Letters to the Pope

Dear Holy Father,

I have been reading your guide Amoris Laetitia a little at a time, and eventually got to Paragraph 226, where it advises married couples to try a morning kiss, an evening blessing, waiting at the door to welcome each other home, taking trips together, and sharing household chores. So this morning I gave my wife Doris a morning kiss, and this evening I gave her an evening blessing. She asked me why I was suddenly behaving so strangely and accused me of having an affair.

I stormed out and went to the Jesuit's Arms pub for a refreshing pint of Reese and Martin's Old Peculier. However, Doris did welcome me home with a traditional blow from her rolling-pin when I came back later, so I feel that the Spirit of Amoris Laetitia has entered our home.

I have decided to surprise her tomorrow by sharing the household chores.

Ricky Fathead.

"Another satisfied customer!"

---

Dear Mr Pope,

We are happy to enclose your new Alitalia Catholic Diamond Membership Card. In addition to priority check-in and an extra baggage allowance, this card allows you to stand at the front of the aeroplane preaching on any subject you like: your words will be recorded and broadcast to the entire Catholic world for discussion, clarification, retraction, re-interpretation, and parody.

The Catholic Diamond Membership Card is a very rare privilege, and you are only the third top Catholic to be blessed by receiving this. The other two are of course Tony Blair and Joe Biden, and I am sure that you are delighted to have joined the company of such people.

Luigi Bertorelli (Alitalia Club Membership).

Pope Francis has finally arrived!

---

Dear Sir or Madam,

My husband Ricky Fathead has broken our washing-machine by attempting to wash the cats in it. His excuse was that Amoris Laetitia told him to do it. I am holding you personally responsible.

Doris Fathead (Mrs)

P.S. The cats are fine.

A victim of Amoris Laetitia.

---

Dear Holy Father,

We are puzzled by the following statement by your henchman Bishop Farrell, who is about to become head of the Vatican's new office for laity, family and life.

Although between us we have 50 D.Phil.s and a variety of other qualifications, we wish to admit defeat and put on record our opinion that Amoris Laetitia is too confusing for us. We know you did not write it all - and indeed have not read it all - but its wording is often ambiguous, and likely to lead some impressionable Jesuits into heresy.

Dr Joseph Shaw and lots of very puzzled co-signatories.

---

Dear Mr Bergoglio,

My wife has now left me, taking the cats with her. I blame Amoris Laetitia. So I have decide to leave the Catholic Church and become a Tablet-reader instead. Ha!

Ricky Fathead.

Britain is going to Hell, so let's help it along, says report

After two years of detailed analysis, a fancy commission, chaired by the retired judge Baroness Butler-Sloss, has noticed that, by and large Britain is going to Hell.

However, the brilliant Butler-Sloss team (including Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury) has found the solution: help it on its way!

Who produced this criminally stupid report?

* Kids aren't learning about Christianity? Then make sure they are taught less and less about Christianity!

* We are overwhelmed by people who, although they are not Muslims, bruv, do like killing people while shouting "Allahu Akbar!"? Then let's ask ISIS to send us more of the same, introduce Sharia law, and force all women to wear burkas!

* Faith schools are vaguely religious? Close them down, we can't have some people believing different things from others! We know how good bad Diversity is!

* Thought for the Day is watered down so much that it's hard to find any religious content? Then let's introduce some specifically non-religious thoughts for the day! Perhaps Richard Dawkins with his "abort the Downs kids"? Or Polly Toynbee?

The new-look Thought for the Day

* People aren't going to church? Then extend Sunday trading and make it more difficult for people to go to church!

* Our churches are led by a bunch of self-serving weeds who don't really believe in God? Then let's appoint some specifically secular bishops!

* Marriage and the family are being totally undermined? Then let's destroy marriage and the family by allowing people to marry their uncles, aunts, household pets and washing machines!

A washing-machine gives birth to a baby. Note that it emerges fully clothed.

The Butler-Sloss approach to "fixing broken Britain" obviously has many applications in everyday life.

My car has a puncture. Have you thought about sticking needles into the tyres?

My house is flooded as a result of the recent rains. We recommend turning on a few taps and emptying some bottles of water over the floor.

"It's not working. We need more water!"

There is a famous retired judge who, every time she says something, makes me want to bite the carpet. Why not get her to chair a commission, so that she has the opportunity to make her views more widely known? Meanwhile, make sure you stock up on carpets!

Yes, that seems to be the answer.

No platform for extremists!

