This is me, Eccles

This is me, Eccles
This is me, Eccles

Friday 1 April 2016

Pope's April Fool's joke falls flat

Pope Francis is said to be "fuming with rage" after this year's official April 1st joke (a long-standing tradition among popes) was released on March 31st, and was therefore taken seriously.

According to the spoof announcement, the Pope's apostolic exhortation based on the Synod on the Family was to be called "Amoris Laetitia" ("The joy of making love" - in itself an obvious give-away), and to be presented by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, and "a very nice couple I met in the pub" called Francesco and Giuseppina Miano.

Sad Pope Francis

When a joke misfires...

"Do you really think I'd trust Baldisseri near my apostolic exhortation?" asked Francis angrily. "He's been manipulating the synod ever since it started, and he still hasn't explained what he did with all those books that went missing."

There is a rumour that Baldisseri hid several hundred copies of the book in the attic above his bedroom, and one night they all fell through onto him when he was sleeping in bed...

pile of books

Cardinal Baldisseri's attic, before the great collapse.

"And then Schönborn? Schönborn? The man whose own diocese is a basket-case of heresy and dissent?" continued Pope Francis. "Well, I tried to think of someone ludicrous to accompany Baldisseri, but Kasper's started talking to trees and Danneels is preparing to go in hiding, so I thought that suggesting a man who blesses homosexual partnerships would bring the house down!"

balloon Mass

Cardinal Schönborn's Flying Circus.

"Then I added Sid and Doris Bonkers - or whatever their names are - just to make things look a little more plausible," concluded the Pope. "Someone suggested 'Kieran Conry and partner', but that was a step too far."

As a result of the announcement's being made on March 31st, rather than April 1st, it is being taken seriously by the Catholic Church, and Pope Francis fears it is too late to rescind it. "Still, I've got another good joke for April 2017," he concluded cheerfully.

Pope Francis laughing

Pope Francis thinking about next year's April Fool's joke.

11 comments:

  1. Ill tell you a good joke.....Eccles.....now that's a sad joke.

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  2. You little worm....you moderate comments. What are you scared of. Hahahahaha. Come to my laughable site. You wont get moderated. I fead of nothing. hahahahahahahah

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    1. I has to muddlerate, big bruvver. Mostly because there is unsaved pussons like you what turns up from time to time.

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  3. Why didn't the Pope call it Caritatis Laetitia ? After all, he's the one who once commented somewhat tartly that the Church shouldn't keep obsessing about the sex lives of the faithful. Calling it Amoris just invites comparison with that hoary 1970s sex manual The Joy of Sex. (OK, OK, if you've got a mind like mine, it does.)

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  4. Poor Francis; misunderstood again.

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  5. hilarious. perhaps not more so if it wasn't true

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  6. I’m so looking forward to the launch of The Joy of Love. I’m too young to remember the original! I’m thinking.... a light show at St Peter’s: a mixed-race couple make love, with Jane Birkin intoning in the background: “Je t’aime…. ah oui, je ta’aime, je t’aime….” Cardinal Marx has the caveman beard for it, I really think he should make the announcement.

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  7. When is a pope not a pope................When he is a NO Pope.


    Only a joke!

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  8. As Cardinal Pell joked on April 1st, "Mossack Fonseca? I don't think we ever met."

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    1. Mossack Fonseca. Wasn't he Centre-Back for Inter Milan in the 1960s ?

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  9. This particular topic has resulted in me learning a word which I had never heard before. How so? You may ask! I went to Fr Hunwick's blog to see what he had to say about this. He explained that the Latin "Amoris Laetitia" actually is a "zeugma" and I had to look that word up. I discovered that it refers to either a verb or and adjective which is used in two senses one of which is strictly correct and the other rather less correct. I tried Google for examples and I found one which has stuck with me e.g. "You are free to execute your laws and your people as you wish".
    It seems that 'amoris' is being given a double meaning here.

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