German bishops recalled in mission scandal

The company Volksbischof has been forced to recall its entire stock of Catholic bishops, after tests proved that they had been deceiving people about the quality of their missions. In everyday situations there was a distinct whiff of sulphur about their teachings, which the bishops successfully concealed whenever they were inspected closely.

Unholy smoke! A German bishop leads his flock astray.

Said a spokesman, "I have had my doubts about the Kasper 2.0 and the Marx 1.6 for some time. I was also concerned that if I drove them in hilly countryside, they would rush out of control down a slippery slope without any hope of stopping. From now on I'm getting a steady reliable Burkemobile!"

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Meanwhile, in other news, Cardinal Vincent Nichols has been trying to answer this question: What do the Catholic church's most devoted members believe? As a "process of discernment", the bishops of England and Wales have been taking soundings and the results are shocking.

According to the survey, 90% of Catholics are dissatisfied with the Church. But there's more!

Vincent Nichols looks for loopholes in the Bible.

90% of the most devoted Catholics are members of ACTA, the organization for stirring up dissent in the Catholic Church.

90% of the most devoted Catholics are Tablet readers.

90% of the most devoted Catholics never attend Mass, except for special "gay" masses.

90% of Catholics are still whingeing about the word "communion" in the new translation of the missal.

90% of the most devoted Catholics want Vincent Nichols to be the next pope.

90% of the most devoted Catholics are over 80 years old.

Indeed, 90% of the most devoted Catholics say they would be happier as Protestants.

Cardinal Nichols believes that the survey is statistically meaningful; if so, then the inescapable conclusion is that the Catholic Church needs to drop its pretence of being "religious" and become a secular charity with aims similar to Stonewall or BPAS. You read it here first.

The Tablet's survey on the Family Synod

A revised version of something else. Any accusations that the survey is slanted towards getting the answers that the Tabletistas prefer are clearly baseless.

Explaining family life to the Synod.

1. Married couples will address the bishops every day of the Synod. Which most closely reflects your view?

• I'd rather hear from same-sex couples.
• Chuck out all the bishops and let Mrs Pepinster decide things.
• The bishops would learn more by watching Eastenders.

2. How can the Church best support families? Select up to three options.

• Rewrite all the church's teaching on sex.
• Recognise that the church shouldn't be teaching at all.
• Organize gay dating events.
• Give Kieran Conry a new role looking after distressed wives.
• Sponsor the Tablet to print photos of Page 3 lovelies.
• Offer family-friendly Masses with the religious bits removed.
• Who cares? The "family" is an obsolete idea.

A family-friendly Mass.

3. Do you believe that in an ideal world a child should be brought up by a father and a mother?

• No, a she-wolf was good enough for Romulus and Remus.
• No, a child should have 3 parents, one of them trans-sexual.
• No, "parents" is a traddy idea that was rejected by Vatican II.
• Yes, provided that the father and mother may each be of either sex, or none, or both.

5. Do you pray with your child(ren)?

• Pray? What's that?
• Only when they have exams coming up.
• No, but we watch Songs of Praise.
• No, but we read the Tablet's wine column and then get drunk together.
• No as I don't want to indoctrinate them in outmoded forms of worship such as prayer when many secular alternatives are available such as the music of Paul Inwood the beauty of liturgical dancing and doing one's own thing...

6. Do you talk to your child(ren) about faith?

• Yes, I read to them from the works of Hans Küng.
• No, since I am a Tablet-reader, and as such do not have any particular faith.
• Yes, as a child of the 1960s I have all the discs of Adam Faith.

That's as close to faith as we get round here.

7. If you are a divorced and remarried Catholic whose marriage has not been annulled, do you:

• Receive communion and hope nobody notices.
• Receive communion because my priest doesn't care who turns up.
• Turn up to church but try to trip up other people as they push past me to take communion how dare they try and feel superior...
• Stay away from church because obviously God is at fault.
• I am not a divorced and remarried Catholic, but I am working on it.

8. Is a couple’s decision to cohabit

• An indication that we should drop the sacrament of marriage.
• Not worth worrying about, unless one of them is a bishop.
• Unambitious - why don't they have a foursome with the neighbours?
• None of the church's business.

9. What do you hope will be the consequences of the current synod on the family and next year's? (Tick as many as apply.)

• Cardinal Kasper for Pope!
• The Church to allow every possible marriage as a sacrament, irrespective of the number of people involved or their sexes.
• Take-over of the Catholic Church by the Anglicans.
• Adultery to be re-classed as a cardinal virtue.
• ACTA to be allowed to run the Church.

"Once we stopped the EF Mass, we tried everything else: clowns, puppets, the tango..."

10. What is your marital status?

• Civil partnership involving three men and an elephant.
• Married, but I've locked my other half in the garden shed.
• Infatuated with Tina Beattie, but I know we can only ever be good friends.
• Divorced/beheaded/died/divorced/beheaded/survived.
• Married to myself.
• Can't remember.