Oxford Undergraduate: As an Oxford Undergraduate, I am very anxious to make sure that any views that I disagree with get a fair hearing, i.e., none at all. After all, isn't that how education works? For example, a college which must remain nameless (Christ Church) wants to hold a debate on abortion, involving two "cis" males...

Eccles: Cis?

OU: This means males who are not really females thinking they are males: tragically, Tim Stanley and Brendan O'Neill really are males. Therefore, they are automatically prejudiced against a woman's right to cut her baby to pieces. Eccles, do you think we should allow extremists a platform?

Two extremists, looking for platform 9¾.

Eccles: How else are they going to catch trains?

OU: Be serious for a moment, Eccles. Should extremists be allowed to tell us their views, so that we can decide whether they are extremists or not?

Eccles: It's never really bothered me. The real extremists - the ones who think the gas chambers were a pretty neat idea - never really get very far in the UK. The "jihad" bunch don't organize debates on "Should we cut the heads off unarmed women and children?" as they know they'd lose. So they run off and join the Satanic State nutters.

OU: But there are extremists everywhere, Eccles! For example, those people who tell you that gay marriage is not actually marriage at all! They disapprove of same-sex unions and rent-a-womb babies! They refuse to make cakes bearing political slogans about the right to wed anyone or anything we wish! I've suffered myself, you know - I wanted to have sex with my washing-machine in Tom Quad, but the porters stopped me!

Tom Quad - washingmachinophobic hatred at its worst!

Eccles: That's shocking. You're another Alan Turing. They should make a film about you with Benedict Cumberlandsausatch.

OU: Quite so. They've even made me lock my washing-machine away in a garden shed.

Eccles: I expect it will become a relic to be venerated, like the famous Shed of Turing. Anyway, haven't we wandered away from the point?

Turing - made a Turing machine out of paper tape in order to decipher Elgar's Enigma variations.

OU: Quite right. The point is that there are extremists everywhere, and they're not yet being beaten up by us peace-loving tolerant liberals! In fact we are so peace-loving and tolerant that we have asked for the debate to be cancelled, so that we aren't forced to go and beat up the participants!

Eccles: You're being very reasonable there. By the way, do you know why the college is called Christ Church? Could it be something to do with Christianity?

OU: Christianity! I was away the day we did that at school, but it's extremism, I know it is. I must consult my friend Freda M'Speech on this one. A few peace-loving threats, and we should be able to eradicate the religion for good. Now, leave me in peace, I just typed "Abortion" into Google images*, and I'm not feeling too well... How dare Google allow people to find out what abortion is really about?

*Don't try this at home. Seriously.

Eccles befriends two bloggers

I done two good deeds today. De fust one was when I got a call from my freind Sister Fortis, wot lives in Blogfen wiv 23 cats and a few hungry mantillas.

De cat Bergoglio.

Sister Fortis is takin part in de forty hours of adoratoin at Blogfen, where you aint allowed to eat or drink, although you is allowed to write bloggs. She asked me if I could look after her cats while she was adorin.

Sister Fortis, sans mantillas, but wiv some of de cats.

De cats is all named after famuos Cathlics. She got Monsinger Newton, wot used to be an Anteater, but converted to bein a Cat. Dere is also Nichols, a very naughty cat wot never does what he is told. Among de lady cats dere is Pepinster, wot hisses a lot, and scratches de uvver cats - dey gives her tablets to keep her calm. One of de most interestin cats is Zuhlsdorf, wot is known for "kitty kill" - he brings in dead voles and sparrows, also de milkman and a passin liberal priest.

Kitty kill.

Well, I is gonna have a hard time lookin after de cats, but luckily my Anti Moly (who has gone back to Austriala) left some gin behind, and dey seems to be much quieter after I mixed it wiv dere CATFOD meat.

Update: de neighbors is complainin about yowlin noises all de night keepin em awake. I fink it is de cat Inwood, wot aint got any idea of mellody and just wont shut up.

---

De uvver good deed I has been doin in to cheer up my freidn Damain Thopmson, wot has been gettin a bit depressed lately. He has put a washin machine in de music room of Thopmson Towers, so dat he can play Bach while watchin his undies goin round and round (we knows he is a holly man, as he says he sees mystic visions - dis must be wot dey calls a Deus ex machina).

To cheer up my friend Damain I went on de web and ordered a bespoke set of boxer shorts dat he can wear when he goes to Mass.

Put dese is de machine, and you will see visions of holly men.

