How do saved persons vote?

In the UK, we are in the grip of election fever, and many of my readers are struggling to decide which party or parties to vote for. When you see the policies now considered acceptable by almost all parties: abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, sending children up chimneys, recapturing Calais, exporting all British ducks to Mars, taxing custard, making it compulsory to recycle all used socks, independence for Scunthorpe, free orange juice for Damian Thompson, locking up all bald people, exiling Stephen Fry to Fiji, ... you realise that nobody has any policies that a saved person could support. Except perhaps the one about Stephen Fry.

This is how a saint votes. Note the expression of distaste.

The main question at present seems to be "Do I listen to Bishop Kenney, who says that UKIP is unsaved, or do I listen to Bishop Egan, who reckons that practically every politician is unsaved?" At a more basic level, is the European Union the New Jerusalem prophesied in the Book of Revelation, or is it the new Babylon, to be consumed by fire? I don't know: perhaps it's somewhere in between the two.

"Roger Helmer says he can beat up the two of us single-handed."

We come now to the question of Romanians: are they saved? For some reason, these have been singled out by some as the worst Europeans to have as your neighbours. Here, however, I have some personal experience.

Our new next-door neighbour.

Recently, a Romanian nobleman, the Earl of Dracula, moved in next door to us. He's basically a very quiet person, and apparently works nights. Indeed, I never see him in the day time, although occasionally he drops round in the evening and asks to borrow a cup of blood

Apparently, our neighbour supports the Romanian Independence Party.

Basically, he's a model neighbour and I don't see what all the fuss is about. I've got other problems: my Brother Bosco, who has a habit of saying "Bite Me!" whenever he loses an argument (which is most of the time), seems to have gone missing. I do hope he hasn't been annoying the Earl of Dracula.

Finally, to answer the question raised in this post: go to the polling-booth, write "unsaved" against the name of every candidate standing, and write "only I is saved" at the bottom of the ballot-paper.

No other course of action is possible. Indeed, if you look carefully at the photo of Padre Pio, you can see that he did precisely that.

St Daryl's church news

Fr Arthur writes:

I want to thank you all for your contributions to St Daryl's mission to Aspatria, which, we are told, is one of the poorest countries in the world. Thanks to your generosity, we have been able to send them a brand new state-of-the-art wheelie bin, so that they may benefit from the rubbish-disposal facilities that we all take for granted in the developed world. The bin (nicknamed "Arthur" by the grateful Aspatrians) is featured on this year's St Daryl's Christmas card.

St Daryl's Christmas card. Well done, we're making a difference!

In return, the Aspatrians, who are very pious Catholics, have sent us a sack of delicious sheeps' eyes as a goodwill present. Help yourselves after the Mass!

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We regret that Mr and Mrs Delingpole, formerly regular communicants at St Daryl's, have been excommunicated, and will not be allowed in church again. In my absence last Saturday I delegated the hearing of Confessions to Mrs Thacker, my cleaning lady (and perhaps our future bishop - who knows?) and she discovered that the Delingpole family had admitted to finding a UKIP leaflet "quite interesting, really." Naturally, we notified the police, social services and the drugs squad, but we felt we should set an example too, and so I have provisionally excommunicated the entire Delingpole family, including their late grandmother Doris, whose gravestone has been removed from the cemetery as a precautionary measure.

The Delingpole family home, after a visit from social services.

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Highlights of Fr Arthur's sermon:

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. Now what do we think of when we hear the word "King?" A 2-metre statue? No, I said "King," not "Küng," Eamon. Let me help you, we think of someone important, perhaps

Aye, every inch a king!

No, Tina, you still haven't quite got the idea. We are more likely to be thinking of someone who sits on a throne. Perhaps someone like this:

"I do think Boris might have let me sit on his throne. And he's late again."

So when we come into church we should show respect to Christ the King. Cries of "Yo! God!" are helpful (indeed, that's the chorus of a hymn we'll be singing later), but you could also give a little friendly wave in the general direction of the sanctuary. We aren't supposed to genuflect since the days of Vatican II!

Now I want us all to join in this traditional ethnic hymn to Christ the King:

Everybody dance cos we gotta King!
Everybody dance cos we gotta King!
Clap your hands cos we gotta King!
Clap your hands cos we gotta King!

Clap your hand cos we gotta King!

Twist and shout cos we gotta King!
Twist and shout cos we gotta King!
Roll on the floor cos we gotta King!
Roll on the floor cos we gotta King!

Roll on the floor cos we gotta King!

Right, now if you'd like to pick yourselves up off the floor, we'll recite the Creed - or at least the bits we take seriously.

We is comin to Enggland

We was rellaxin in Anti Moly's huose in Stickybeak Street one evenin. I was queitly readin Damain Thopmson's blogg and wonderin whevver UKIP was saved, and Anti Moly was watchin her favuorite programm on de telly, which is Benny Hill cos he does de Yakety-Sax music at de end where he gets chased by lotsa girls. She fuond it much more soothin dan de prevviuos programm, which was an interveiw wiv Cradinal Pell abuot de menttal probblems dat old ladies suffer - when she saw him she screemed "Woeful!" and frew her flase teeth at de telly.

We gotta knock on de door and a strangley familair cosstume lawman was standin there.

"G'day, g'day, g'day!" he said, dis bein wot Austrialan police is trained to say. "Molly Badnite alias Judy Headache, we has been gettin dozens of compliants about you bein a  public niusance. Why doesnt you go away for a while, so dat we aint forced to arrest you?"

So my dere Anti decided dat we wuold vissit Enggland, which is where Anti's ancesstors came from until dey was sent off to Bottany Bay. We made a list of all de poeple we wuold try and visit, dat Moly has said she reely admires, such as Damain Thopmson, St Cuttley, Richard Dakwins, Tina Beattie, de Duchess Camila, Tom Chivvers, and so on. We got a good range of celebritties dere, includdin de devuot and saintly like Cuttley and Thopmson, de loonies like Beattie and Dakwins, and de braney types like Chivvers and Camila.

However, Anti gave me a warnin about Enggland, as we walked down de street to de shops: "Dem Pommie bastards is all racists, Eccles. Dey aint multicultured and tollerant like we is." Kickin a passin abboriginal wot had strayed onto de pavement, she continnued: "Look at dere spellin, for instance. Dey is racist cos dey tells off Americans for spellin baddly." Pussonally, I aint never had a probblem wiv spellin, so I didnt reely understand wot she was gettin at.

Dat's a pitcher of my Anti Moly in a bad mood, some poeple says dat she ressembles Dr Jonhson slightly. Sometimes I feels like Boswell takin down de immotral words of Jonhson, cos my Anti never reely stops producin purls of wissdom, like de epiggrams above. I admits dat dey is a bit repettitive, like when she says "ROFL" half a dozen times. I don't fink Jonhson said "ROFL" except on specail occasoins. Also dere is a limmit to how many times you can prettend dat "Such is life" is a new and strikin obversation on de humman conditoin. De way of a boigrapher aint so easy.

Our freind Damain Thopmson have got a new book out soon, which Bosco and me helped him write when he visitted us in Lost Angels. Anti Moly finks we mihgt go and see him sing coppies of it, but she promissed she wont take a few locks of his hair as souvennirs, like she did wiv poor old Cuttley.

In Enggland dey got a delickacy called an Eccles cake. I hopes it is better dan de Austrialan delickacy known as de Moly cake, which is pretty repullsive, frankly. Eatin dem widgety grubbs is an acquirred taste.

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?