later era he would definitely have supported the Jesuits, and it is not surprising that St James believes he went straight to Heaven. Nero's sex life is said to have been a little complicated, but he was known as a prominent member of the LGBTSJ community, and a great fan of St James's Epistle to the Newyorkians, "Building a bridge".

St Linus, the current pope, is said to be less enthusiastic about Nero, regarding his burning of Rome as a serious cause of climate change, but it is generally accepted that St James, no matter how heretical, lewd, or plain bonkers his views may be, is beyond criticism.

Lookalike.

"You know, Judas Iscariot is probably in Heaven too..." continued St James before being led off to a luxuriously padded cell.

No Kiss of Peace for Eccles

Long-time readers of this blog will remember Fr Arthur, our local priest in good standing who takes very seriously the view that we are all sinners: indeed, for two pins he will give you a list of your sins, and, if he spots you in the confessional, will remind you of all the things you forgot to confess.

Fr Arthur has now recruited Deacon Marvin to help him, another man of pronounced likes and dislikes - mostly dislikes. On Sunday we had a hymn by Bernadette Farrell, "Christ, Be Our Light". It's not a completely bad hymn - it doesn't give me stomach cramps like "Shine, Jesus, Shine" or "Walk in the Light" do - but it reads more like a Guardian editorial than a hymn.

All music is equally valid, you see.

Now, you may remember that Mrs Farrell wrote a rather impudent piece in the Tablet, in which she concluded that all styles of worship were equally valid and that the composer James MacMillan was wrong to express dislike for the dross produced by Paul Inwood, Dan Schutte and Gerry Fitzpatrick. Somehow Deacon Marvin overheard a private conversation in which I criticised Bernadette's musical taste, and that set him off.

There's a point in the Novus Ordo Mass where we are encouraged to offer each other the sign of peace. Usually it is the deacon who says this particular exhortation, and what we got this Sunday was the following version "Let us now offer each other the sign of peace. Except for Eccles, who is revolting and unkind, a bitter and twisted old neverwas. Anyone who shakes hands with Eccles is not worthy." You could see the Christian love radiate from the deacon (and the steam coming out of his ears) as he said these charming words.

"We hates Eccles because he criticised Mrs Farrell."

Fr Arthur slapped the little deacon on the shoulder, as if to say "Good man," and so the Kiss of Peace went on without me. "Peace be with you." "Peace be with you." "Sorry, Eccles, you're an untouchable." "Peace be - oh, I've done you already, haven't I?" "Unhand me, sir!" "Ugh, you just sneezed in those hands." "Peace be with you." "Pax tecum." "Traddy pig!" "That makes twelve handshakes, I'm on a roll this week!" "I'm a Catholic, get me out of here!" "Bog off, Eccles." "Peace be with you."

Well, I never much liked the Kiss of Peace, and it is only an optional part of the Mass, one of those things that the Ghost of Vatican II slipped in when nobody was looking. And it is humbling once in a while to be told by a man in holy orders that he hates us.

St Nicholas gives Arius the "slap of peace".

Eccles bad hymn award - the winners!

Well, after discussing 27 nominations for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award, it's time to give out some prizes. In the end we decided to disqualify those hymns that are not really intended to be religious, such as Imagine, My Way, or Ding-Dong! The witch is dead, restricting attention to allegedly Christian hymns.

The first question was what to call the awards. Kevins (after Mayhew)? Estelles (after White)? Grahams (after Kendrick)? No, all these people were contenders for awards in their own right. Annibales (after Bugnini)? No, too Catholic, and after all our brothers and sisters in the Church of England, and elsewhere, often share our pain.

The Birdie Song, performed by the Tweets. Full video here.

Inspired by an old blog post by Damian Thompson (now deleted), we have decided to call the awards "Birdies", after the famous Birdie Song of Werner Thomas.

To hand out the award, we would have liked to have invited the late Douglas Adams, who pioneered the concept of Vogon poetry, or else perhaps the poet William McGonagall. Since that was not possible, we are delighted to welcome the nearest modern equivalent, the former Poet Laureate, Sir Andrew Motion. So, let's have the winners.

