How to conduct a trial for schism

This is another in our long-running series on "How to be a good Pope", which is read regularly by Pope Francis and his likely successors, Cardinals Cupich, Roche and Fernández (surely, Sarah, Burke and Müller ?) for useful advice.

In fact, if you think YOU may be the next pope but three, it's probably a good move to keep up to date with this series.

All good friends, really!

Some time in your papacy you may find someone who disagrees violently with you - even though you are the Holy Father and infallible in everything you say. Even half-remembered chats to Scalfari (RIP) and ex-aeroplana pronouncements on long flights are infallible. As is calling homosexuals "Massimo Faggiolis" (my Italian is not great but I think this means "Big Beans", which is a well-known term of abuse).

Luckily, the Catholic Church has a remedy for dissidents, an extrajudicial criminal trial for schism.

"Extrajudicial" is an interesting word. I think it means "sentence first, verdict afterwards", as the Queen of Hearts (also infallible) says in "Alice in Wonderland". It certainly doesn't mean a nice public trial, with you and your adversary - let's call him Archbishop Vinegar, so that nobody will think I'm talking about a real person - getting into the witness box and being insulted by men in silly wigs (or whatever the equivalent of the English system is).

"Just answer the question, Mr Francis."

Vinegar's accusations are many and varied. Some of the most hurtful are that you pull the wings off butterflies and kick lovable fluffy kittens. Good grief, if a pope can't do that, then who can?

Of course you do have many real skeletons in your cupboard, some of which Vinegar has managed to find. Others are well-known to any knowledgeable Catholic - your fondness for protecting unsavoury characters such as that dreadful painter Marko the Ripper, for example. No chance of his being subject to an extrajudicial criminal trial! He knows too much...

Anyway, after Vinegar's trial, or rather, before it, comes the sentence. You have checked with your advisers, and we no longer use the rack or the iron maiden - well, except at the wildest of Cardinal Cocoa's drug orgies - and all you can really do is excommunicate him. What an anti-climax!

Archbishop Vinegar will not be expecting this either.

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Nothing to do with the above (or is it?), but the AI program Copilot kindly produced a picture of the famous Annibale Bugsbunni, to whom we all owe so much. It would be a pity not to use it here.

What's up, Holy Father?

Death of a god

Today we have an exclusive interview with Archbishop Charles Anne Andrew Edward, the head of the Prince Philip religion in the New Hebrides, also known as Vanuatu. As is well-known, Prince Philip was regarded as a god over there, and his demise was a good excuse for us to talk to the archbishop.

A sad day for the Philippians.

Archbishop: What are you doing here?

Eccles: You invited me.

Archbishop: Well, you didn't have to come! (As the divine Philip put it.)

Eccles: Your grace, could you tell us something about your worship of Prince Philip?

Archbishop: Yes, we use a liturgy based on the wise sayings of our god. For example, we would start a service with words something like this:

Priest: Prince Philip be with you.
Congregation: You managed not to get eaten then?
Priest: Aren't most of you descended from pirates?
Congregation: You're too fat.
Priest: Do you still throw spears at each other?

Eccles: So what will you do now that your god is dead?

Archbishop: We are moving from a Vetus Ordo worship of Prince Philip to a Novus Ordo worship of Prince Charles. My man Annibale Bugsbunni is looking for the new god's memorable sayings, but all he has come up with so far is "To get the best results you must talk to your vegetables" and some stuff about carbon dioxide, organic muesli, and monstrous carbuncles. Annibale has a difficult task on his hands.

Eccles: Well, good luck with that. Archbishop, thank you very much.

Sunday to become a monthly event

Following the news that the Catholic Herald is to become a monthly magazine rather than a weekly, the Catholic Church has announced that, from now on, Sunday will become a monthly event, rather than weekly.

Explained a Vatican spokesman, "We have also retranslated Exodus 20 (as we did for the Lord's Prayer), and the new version reads 29 or 30 days shalt thou sit at home sulking, or 27 or 28 if the month happeneth to be February, but the remaining day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. Now that people are locked down by the Coronavirus, it seemed insensitive to suggest that they were working. We have also removed the bit about manservants and maidservants, as only bishops have them these days."

"Hey guys, Mary Kenny is in the very first issue of the Catholic Herald!"

The reason for the Catholic Herald's switch to a monthly publication is not clear, except that it enables them to inflict less Ronald Rolheiser on readers who had really been asking for spiritual nourishment. Unfortunately, it also means a cut in words of wisdom from Fr Dominic Allain and Fr John Zuhlsdorf.

When the Coronavirus is simply a happy memory, the Catholic Church will continue to restrict itself to one Sunday a month. This is a change in the liturgical calendar that Annibale Bugsbunni and the other Vatican II pioneers could only dream of.

