Catholics told to laugh more

Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh has produced his own ten commandments for Catholics online, of which the basic message is "be funny".

Archbishop Martin and his mother give us a smile.

Of course, @pontifex has long appreciated the virtue of humour - for example, he made Vincent Nichols a cardinal - and his Twitter contributions are regularly sprinkled with signs such as :-) LOL and even ROFLMAO. Admittedly, some say that a pontifical tweet such as "I had Rice Krispies for breakfast - SNAP CRACKLE AND POPE! :-)" is theologically less profound than what Benedict XVI might have written about the hermeneutic of breakfast cereals.

Looking like Eric Morecambe does give one an advantage in the humour game.

In particular, the Pope's recent excommunication of Gert and Martha Holzer of the "We Are Church" movement was performed in a characteristically comic way, as Bishop Manfred Scheuer was sent round to their house to deliver a "excommunicate-o-gram". They are now said to be changing the name of their outfit to "We Aren't Church Any More".

... and I heard that ACTA will be next!

The New Testament itself is not without humour: the "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel" comment of Our Lord is a clever Aramaic pun on gamal and gamla, which got an appreciative ROFL from the 1st century audience, but loses a little in translation; moreover, the thing about motes and beams is distinctly surreal. So the archbishop is on solid ground there.

All right, Cardinal, it wasn't that funny.

Now is the time to confess that we don't really do jokes on this blog. A pun did slip in last July, and long-term readers may remember something ironic from 2012. So we will try and follow the archbishop's advice and lighten up.

Of course, not all Catholics are very good with social media, and some would find it difficult to smile without undergoing some preliminary surgery. It would be rude and naughty to single out anybody here.

... and I don't want to see any of my deacons smiling.