In fact Damain weren't at all amused, and so I tried out Plan B - invitin round to tea de well-known Stephen Fry wot suffers from uncontrollable bonhomie. Dis means dat he becomes very borin and makes pathetic jokes about Cathlic priests and child abuse. Damain aint reely very fond of Mr Fry, especially when de bonhomie is out of control, and so de party was not a success.

The five moods of J. Stephen Fry.

Our experts explain marriage

Iain Dull, the world's silliest blogger.

The Government has said that it is a priority to extend equal marriage to West Ham supporters such as myself, all of whom are currently either born out of wedlock or biologically engineered from "normal" human beings. Do you know that I was the first openly West Ham supporting person to stand for parliament in North Norfolk? Of course, being generally regarded as an obnoxious bore, I didn't stand a chance, but it was still a significant blow for equal marriage. Anyway, I am now going to spam e-mail every single MP with my views - they are bound to listen to a failed politician.

By the way, I don't normally mention such personal things, but I have also been gay from birth (unlike most kids, who don't worry about such things before they are teenagers). Here is an early heart-throb of mine - how I fantasised about pulling him from his flower-pot and ravishing him!

Bill (or Ben) - a sex symbol for precocious toddlers.

---

Chris Grayling, Justice Secretary.

What we need is a change in social attitudes to allow more smacking. I was smacked as a child and it never did me any permanent harm, except in making me a supporter of David Cameron. And I smack my kids. And I'm going to smack anyone who refuses to support the Gay Marriage Bill. Why do you think we employ people called "Whips"?

What we need is a change in social attitudes. Out goes "right and wrong," and in comes "smack smack."

My old headmaster - made me the man I am today.

---

Polly Toynbee, atheist, journalist and clown.

All religious opposition to gay marriage is based on bigotry. I'll say it again: bigots, bigots, bigots. Christ was a bigot. The Pope's a bigot. Everyone's a bigot.

Look, the book of Genesis said that it was wrong to eat apples, and we don't find that a problem these days. So why should we take any notice of Christ's views on marriage? Bigot, bigot, bigot.

If Christians really took the Bible seriously, they would refuse to use washing-machines as sex objects, wouldn't they? But according to a Guardian poll, 85% of Catholics own a washing-machine (and why not? I own six in my various houses). Bigots, bigots, bigots.

A washing-machine, probably after a night of passion with a bigoted Catholic.

The Pope's diary

Paolo Gabriele being driven off to prison.

Wednesday. Having lost Paolo Gabriele, my butler and general factotum, I have been advised that I should not appoint a successor, as it gives ammunition to people who think the Pope should do his own dusting. Why, even that silly man Richard Coles who broadcasts on the BBC was making wisecracks about scratched thuribles!

There is a problem, though. I was going to go out to bless a new Lady Chapel that's been opened in Rome, but I had to stay in all day waiting for the plumber. For when I tried using the washing machine this morning, I found that a lot of water went through the floor, ruining the manuscript of my latest encyclical. Vatileaks, they call it.

Hello? Is that A.A.A.A.A.A.Alpha.Omega Plumbing Services?

Thursday. The washing-machine is working now, but something went wrong when I tried to wash my white cossack with a red chasuble. Now I've got a pink cassock. I hope this doesn't send out the wrong signals.

Bless me, I've managed to ruin another cassock. After cleaning the papal apartments, I had to empty the vacuum cleaner, and got dust all over my clothes. It's not easy when an 85-year-old man has to do his own cleaning. Thus, I had nothing presentable to wear except an old sheet when the Dalai Lama came for an audience. Still, as a result, I was praised for showing a new sympathetic attitude towards Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama achieves oneness with his domestic appliances.

Friday. Was hoping to make further progress with my book on the life of Jesus Christ, but, looking in my diary, I found that Archbishop Arthur Roche was coming to dinner, an occasion for him to tell me about his exciting new plans for closing churches in Rome. So I spent most of the day cooking a 12-course banquet (after queuing in Tesconi's to buy the ingredients).

One boar's head and an apple for its mouth; or would Arthur prefer chip butties and black pudding? What are cinnabons?

Saturday. I really want to get my latest encyclical finished - I'm supposed to be signing copies of it in Waterstoni's next week. But a Pope's work is never done. Apparently, the Sistine Chapel ceiling needs a lick of paint - Paolo Gabriele wanted to do the ceiling with a magnolia emulsion, but I don't think that's appropriate. Memo: Must try and get to Mass tomorrow.

Better leave it as it is. I'll never get up the ladder anyway.