How to be a Catholic

Many readers have written to me, saying, "I'm just an ordinary sort of guy, who would quite like to be a priest/Pope/President of the USA/lion-tamer/serial killer/celebrity chef and I feel it would improve my career possibilities if I were a Catholic. Can you help me?"

How many Catholics can you count in this photo?

Now, it is surprisingly easy to be a cradle Catholic, as Fr James Martin points out. First, your parents must own a cradle, and put you in it. Next, you are taken along to a church, and baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You can sleep through the whole sacrament, if you wish to.

Also, even some non-Catholic baptisms are valid (e.g. the Anglican version): the important thing is to get the form of words right, so that, for example, the following are invalid:

• Welcome to the Calumny Chapel, brother Bosco! You is now saved.
• We baptise you in the name of the great Pachamama.
• I bap... oh dear I've dropped little Jorge in the river. Watch out for those piranha fish!

Anyway, if you want to be a Catholic, and not have to worry about it again, then it's best to get a Catholic baptism. Otherwise you have to convert later, and Austen Ivereigh will describe you as "neurotic".

See? That was easy.

But how do I stop being a Catholic?

This is not as easy as it sounds. You can do almost anything you like, and nobody will turn a hair. Yes, yes, there is excommunication latae sententiae, and that even includes apostates, heretics, and schismatics, but nobody important is going to speak out and say you are no longer a Catholic (except for special cases such as Queen Elizabeth I).

Other things you can do to be excommunicated l.s. include hitting the Pope (so that Chinese girl was wise not to retaliate when he slapped her), and procuring an abortion (on the other hand, facilitating thousands of abortions is permitted). Watch out, if you are a bishop, as ordaining someone without permission is also an offence. It's not clear whether laymen can ordain people without permission.

Slapping heretics is allowed.

But let's be realistic, if Fr James Martin LGBTSJ and the blessed Joseph Biden are in no danger of excommunication, you can be Catholic in any way you like. Strictly speaking, Catholics should do saved person stuff once in a while - prayers, Mass, Confession, reading this blog, ... but you'd be surprised how many Top Catholics simply don't bother!

Bi-elzebub appoints Ka-Moloch as his running mate

As the battle of Armageddon draws closer, the demon candidate Joe Bi-elzebub has finally nominated Ka-Moloch as his running-mate. He had a rich field to choose from, although he had already stipulated that the successful candidate should be female, black-hearted and infinitely evil. Would it be Elizabeth Apollyon, Susan Baal, or even the joke candidate, Alexandria Occasional-Serpent?

"Small lives don't matter" Ka-Moloch, with her lunch.

In the end, it is Ka-Moloch who gets the job, possibly because she agrees with Joe Bi-elzebub on the main Catholic issues: they are both great fans of the family organization Planned Dismemberment, and they both believe that marriage can be between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, or - for the real eccentrics - a man and a woman.

POW! The bishop tells it as it is.

The battle of Armageddon is expected to be a close-run thing. St Maga and his angels have some faults too (saints are allowed to) - although for them the trend is probably heavenward rather than in the opposite direction - and so many pious Catholics (St James the LGBTSJ, St Massimo the Bean, and St Colbert the Jokeless) are still backing Joe.

I promised not to comment on Camela's Botox injections.

Anyway, now that Joe has got his sidekick sorted out, his only problem is to get elected before his wits fade away entirely put forward a positive Catholic agenda for Armageddon, containing lots of imaginative plans for the slaughter of innocents. Should be fun!

Author's note: If Joe was simply a psychopathic baby-killer, I wouldn't mind, but being a Catholic psychopathic baby-killer is too much.

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Addendum: an improved picture from @eoros1012.

Bishop Tobin makes a humble apology

Bishop Thomas Tobin (not to be confused with Cardinal Joe Nighty-Night Tobin, whose views are rather different) managed to upset a lot of people by reminding Catholics that Gay Pride events are an invention of the Devil, and that people taking part will be assigned to the Lake of Fire faster than you can say "James Martin."

Being a bishop, he did not use those exact words (although St Paul would certainly have done). Since this blog has now decided to become a work of accurate record, following an embarrassing incident in which people were led to believe that Prof. Massimo Faggioli was actually a Count Massimo Faggioli, we are posting the original tweet verbatim.

Oops... Bishop accidentally reminds people of Catholic teaching.

Anyway, after an outcry from the Catholic community worldwide (including Piers Morgan, ha ha ha), the good bishop has backpedalled with the standard non-apology, which goes along these lines:

I deeply regret that you are such a load of wusses that you throw a wobbly whenever a bishop reminds you of Catholic teaching. I can only apologise sincerely, by saying "Keep your hissy fits to yourselves, you brood of vipers, and go to confession!"

This backtracking appears to have satisfied everyone, and is being spun as BISHOP SUPPORTS LGBT EVENTS AFTER ALL, TOBIN WITHDRAWS HOMOPHOBIC ABUSE, and TOP CATHOLIC SAYS "CAN I COME ALONG?"

Bishop Thomas Tobin

In next week's news: Bishop Tobin advises that theft is against Catholic teaching, and is justly condemned by the TBRPPBMEF (thieves, bank robbers, pick-pockets, muggers, embezzlers and frauds) community.