Pope to ask CDF about the history of trolling

Pope Francis has said that the historical role of trolls in the Catholic Church needs to be clarified, and he will ask the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith what is known.

The Pope told a meeting - not held on an aeroplane, for reasons unexplained - that the people described as trolls in the New Testament were mostly interested in inventing new interpretations of scripture, proposing new doctrine, and harassing the faithful.

Fr James Martin and Fr Thomas Rosica demonstrate what deaconesses might look like.

In the Acts of the Apostles, there is an explicit mention of trolls, as follows:

1. And there came unto Paul a troll, whose name was James, saying "Let us hear women preach in church."

2. "For then they can tell us their experiences during the Mass."

3. "For would it not be more fun to hear from Tina the Batty about her holiday in Corinth and her unusual ailments, than from Peter, with his perpetual droning on about Christ's teaching?"

4. Then Paul said, "No, actually, it would not. Do not be silly."

5. And James cried out, "Woe is me, for I have unleashed a torrent of misogyny!"

6. But Paul replied, "Actually, nearly all the women here seem to agree with me. Perchance they are misogynists too?"

The role of the troll in Church history is well-documented.

In 2001, the International Theological Commission, which advises the CDF, concluded that trolls in history were not normally allowed to serve as priests. Their usual function was to assist at baptisms, by hiding under bridges and jumping out at people.

Although some exceptions have slipped through, trolls are still generally forbidden from serving as priests in the Catholic Church. In extreme cases, they are silenced and never heard of again - as in the case of Tony Flannery (see his articles in Trolls and Trollmen and the Tablet, his speech to the Ballydancer Peat Farmers, and his latest book This is my final word on the subject until tomorrow).

Although Pope Francis's Jesuit training means that he is programmed never to give a straight answer to any question, commentators are not expecting Catholic teaching on trolls to change.

A distinguished theologian threatens his enemies with mercy.

Praying to be declared a "hate crime"

Following the news that the distinguished atheist Richard Dawkins has suffered a mild stroke (fear not, he will soon recover, and the only after-effects will be an inability to speak coherently, so no change there)... following this news, the Church of England, together with other organizations, has encouraged people to pray for Richard and his family (Romana, K9 the dog, and his hive of honey-bearing bees). The main argument from the Christian perspective is that Richard needs a bit more time to get his act together before going to meet his Maker, so let's give it to him.

The arch-troll of Canterbury, deliberately offending atheists.

However, supporters of Dawkins have accused such Christians of trolling, and it is clear that the only way this situation can be resolved is if praying for atheists is declared to be a "hate crime". Police will be given the powers to raid private homes and confiscate laptops in the search for prayer lists and other evidence of "hate prayers".

Already it is considered culturally insensitive to wish people "Happy Christmas", rather than "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings", and those of my readers who annually send Richard Dawkins a card saying "May you have a Holy and Blessed Christmas you silly old goat" should stop that sort of thing.

Personally, I welcome prayers from Christians. If people with less refined beliefs wish to pray to stone idols, sacred donkeys or Prince Philip, then I promise not to be offended.

"O Prince Philip, bless thy servant Dawkins, we pray!"

In other news, it has been revealed that a genuine Christian, Dan Walker, has been appointed to host the BBC's prestigious breakfast show Get off the sofa, you lazy slob, and go to work.

This is a controversial appointment since not only is it virtually certain that Mr Walker is guilty of hate crime (praying) in his spare time, but also, since he is a Christian, he must believe that snakes can talk, that wine-making is done by pouring water into large pots, and that the blind can be cured by having mud rubbed into their eyes. No doubt also he believes in the great Sky Fairy, which no intelligent person has ever done - well, except for Shakespeare, Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Beethoven, Tolkien, ... oh make your own list.

Clear off! We want someone impartial like Stephen Fry!

How to understand atheists

Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of atheists: trolls, obsessives, and ignorant people. Curiously, most of them use the same catchphrases when debating, so it is not always easy to tell them apart. Having encountered a few of them yesterday, I think I am ready to explain how we more intelligent and well-informed people can help them.

You believe in sky fairies!

