How to confuse the Catholic Church

Yes, another instalment of our long-running series on "How to be a good pope", designed for those readers who, by kenotic de-centering, respecting the protagonism of the Spirit, and finding a new way of being Church, have managed to make it to the top job in the new listening Church!

The story so far. After ten years, you sense that your days of Peronist dictatorship are coming to an end. All that remains is to nominate your successor - Touchy-Feely, Fat Arthur, or perhaps Pa-Oh Lin, the inscrutable Chinaman - and you can expire peacefully to cries of "Make him a saint!"

Santo Subito!

But all is not well. Obviously little Ivory, C.N.N. Lambchop and "Where Potato Is" Mike are too polite to mention it, but there is some unrest among the faithful. What can you have done that could possibly upset Catholics? Was it your naughty story Amorous Letitia? Could it be your devotion to Pachamama? Surely not your treatment of the Church in China? Or was it Trads Cussed (memo: get Arthur out of the cake shop and send him off to close down more TLMs)? Or is it your protection of dirty old Rapenik? Then again, surely nobody could object to your attempts to starve a certain American cardinal into submission?

It's all a big mystery, but you know your conscience is clear. So how can we confuse the Church today?

"I do wish he wouldn't stand so close."

In walks Cardinal Touchy-Feely, blows you a kiss (this time you have taken care to keep behind a solid table), and makes a suggestion. "Tell them that priests can bless burglars," he suggests, "but only if they leave their masks, striped pullovers and bags marked SWAG at the door of the church. The burglars, I mean, not the priests."

"They already can," you reply, puzzled. "What difference will it make?"

"I've come for a blessing, Father. Because I've got another job planned."

"Can't you the the headlines in America Rag, the National Catholic Fishwrap and the even more secular press? "POPE FRED SAYS THAT BURGLARY IS OK", "NEW CATHOLIC TEACHING ON THEFT", "TEN COMMANDMENTS? THROW THEM OUT!" "WHO IS THIS SAINT PAUL ANYWAY?" "GERMAN BISHOPS VOTE TO ORDAIN BURGLARS", "FATHER MARTIN JAMES SJ SAYS 'COME INTO THE CLOSET AND HELP YOURSELVES!'"

Of course! Nobody is going to talk about anything else from now on. As you draft your new letter "Fiddling the Supplies" (an homage to Cardinal Becciu), you reflect that Touchy-Feely will make a great Pope Fred II.