"We've won!"

The Sundays will be:

January 1st (Christmas);
February 1st (Candlemas);
March 1st (Ash Sunday) - Lent will be cut to 31 days (hoorah!);
April 1st (Easter);
May 1st (Tricost, formerly Pentecost);
June 1st (Ordinary Time);
July 1st (Very Ordinary Time);
August 1st (Summer Time and the Living is Easy);
September 1st (How much more of this is there Time);
October 1st (Phew, that's nearly over Time);
November 1st (All the unimportant Saints);
December 1st (Advent).

All liturgical colours will be changing too. Here is some inspiration.

The Vatican Congregation for the Rewriting of the Scriptures is currently working on a new translation of Genesis, which will prove that God took 30 days to create Heaven and Earth, not simply six. When challenged, Fr James Martin replied, "Well, YOU do it in six if you're so clever!"

Did Vatican II really happen?

It's (roughly) fifty years since the historic mission that changed the way we look at the world, the Vatican II Council (with its famous catch phrase "One small step for a man, one giant leap into the dark for mankind." But did it really happen, or was it staged by actors?

"Rome, we have a problem!" Pope Paul VI surveys the Catholic Church. Or is it an actor?

Some of the arguments suggesting that Vatican II was just a giant hoax focus on claims that 1960s technology just wasn't capable of filling the Catholic Church with moon-walking bishops (technically known as lunatics). The experiment also required turning round the altars (and the priests), devising a new programming language VERNACULAR in place of the age-old LATIN, introducing CLOWN and PUPPET technology, and making the all-powerful KISS of PEACE operational. Controversially, the Vatican II explorers brought back samples of rock (and heavy metal, jazz, also the mineral Danschutte, etc.), which did not resemble anything previously found in the Church.

Annibale Bugnini explains his liturgical reforms.

Still, the technology developed by the Vatican II mission led to the development of Teflon, used in the production of "non-stick" priests, who thenceforth could get into very dirty situations without anything sticking to them.

Naturally, some of the Vatican II benefits trickled down to non-Roman societies, such as the Lutherans and Anglicans; however in that Cold War era, it was very much "Don't tell the Russians," which is why their Orthodox Church has been largely deprived of the benefits of the Vatican II mission.

The Spirit of Vatican II.

This blog tries not to express controversial opinions, but we feel that by and large it is likely that Vatican II *did* take place, although it is unlikely that the astronauts ended up meeting God.

New faces at the Congregation for Divine Worship

Having sacked Cardinals Burke, Scola, Pell, Ouellet, Ranjith etc. from the Congregation for Divine Worship, Pope Francis has brought in some exciting new names, including a batch of Lay Cardinals, who truly reflect the progressive style of liturgy that the Holy Father wishes to see. It is said that Cardinal Sarah, who remains at the head of the CDW is "less than delighted", which is Vatican-speak for "is the pope out of his mind?"

Bosco the Clown.

Cardinal Bosco is not actually a Catholic - indeed he was brought up on the writings of Jack Chick - but hey, these days we need to be more ecumenical with the truth! This new appointment will certainly stress the important role that "clown masses" play in contemporary worship. As Latin is phased out and circus slang replaces it as the Church's official language, we expect Cardinal Bosco to be in the lead when it comes to dumbing down.

Cardinal Sir Paul Inwood.

Composer of the official Year of Mercy hymn In aeternum misericordia eius ch-ch, and its official arrangement for guitar, kazoo, Balinese nose-flute and a thousand press-ganged choristers, Cardinal Inwood is working on projects that are expected to startle the Catholic world. Out goes Gregorian Chant, and in come minimalist Taizé-style pastiches! When the current Year of Mercy ends and we move on to a Year of Chaos, Uncle Paul will be in the vanguard.

Piero Marini doing the old custard-pie trick on Pope Benedict.

A disciple of Annibale Bugsbunni, the Freemason who brought so many new ideas into Catholic liturgy, Piero Marini is popularly supposed to have been appointed in mistake for Guido Marini, who is a thoroughly sensible person. His nomination has been universally greeted with cries of "Surely you're joking, Holy Father?"

Cardinal Pinocchio, master of ceremonies for puppet masses.

All right, Eccles, that's enough of that.

Pope declares war on rabbits

In his latest ex Cathedra, or more precisely, ex Carro Volante statement, Pope Francis has come out firmly against rabbits, as he declared that "Catholics do not need to breed like rabbits."

This is how rabbits breed.

