Is James Martin the Church on Earth?

The Catholic Church is probably unique in having, at any time, a single person on Earth who embodies it, is treated with universal respect and deference, and who is relied upon for a blizzard steady stream of writings, sermons, aeroplane interviews, etc. After all, the Anglicans do not refer to Archbishop Justin Welby as the "Holy Father", and, since they have no agreed doctrines, they cannot call on him for guidance.

The Quakers do have a "Holy Father", but he does not say much in a non-porridgeal context.

Some Catholics have thought that Pope Francis was the Head of the Church, but this is clearly wrong. Indeed, we have the following guidance from the blessed Austen Ivereigh to put us straight: “Francis is increasingly reflecting the style, temperament, attitudes of the majority of the Catholics." This is worrying, if true, as it suggests that the Pope is lazy, bad-tempered, and selfish, hardly ever goes to church, and disagrees with Catholic teaching on homosexuality, divorce, abortion, etc. (at least, if we are to take senior American Catholics as our model).

Austen Ivereigh, on Al-Jazeera, says he cannot eat another sheep's eye.

Luckily, Pope Francis is not the true head of the Church, and there has come someone whose ballet shoes he is not worthy to kiss. Yes, it is Fr James Martin LGBTSJ, the expert on building bridges, who can develop new Catholic teaching at the drop of a rainbow-striped biretta.

Blasphemy? Heresy? Or simply top-quality trolling?

Fr Jim tweeted a similar sentiment last year and was roundly condemned for it (I think this was the occasion of his blocking me on Twitter). Still, good heresies never die*, and he has repeated the same nonsense this year.

* The blessed Austen claims that the Pope's reforms "recover a deeper tradition in the Church", which sounds like a revival of the 2nd Century organization "Gnostic Voices".

So we must conclude that Fr Jim the bridge-builder (Pontifex absurdus in Latin) embodies the Catholic Church. Better than that, he *is* the Church.

Move over, Supreme Quaker, we have our own spiritual leader!

Catholic Church to accept Gospel of Judas

For the first time since the 4th Century AD, the Catholic Church has agreed to add a new book to the Bible, namely the gnostic Gospel of Judas. This book, which consists of informal conversations between Our Lord and the disciple Judas Iscalfariot, contains new and exciting teaching that in places seems to contradict what we learn from the rest of the Bible.

Iscalfariot, or possibly St Jerome of Corbyn

According to Our Lord's new teaching, as reported by Iscalfariot, marriage is no great shakes, really, and adultery is nothing to worry about. Certainly remarried divorcees should be admitted to Communion: the only question is whether it is really appropriate to admit those married couples who quarrel occasionally but have not yet taken the Christian way out - divorce.

With the Catholic Church accepting the Gospel of Judas, the question arises whether other Christian denominations will follow suit. The Anglicans, in fact, are way ahead of the Catholics, as they all believe unquestioningly in the very exciting 39 Articles: of these, one - "the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction" - is now becoming very popular among certain Catholic bishops as well.

"I heard that."

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In other news, Cardinal Walter Kasper is due to give a lecture in Durham tomorrow, as part of the Tablet's 175th anniversary celebrations. Many of Walter Kasper's most loyal fans are bitterly disappointed to hear this news - saying that being associated with the Tablet may well harm the good cardinal's reputation as a pillar of orthodoxy.

"The Tablet? Are you sure that it's a totally orthodox magazine?"

A similar problem arose when pianist and composer Stephen Hough was commissioned to write a piano sonata for the Tablet's anniversary. We have not heard the piece yet, but we understand that it is programmatic in style, beginning with music that is strongly Catholic in flavour, based on Gregorian chant, and then suddenly degenerating in the last few bars into a depiction of Chaos and Hell. What could he possibly have been trying to say?

"This bit depicts a Witches' Sabbath."