Mentioning "sky fairies" or "invisible friends" is a sure sign of a troll who has made no attempt to understand what it is that Christians believe in. Other good terms of abuse are "men in dresses" (actually, having gatecrashed the Vatican changing-rooms, I can reveal that most priests wear trousers under their vestments) and the old favourite "all made up by bronze-age goatherds", as if it were not possible for philosophers and goatherds to live at the same time. Remember, that Richard Dawkins wrote a thesis on the behaviour of chickens, and may thus be described as a plastic-age chicken-herd. That's him sorted.

"You believe in talking snakes."

The "talking snake" refutation of all Christian thinking goes as follows: "Snakes can't talk. Therefore the Bible is fiction. So Jesus never existed. I win."

Either your atheist has read the Bible as far as the Garden of Eden story and then stopped, or else has lifted this argument straight from the works of Richard Dawkins. It doesn't occur to him or her that a God who made Heaven and Earth could easily endow a snake with the power of speech (or perform any other miracle, such as the Virgin Birth). That's what omnipotence is all about, you see. Nor does it occur to him that it is not necessary to believe in the literal truth of the Genesis story to realise that it has a meaning. You know, the Fall of Man, that sort of thing.

Worse than that, your atheist believes that Christians DO NOT KNOW that snakes can't talk. Not being trained scientists (although many are), Christians are not able to understand this simple fact. It must be true that Augustine and Aquinas - of whom your atheist probably hasn't even heard - went through life talking to snakes and wondering why they didn't reply.

"Bad things happen. So God doesn't exist and I hate Him."

This is of course the "Stephen Fry" version of atheism. Stephen Fry is not entirely dim - a 2.1 from Cambridge must be nearly as good as a 2.1 from Oxford - but he does seem to be woefully ignorant. After a lifetime of reading quiz answers off little cards and getting an undeserved reputation for being the biggest genius who ever lived, Fry is apparently unable to deal with any concept that requires more than a little card to explain. Again, he thinks that nobody before him has ever worried about why God permits death and disease, or even about why He permits every single radio and television programme to be infested by a certain charmless bore who thinks bad language is funny.

"You eat shellfish, and so it's perfectly OK for me to have sex with anyone I wish.

Yes, it's another poorly-informed atheist, or maybe just a troll or an obsessive. No, Christians aren't bound by the dietary laws of Leviticus, they've been explicitly superseded by the New Covenant. Yes, murder, adultery, theft, and the like are still considered to be wrong. I don't think I can face explaining this one again: come back when you've read some of the New Testament.

An atheist (reading Eccles's blog, as it happens).

One final argument goes something like this: "All right, then. The Bible isn't historical, because all the people who contributed to it believed in God. Why don't we have some accounts of Jesus's life, death and resurrection written by eye-witnesses who were atheists? You suppressed those, didn't you?" Somehow, I think it's not really necessary to answer that one.

Mass for the Twitterati

Priest: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Worshipper 1: Very good. I'll retweet that. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Troll 1: Why don't you just crawl off and die? I'm going to kidnap your hamster and make it into a pie.

There's no use looking sweet. They're out to get you.

Worshipper 2: Just block him, Father.

Troll 2: Admit it, you're a sockpuppet of Eccles living simultaneously in Brighton, Corby and Spain.

Worshipper 3: Amen.

Worshipper 1: Very good. I'll retweet that. Amen.

Worshipper 4: I've got a dreadful cold and the bus was late and there was a dirty old man on it smelling of haddock.

Worshipper 5: So the restaurant said "Yes, we do take-aways" and I replied "O.K. then, what's 97 minus 61?"

Worshipper 6: ROFL. Or do I mean LOL?

Worshipper 7: 46. No - it's 36.

Troll 3: All Catholics are vile you know. Richard Dawkins calls them "faith-heads". Which proves it.

Worshipper 2: I'm blocking you too.

Richard is wearing his "tasteless shirt of the day".

Priest: If I may continue?

Troll 2: Eccles has got 4 young daughters and 4 donkeys. I have the evidence.

Priest: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Worshipper 8: Shouldn't that be "fellowship"?

Worshipper 9: No, Catherine. When did you last go to Mass?