Oh, I do love myself!

11. Where do you live?

• Westminster.
• Arundel and Brighton.
• Blackfen.
• Roehampton.
• Gallifrey.
• Somewhere normal.

A homily from Fr Arfur

Hello, it's wonderful to see so many people in the church of St Daryl the Apostate this Sunday. It's been a busy week, with four festivals in a row: All Oween, All Saints, All Souls and today - as decreed by the Bishops' conference - All Fools Day.

Fr Arfur

Well the events of Thursday 31st October are best forgotten, and the person who shouted "Great zombie costume!" at Fr Phil when he came into church would be well advised to apologise. Although they weren't to know that he had just tripped over his cassock and fallen into a puddle while practising his liturgical dance steps on the way to Mass.

On Friday we celebrated All Saints: we looked at the track records of the saints throughout the ages and decided that we could probably do better than that bunch of dreadful traddies. Yesterday was All Souls, and it was good to see that at least three people under the age of 70 turned up to Mass. We apologise to old Mrs Moly Bendite for wrongly claiming that she was dead - still, at least a night in a coffin seems to have done her no permanent harm.

So, we come to today, All Fools Day, on which occasion we remember fools throughout the ages.

The bishop gets into the spirit of All Fools Day.

Now, as I was preparing for Mass, I read the sad story of Richard Dawkins, who is furious because a jar of honey was confiscated from him at airport security. Naturally, he blames religion for this, although this time it is our Muslim brethren - the late Mr Bin Laden - rather than the Catholic church that is responsible. But in a real sense are we not all responsible for the fact that the land of Dawkins is no longer flowing with milk and honey?

Never mind, Richard, the bees in your bonnet will make you some more honey!

Now today's Gospel reading contains just one message for us: it is a story about Zacchaeus, a person of restricted growth, climbing a tree. Members of our differently-heighted community have naturally condemned it as Achondroplasiaphobic Hate Crime, so we'll move on.

A piece of offensive bigotry.

As you may know, the Bishop's Conference is urging you to respond to a survey on divorce, same-sex marriage and contraception. I do urge you to take part in this - there are 666 easy-to-answer questions, and it should not take you more than about three weeks to finish it. With a new man in the Vatican, we naturally expect a total rewriting of Catholic teaching, and Pope Francis is anxious to be told what he should believe from now on. Perhaps he has already phoned up some of you to ask your advice?

Well, that's all we have time for. Just a reminder that there will be a retiring collection in aid of ACTA, the organization that is attempting to bring the church back into the 1960s, where it truly belongs!

The ACTA magazine - affiliated to the Tablet.

Tabloid survey on the new Mass translation

Not to be taken more than once a year.

Hello there, we at the Tabloid are conducting a totally impartial survey on the new translation of the liturgy (or "New Mass" as we call it). Please choose an option from each of the following.

1. The liturgy reached perfection in...
(a) 1973, when we finally got rid of Latin forever;
(b) 2011, when we introduced a rubbish translation with 
hard words in it;
(c) it will never reach perfection until Paul Inwood is 
given a free hand.

2. Which of the following do you prefer...
(a) "And also with you," friendly and polite;
(b) "And with your spirit," because I'm a pompous old fogey;
(c) "Yeah, right, mate, whatever."

3. When you say "...through my fault, through my fault, 
through my most grievous fault" do you...
(a) strike your breast, like a foolish old traddy;
(b) grin, knowing that the words are not to be taken literally;
(c) our priest skips this bit and we do a liturgical dance instead.

It was YOUR most grievous fault. Got that?

4. How well does the priest manage to say the new 
Eucharistic Prayers... 
(a) he gets them wrong, and corrects himself;
(b) he uses the old prayers because he is imbued with 
the spirit of Vatican II;
(c) he uses his own words ("mug" instead of "chalice" and 
"OK, there's coffee next door" instead of "Go forth, the 
Mass is ended."

Just as good as a "chalice."

5. How often do you see people around you in the pews still 
struggling to follow the new text? 
(a) always, with cries of "Help! What does 'consubstantial' 
mean, again?"
(b) never, because they still say the old one;
(c) er, we've not had anyone attending Mass since the 1970s. 

6. Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof?
(a) Oh yes I am;
(b) Oh no I'm not;
(c) What does this question mean, anyway?

7. Latin is the work of...
(a) the Devil;
(b) the Pope, whom we must resist at all costs;
(c) Julius Caesar, but what's he got to do with the Mass?

It's all his fault.

8.Are you reading the Tabloid because you are...
(a) an escaped lunatic;
(b) a layman in good standing;
(c) a miserable deacon who likes insulting people;
(d) a go-ahead liberal priest;
(e) a bishop/archbishop/cardinal;
(f) the Pope, Hans Küng, or someone of equal status?