Pope Francis vows to promote more useless people

In a striking breach with Catholic tradition, Pope Francis has promised to demote the reliable, orthodox clergy who hold very senior positions in the Roman Curia, and to appoint a number of useless time-servers instead. It is believed that in the more egalitarian church of Francis, one should not be able to achieve high office through an accident of birth, such as being wise, efficient or hard-working.

In comes Cardinal Danneels - the token idiot on the Synod.

There is an injection of new blood in the form of Cardinal Danneels of Belgium, whose track record is so sordid that we cannot even think of anything amusing to say about him. Suffice it to say that he missed out on several more promising careers, such as clown, village idiot, and crash-test dummy, where his unique talents might have flourished.

Out goes Burke - too clever and orthodox.

Cardinal Burke, on the other hand, has been known to confuse Pope Francis by quoting from learned theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas, he has actually read the Vatican II documents, and he shows no interest whatsoever in football. Thus he is being demoted, and will now become Patron of the Knights of Malta. This is basically a non-job, which involves making tea for the knights whenever they drop in to the Vatican, and occasionally popping over to Malta in order to be patronizing.

Cardinal Dolan: so useless he must be in line for a big job.

We have long appreciated the talents of Cardinal Dolan, the hero of New York; the fact that his imbecility level has now reached "critical" must surely mean that a senior position is soon to come his way. Vice-pope with special responsibility for organizing Gay Pride parades in the Vatican? Who knows?

But where is England in all this? Do we not have senior clergy to match the expertise of Danneels and Dolan? I find it hard to think of anyone useless, I really do.

Put in a good word for us, won't you, Eccles?