Ricky Gervais slams the Vatican

The host of this year's Holy-wood "Golden Globes" award ceremony, Fr Richard Gervais, best known for his comedy show "The Holy Office", was taking no prisoners this week.

It was clear that he did not like any of the films or actors winning awards, and he did not hesitate to say so, accusing most of them of blasphemy and hypocrisy.

Fr Richard Gervais.

"Look at The Pachamama Synod," he said. "This has been nominated for numerous awards. The plot involves Catholics praising wooden idols, which are then thrown into the Tiber. But look at the wooden actors we had singing praises to the idols - not one of them would pass for a real Catholic. The producer missed a trick too - in real life it is the worshippers who would have been thrown into the river."

Wooden actors singing to a wooden idol.

"Another unbelievably bad film is The Two Popes," he added, "which stars old Joe Ratzinger and Jorge Bergoglio. We see this Benedict character voluntarily going into retirement, to spend his declining years in praying and drinking beer. Meanwhile, we are asked to believe that this implausible 'Francis' character is elected Pope and promptly proceeds to demolish the Ten Commandments, one by one. What a display of overacting from Jorge! No real pope has behaved like that in two thousand years!"

The famous endurance scene - which pope will stand up first?

"I hope that no awards are given to The China Syndrome," continued Fr Richard. "This is a film in which control of the Catholic Church in China is given over to a murderous dictatorial regime. The Chinese lock up Catholic priests, appoint their own, and rewrite the Nicene Creed so that it is all about that arch-villain Chairman Mao. The scene in which Pietro Parolin rolls on the ground and lets the Chinese tickle his tummy is totally disgusting. Jorge Bergoglio's cameo role slapping a Chinese pilgrim was also a highly inappropriate bit of comedy in what is supposed to be a serious film."

Spot the mistakes.

In the end it turned out that the only film that Fr Gervais has liked was The Fat Cardinals, in which two overweight prelates engage in Sumo wrestling. "Timmy Dolan and Rhino Marx were never very convincing when they were miscast in religious roles," he said. "Casting them as overweight lumps of lard was a stroke of genius."

Dolan and Marx get to grips!

Fr Richard repeated his condemnation of the hypocrisy of the cardinals present, who he said had been totally neglecting their roles as shepherds of the sheep. It is not thought that he will be invited to next year's ceremony, and maybe someone less controversial such as Carlo Maria Viganò will host it instead.

Pope forces Dalai Lama to resign

After his brilliant triumph in bluffing Fra' Matthew Festing, the Grandmaster of the Knight of Malta, into resigning (in spite of the fact that he actually has no jurisdiction over the Order of Malta), Pope Francis has decided to "go nuclear" and force some further resignations.

(Incidentally, we can reveal exclusively that, seeing the clownish antics of Maltese Bishops Scicluna and Grech, one of the pope's advisers rushed in to see him, saying "The fools! They've given the game away!" Owing to a clerical error, Pope Francis got tough with the "wrong" Malta, and poor Fra' Festing was the unhappy victim.)

In the end, the plan to settle things by Sumo wrestling came to nothing.

"So who else can we push over the edge?" asked Francis of his advisers. They soon came up with a list.

1. The Dalai Lama. It is very doubtful whether the pope has any authority in this case either, but the man is a definite rival. He really is humble and benevolent, and his platitudes are better than the pope's. Of course that would involve the appointment of a new Dalai Lama, but there is one obvious person, with a long experience of writing banalities: Bryony Gordon of the Dalai Telegraph!

2. Kim Jong-un must go. Francis has long pledged to reform the North Curia (memo, check spelling), and Kim is one of the few people who treats dissidents even more ruthlessly than Francis does. To take over this hereditary position, it was advisable to choose someone from the Kim family, so Kim Kar-dashian was the obvious choice.

The new woman in North Curia.

3. "I'm the pope and everything Catholic is under my direct command," says Francis, and so all people running organizations described as "Catholic" are expecting a rude phone call at 4 a.m. This includes Catholic Voices, the Catholic Herald, CAFOD, and cattlegrids.com (the pope's strong Argentinian accent may be responsible for this last one). It does not include the National Catholic Reporter, where the "Catholic" is well known to be an honorific title unrelated to its real activities.

Austen Ivereigh (seen here with Fr Rosica), may get a new job making cattle grids.

4. Last, but not least, Donald Trump is under threat from the pope. Although the USA is not under papal jurisdiction, some of the pope's best friends, such as Fr James Martin SJ, are still in shock that dear Hillary Clinton was so rudely rejected by the electorate. The prospect of Fr Jim taking part in a Women's March in Rome, dressed as a lady's naughty bits, has so horrified the Holy Father that he will do almost anything to prevent this from happening.

BREAKING: a compromise has been found, whereby Fra' Matthew Festing will go quietly, but only if Pope Francis does too. Since neither of them has the right to sack the other, this seems to be the fairest solution.

O worship the pope!

We strongly recommend this video by Emily Clarke, which has been produced in honour of Pope Francis, due to visit Ireland next year to see whether there are any Catholics left there. It shows the best of modern Catholicism, pushing aside Jesus Christ in favour of an unqualified adoration of the Holy Father.

According to the lyrics, "The Lord kept his promise to us and sent us a treasure to see us safely home." This treasure being, er, the pope.

Shine, Francis, Shine!

Of course the pope, being a humble and modest man, has angrily written to sister Emily to tell her to delete her video, which anyone but the most arrogant of people would find rather embarrassing. Luckily, we still have some screen captures to see us safely home.

A quick change of dress mid-song, and we pose in front of the Tabernacle.

Actually, dear Emily may not have changed her dress in the middle of the song; it may be a trick of the light, like that ambiguous dress which, according to the Daily Mail, has "divided the Internet" because nobody is sure what colour it really is. And nobody really cares.

The first ascent of the north face without ropes. And another change of dress.

According to the song, the pope was chosen by God, as a leader for our times. Well, it was either God or the St Gallen Mafia, and we still haven't sorted out all the contradictions in the apostolic exhortation Austenis Iveria. But let's be charitable and suppose that the Holy Spirit spoke through Cormac Murphy-O'Connor when Francis was chosen.

Very dignified. Very tasteful. Oh, and the dress - what there is of it - is red.

Well, thank you very much, Emily. We'll let you know.

For those whose collection of Pope St Francis memorabilia is still not complete, we have another exhibit.

Santo sùbito! A miraculous medal.

Well, that's enough papalistic adoration for now. In fact, the medal I was given says "Insult us" on the back, and that does seem to be a more likely prospect.

However, we can report that the crisis involving the Knights of Malta seems to have been resolved. You will recall that it had reached an impasse, with the conversation reduced to "You have no authority to judge us." "Oh, yes we have!" "Oh no, you haven't!" etc. Finally, following my personal intervention, we have a solution.

Pope Francis and Fra’ Matthew Festing decide to settle things by sumo wrestling.