Sir Andrew Motion regrets missing out on the bad hymn gravy train.

MOST REPETITIVE HYMN. Shared by "Walk in the Light" (Damian Lundy, 30 repetitions) and "Kumbayah" (anon, also 30), with an honourable mention to "Our God reigns" (Leonard E. Smith, 24).

BIGGEST LIE. "'I am the Lord of the Dance,' said he." (Sidney Carter).

Sidney Carton, guillotined in mistake for Sidney Carter.

LEAST SACRED WORDS "Smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces, and the song the milkman sings" (Estelle White).

LEAST LIKELY TO BE RELEVANT TO ANYTHING. "If I were a fuzzy, wuzzy bear, I'd thank you, Lord for my fuzzy, wuzzy hair" (Brian Howard). With an honourable mention for "You don't need two shirts to your back" (Alan Dale).

LET'S SING ANY OLD GIBBERISH AWARD. "Kumbayah". With an honourable mention for "Alleluia Ch-ch" (Inwood).

Someone's screaming, Lord, Kumbayah!

HYMNS ARE ABOUT YOU, NOT GOD, AWARD. "I watch the sunrise" (John Glynn).

IRRITATING IN SO MANY WAYS BUT NOT OTHERWISE A PRIZE-WINNER. "Shine, Jesus, Shine" (Graham Kendrick).

Graham Kendrick kisses his "Birdie".

---

Previous entries for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award:

Lord of the Dance.    Shine, Jesus, shine.    Enemy of apathy.    Walk in the Light.
Kum Ba Yah.    Follow me.    God's Spirit is in my heart.    Imagine.    Alleluia Ch-ch.
It ain't necessarily so.    I, the Lord of sea and sky.    Colours of day.    The red flag.
Go, the Mass is ended.    I watch the sunrise.    Bind us together, Lord.    Our god reigns.
My way.    Ding-Dong! The witch is dead.    If I were a butterfly.
Journeys ended, journeys begun.    The Galilee song.    The perfect face.
Jesus Christ the apple tree.    On eagle's wings.    Moses, I know you're the man.
The Marseillaise.

Eccles in New York

I is makin a visit to New York, which is where my bruvver Bosco been hidin recently - de UK aint reely welcomin to poeple wiv his unique tallents. Since my camerra got broken I has had to steel some phottos off de Internet.

I saw dis in de Musuem of Modern Art. It's a man listenin to Paul Inwood's music.

I will try and concentrate on de more spiritaully nuorishin sights dat Bosco and me has seen. New York is of course de place where Cradinal Dollan hangs out, and here is a photto of dis well-nuorished man.

"Joe Biden says he's a pious Cathlic."

Actaully de St Patrick Cathedral is all covered in scaffoldin right now, as de masonry became unsafe when Cradinal Dollan conducted a funeral there and started laughin thunderuosly. But here is a pitcher of what it looks like normally.

St Patrick's Cathedral before de Cradinal luaghed.

I went to de Holy Innocents church, West 37th Street. Bosco aint very good at countin, so we took a hymn book wiv us to help us work out where 37 is rellative to de uvver nubmers. Anyway, at dis church dey had a Tridentin Mass. Lattin Masses is very useful in a city where de local vernacooler aint easy to understand. Dere was a parallel translatoin into New Yorkan, which was all about de Lord bein a cool dud wot kicks ass: dat must be de time when He rode into Jerussalem on Plam Sunday.

For de non-Cathlics dere is plenty of uvver churches. My bruvver Bosco's spiritaul needs is very simple so we went to Times Square and participated in a Calumny Chappel service.

Eccles and Bosco sings "We is saved pussons" in Times Square.

De one disappiontment so far is de Statue of Libberty, which aint as impressive as poeple finks. It's de same probblem wiv de little mermaid in Copenhaggen, dey needs to get a big mermaid.

Statue of Libberty. Dis iddle punched Bosco when he kissed it.

Well, dat's enuogh suovenirs of New York. Wot shall I blogg on next? De world aint been doin much dat's very eddifyin, just now, has it?

Annuvver luvvly paintin from de Musuem. Is dey saved pussons?