How to be a good pope: gaslighting the faithful

This piece, like all the "good pope" articles, is designed for those who may one day find a Mafia boss in dark glasses come up to them and say "Congratulations! You're now infallible! Go out there and make them a doctrine they can't refuse!"

One very necessary skill for a pope is gaslighting, which Wiipedia defines as follow:

Gaslighting is a colloquialism for a specific type of manipulation where the manipulator is successful in having the target (a person or a group of people) question their own reality, memory or perceptions. There is often a power dynamic in gaslighting where the target is vulnerable because they are fearful of losses associated with challenging the manipulator.

Light the gaslight! We have a new pope!

We can give some useful advice here from Pope Francis, seven times voted "Best Pope since Benedict XVI" and one who knows all the tricks.

Suppose that you want to keep the faithful on their toes by causing a schism. That way they can be so busy squabbling amongst themselves that they won't have time to notice anything dodgy that's going on in the Vatican. At present you have various forms of Mass, mostly "vernacular", which means that, apart from the usual stuff, you are blessed in that once in a week Fr Radovan Karadžić comes in to offer a mass for the Bosnian Serb community. Also once a month Bishop Lang-Toal permits a traditional Latin Mass at 6 a.m. in a totally inaccessible church.

"Our TLM worshippers are definitely falling off."

So you send out a questionnaire to bishops: Complete the following in less than ten words: "I think the TLM is evil because..." First prize, a cardinal's hat.

Whatever answers you get, you feel justified in saying "Right, chaps, no more TLM unless you get a permit signed in your bishop's blood*."

*Clever, eh? The more reptilian bishops don't have much blood, so they will refuse!

Many people will be angry and blame you for attacking the traditional form of worship (but LGBT Masses and Clown Masses are still permitted, of course). This is where you turn things round and apply your Holy GasMaster skills. "The traditionalists are schismatic. They are criticising me. ME!!! Am I not Peter? Where Peter is, the Church is. If I say (as Peter did) 'I do not know this Man,' should not the faithful agree with me?" So the blame goes onto the trads and you can get your own way, feeling that you were in the right after all.

The same considerations apply to the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, the Sovereign Order of Malta, and many other nasty groups. You took control of them, they were angry, so you HAD to take control of them!

You noticed that Albie Boeselager had disgraced himself, so I'm sacking you.

Some gaslighting is more subtle. You accidentally put some heretical statements in your Amorous Letitia Exhortation, and four cardinals questioned them. Classical gaslighting would involve calling them heretics, blame them for causing a schism, etc. But a true Holy GasMaster will simply ignore their Dubia, and leave it to his faithful attack poodles to throw the mud. Cardinal Biretta occasionally wears impressive robes - so he is not as humble as you are! You can make life difficult for him.

A final example: you hold a disastrous Inca Synod, in which you allow the pagan idol PatchyMomma to be celebrated. Your chief attack-poodle, Austen Ivory-Tower, author of Pope Fred, the New Messiah, immediately decides that this is a representation of the Virgin Mary, and the sub-poodles spread this theory far and wide.

Winner of the "Looks nothing like the Virgin Mary" competition.

However, most people agreed that this was a pagan idol, not welcome anywhere near a Christian service, and a small group even polluted the Tiber by throwing in several PatchyMommas. Again, as Holy GasMaster you can blame them, getting your historically less-informed poodles to describe the assailants as "fascists", just as Moses was described when he destroyed the golden calf. You yourself are above such bickering, although you take great care not to be seen with any other pagan idols. So you win yet again.

Fra' Matthew Festing seen in Rome

As most readers will know, Pope Francis commanded Fra' Matthew Festing, deposed Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta, to stay away from Rome during the election of a new Grand Master. This of course is a perfectly reasonable command, and not at all the action of a man who gets over-excited by absolute power. The reason given - inasmuch as the Pope actually gives explicit reasons, rather than hinting something to Ivereigh the odd-job man, who tells Fr Spadaro, who leaks it to the press - is that Fra' Matthew might try and influence the election - e.g., by winning it.

Other places that Festing is asked to avoid this month are:

• Croydon,
• Corby,
• Malta,

and in addition he is forbidden to visit his Auntie Doris in Margate. Although the Pope does not have supreme authority over Rome (or Croydon/Corby/Malta/Margate etc.), this does not deter him from telling Catholics whether they may go there.

Where's Festing? If you spot Fra' Matthew, tell the Pope and you will be made a cardinal!

Thus, rumours are going round Rome that Fra' Matthew may be in Rome, but in disguise. One commentator has even suggested an invisibility cloak.

The search for Festing is complicated by the fact that thousands of his fans have descended on Rome, wearing red uniforms and claiming to be the man sought by the Pope.

"Fooled you!" A Festing lookalike confesses to Pope Francis that he is really Spartacus.

Conspiracy theorists may also wish to take note that at the recent celebrations of Pope Benedict's 90th birthday, the main refreshment on offer was Boeselager (or in English, booze-lager), a drink named after Festing's former deputy.

"Good disguise, Fra' Matthew!"

If you live in Rome, do remember to check your cupboards, under the bed, and your garden shed, just in case a persecuted ex-Grand Master is hiding there. And will mischievous people please stop telephoning the Vatican and saying "Hi, Matthew Festing here. I happen to be in town. Fancy doing lunch, Holy Father?" It is not funny.

Synod to decide what 2+2 is

Following a violent disagreement in the Vatican about what exactly 2+2 adds up to, Pope Francis has decided to call an Extraordinary Synod to help define (or more probably, "develop") Catholic doctrine on the subject.

#Father #Spadaro makes #a #hash of his #arithmetic. Now, about that expenses claim, Father...

Of course, this is not a new question. The famous "Kasper proposal" was that 1+1+1 should equal 2, at least in the context of marriage, provided the numbers had been properly accompanied and allowed to discern that their consciences were really telling them to do whatever they pleased.

Four (or was it five?) cardinals, including Raymond Burke, have already entered the debate, proposing five or six dubia for the Pope to answer:

1. What is 2+2? Is the doctrine expressed in Pope Henry IV part 2's encyclical Numerorum Morsus ("Number crunching") that 2+2 equals 4 still valid?

A subtle attempt to persuade the faithful of Westminster.

2. If a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long would it take a hen to lay ten and a half eggs?

3. How many beans make five?

4. Antonio Spadaro can dig a pit in six hours, Blase Cupich takes twelve, and Joe Tobin takes eighteen. How long would it take them together to dig a pit large enough to bury them all? Can we try it?

5. What is 10+10? Is it 100 or 101? (Sorry, the pope doesn't answer binary questions.)

6. How long, O Lord, how long?

"How many fingers am I holding up? Yes, five."

Pope Francis has reacted furiously, and is said to be boiling with rage and questioning the mental health of anyone who asks for clarification about the new Catholic arithmetic. Having failed with his recent attempt to invade Malta in order to get his own back at Cardinal Burke obtain justice for the sacked health minister Albrecht von Lagerlout, the pope is seriously considering a nuclear strike on the USA, in the hope of annoying both Trump and Burke.

Meanwhile, here is the Ecclespoll^TM prediction of the result of the Synod on 2+2.

60%: the answer is 5 (merciful, liberated Catholics).
20%: the answer is anything you want it to be (Jesuits).
19%: the answer is 4 (nasty, rigid, traditional Satanically-inspired Catholics).
1%: DRINK!

Probably the only reasonable reaction to Fr Spadaro.