An interview with Cardinal Kasper

For many Catholics, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's Prefect of the Congregation for Introducing New Heresies, is a Godlike figure. He must be, as otherwise how would he dare to contradict so much teaching from the Son of God Himself? We were determined to interview the man they call "St Wally the Absurd".

We made our way to his Vatican apartment "Dunprayin", and we were admitted by the butler, Tommy Rosica; in fact, Rosica initially tried to block our way, but a shrill cry of "All are welcome, Tommy! Give him Communion, whoever he is!" forced him to let us pass. We did not take Communion.

A scary disguise for Hallowe'en. Heresy or treat?

"How nice to see you, Eccles," said Kasper, as Rosica retired in order to practise martial arts on his "Cardinal Burke" punchbag. "Excuse my lying on the floor - I'm trying to see things from the cat's point of view today. May I offer you a mouse?"

I hastily declined and asked him about his latest claims following the publication of Amoral Lay-Teaching (a blockbuster written by the Pope, with additional material by Cardinals Baldisseri, Cupich, Danneels, Marx, Kasper, Nichols, and Schönborn; also Fr Thomas Reese SJ, Fr James Martin SJ, Fr Tony Flannery, Dame Tina Beattie, Sister Margaret Farley, Mr Joe Biden, Mr Tim Kaine, Prof. Hans Küng, Mr Michael Coren, Mr Ed Stourton, the man at the off-licence, and a very nice devil-worshipper we met at the sauna baths).

Namely, Kasper had decreed that it was not only possible for the divorced and remarried to take communion, but actually a great scandal if they didn't. "That is what we decided at the Synod," he explained, "and it supersedes all the teaching of the last 2000 years.

"Surely the Synod actually refused to agree that?" I asked.

Baal The late Cardinal Martini, who taught Kasper all he knows about orthodoxy.

"Look, if the writers of Amoral Lay-Teaching deliberately put in a footnote saying 'Don't worry about all that SIN nonsense, ha ha ha!' then surely that proves you wrong, Eccles?"

Kasper now got up from the floor. Sticking straws in his hair, pouring custard down his trousers, and painting his nose red ("I've got to go to Mass soon, and need to be properly dressed"), he referred me to his fifteen books on theology and Christology. My German is not very good, but I promised to try and make my way through his magnum opus, Eine Nürnberger Wurst mit Kartoffelsalat, bitte! which, he said, encapsulated the essence of his thought.

So, receiving a friendly parting kick on the backside from Rosica, I said farewell to the greatest theologian of this era, or indeed of any era.