Worshipper 8: 95% of Tablet readers no longer attend Mass. I blame Arthur Roche - he did the new translation.

The guilty party.

Troll 2: Arthur Roche wouldn't let me become a priest, so I put on a biretta and sang rugby songs outside his bedroom window at 3 a.m.

Worshipper 2: I've blocked you.

Worshipper 3: And with your spirit.

Worshipper 1: Very good. I'll retweet that. And with your spirit.

Priest: Is the right answer!

Worshipper 1: Very good. I'll retweet that. Is the right answer!

Troll 1: Then I'll steal the Eccles cakes from your kitchen and jump on them.

After a troll attack.

Worshipper 10: Have you seen the "Our new heresy of the week" column in this week's Tablet?

Worshipper 11: No, my father won't have it in the house.

Priest: Brethren, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

Worshipper 2: I've blocked you, Father. No, that can't be right.

Troll 4: Mysteries? You mean Agatha Christie? ROFL.

Priest: Oh, why do I bother?

Worshipper 1: Very good. I'll retweet that...

Rent-a-troll

Hello, Damian. Speak later...

Many people only write blog posts when they have something interesting to say, and they are not too concerned with the number of hits they get. Others, however, are under contract to write 1000 words each week, and they lie awake at night worrying about their hit count.

Things are particularly bad at the Daily Telegraph, where the influx of a new generation of unreadable bloggers has made the blogs editor look very foolish. Some bloggers have been very successful - for example, cheeky Tom Chivers knows precisely what his largely conservative audience wants to hear, and writes exactly the opposite. Although he tries to give the impression that he spends his days discussing Che Guevara while drifting along in a cannabis-induced haze, the fact is that he is a stalwart of his local Conservative club; most days he takes the 7.53 from Surbiton, wearing a pin-striped suit and carrying a rolled-up umbrella.

Tom Chivers and his friends on their way to work.

Other bloggers recruited have been less successful. William Handsome, the etiquette correspondent, recently hit the scene with a fascinating post on "Should you blow your nose on your neighbour's sleeve in the Underground?" however, his follow-up post, "Dropping your trousers in church is only for Harrovians and other oiks," was rejected for being too Catholic.

A Harrovian is removed from the Brompton Oratory.

Which brings us to poor Damian Thompson, author of a book on addiction called Apologia Pro Vita Sua or, in the English translation, I'm sorry, I can't stop eating Ryvitas. Reduced to writing Saturday columns of ever-increasing fatuousness, he took the unusual step of hiring Phil Istine, a professional troll, in order to keep discussions going on his blog.

Phil Istine is a solitary man, whose main hobbies are snooker, drinking, and stealing underwear off people's washing lines. But he has a dazzling array of anti-Catholic sockpuppets, designed to provoke the traditional readership of the "Holy Smoke" blog into paroxysms of rage.

"I like to maintain an on-line presence," says Phil.

Among Phil's 100+ sockpuppets are such memorable characters as Phil, the lapsing Catholic, who hates traditionalism; Daryl, the faithful post-Vatican II Catholic, who hates traditionalism; Deborah, the liberal Anglican, who wants women bishops and hates traditionalism; Pau, the homosexual priest who stalks other posters and hates traditionalism; and Wendy, the lovestruck girl who wants to seduce a monk, but - and this is a neat touch - hates traditionalism.

Phil is of course immune from banning, as he is on the Telegraph payroll; moreover, anyone who criticises him or points out what he is doing is also banned. "I've had a good bag recently," boasts Phil. "Two Anglican priests, one retired schoolmaster, a young wife, and a Welsh anaesthetist. The more respected they are, the harder they fall!"

J.B. Priestley - banned because his writing put Damian's to shame.

Others who are immune to banning, as their witless remarks make Damian look good in comparison, are the notoriously senile Australian harridan "Anti Moly," or molybdenite (herself a skilled user of sockpuppets), and her sidekick MickyRoss the biologist, who recently pleaded guilty to 24 sample charges of mollusc-molesting.

But Damian's days are surely numbered, and, if so, then Phil will be looking for a new outlet for his trolling skills. If you can, please offer him a job on your blog.

Stockport bus station. Hang around here, and you'll soon find Phil.