Apparently, too many Catholics have been breeding as in the picture above: the male Catholic retreats to a "hutch" or "shed", and is visited by the female Catholic. A mere eight weeks later, she makes a "nest" out of hay, and presents the happy father with four to six baby Catholics. Such behaviour, although hitherto common amongst the faithful, is nowadays considered eccentric, and Catholics are now urged to breed in the same way as people of other religions and none.

A distinguished biologist explains how rabbits breed.

When the Holy Father made his speech, there was at first some confusion, as several commentators misheard him, and thought that he said "do not breed like rabbis." These words would have been unfortunate at a time when relations between the Jews and the Catholics are very friendly: neither party can stand the Muslims.

Annibale Bugnini.

Only one famous Catholic in recent history has actually been a rabbit, namely, Annibale Bugnini (shown above), whose reforms of the liturgy included replacing the famous Gregorian chant Quid agatur, medice? by the less elegant "What's up, Doc?" (arr. Inwood). The pope's commination of the Leporidae may be seen as a rejection of Bugnini's changes. Well, we hope so.

A rabbit writes: This is just the latest in a series of gaffes by Pope Francis. Last week, he was encouraging us to punch his mother, and this week he is making racist accusations against rabbits. Does he not know that many rabbits lead chaste, celibate lives, and do not breed at all? Yours, Disgusted of Wonderland.

Disgusted of Wonderland.

Pope Francis becomes infallible again

After several months of bad press - some of it no doubt deserved - Pope Francis has surprised everyone by taking a completely infallible decision for once. He has appointed Cardinal Sarah from Guinea as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

One of these is called Sarah.

This is a Good Thing for several reasons.

(i) He is not Piero Marini, the mortal enemy of Pope Benedict, disciple of the infamous Annibale Bugnini, and chief architect of the so-called "hermeneutic of craziness". Of course, most people aren't Piero Marini (luckily).

Piero Marini and the notorious "custard-pie in the Pope's face" incident.

(ii) If one consults a map, and ignores New Guinea, Guyana and similar places, one is led to the conclusion that Cardinal Sarah is from AFRICA. Apparently, on hearing the news that an AFRICAN had been appointed to a position of responsibility, Cardinal Kasper fell down in a fit and started biting pieces out of the carpet. He was rushed to hospital, where he was visited by the benevolent Cardinal Napier. Now his condition is said to be "extremely critical".

(iii) Without checking their facts too carefully, various liberal commentators have concluded that Cardinal Sarah is a woman, possibly the lady in the blue dress shown above. This is seen as a great step forward for women in the Catholic Church, as the dawning of a new era in which it is virtually certain that the next pope will be female.

Sarah (R) tells Abraham he's getting a son for his 100th birthday, so he shouldn't think of retiring just yet.

(iv) Orthodox Catholics are delighted because Cardinal Sarah seems to be - well - a perfectly normal and orthodox Catholic without any particular hang-ups. There is some possibility that in the future most Divine Worship will be simply what is says on the tin - focused towards God rather than the priest (who is doing a tango), the deacon (who has put on a clown costume), or the musical director (who is vainly trying to play "Shine, Jesus, Shine" on the Balinese nose-flute). Result!

Unlikely to impress Cardinal Sarah.

Renewal of vows

Here at the Church of St Daryl the Apostate, in conjunction with ACTA, the Tablet Newspaper and the Tina Beattie Foundation for Extreme Silliness, we recognise that Easter is a time to renew our vows, or more precisely to make some new, more modern, ones. Therefore, I ask:

Do you renounce all that happened in the Catholic Church prior to the 1960s?

We do.

Do you renounce all that stuff in the Bible written by bronze-age goat-herds, in particular the four Gospels, which obviously need updating for modern secular Catholicism?

We do.

A bronze-age goat-herd learns that he is simply not up-to-date.

Do you believe in the Spirit of Vatican II, who came upon us and told us to preach many new and exciting things which were beyond the wildest dreams of those who were actually present at the Second Vatican Council?

We do.

Do you believe in those Saints of Modernism, Annibale Bugsbunni, Carlo Maria Spartini, and Basil the Lofty (who some say is not just an old bearded man in the sky, but alive and resting in a bothy somewhere in Sutherland).

We do.

"What's up, Doc?" asks Annibale Bugsbunni.

Do you believe in the blessed Hans Kong, he who has written 295 books telling the Catholic Church why they are not saved and only he is saved?

We do. O Worship the Kong.

At this point the congregation will light their Hans Kong candles.

Do you believe in the blessed Professor Tina Beastie, the world's leading expert on human flourishing and avant-garde post-modern neo-liberal Catholic doctrine?

We do. Wonderful woman.

Surely "from long-windedy Beatties"?

Do you praise the Tablet, the National Catholic Reporter and all other organs of liberal Catholicism?

We praise them. Of course we don't actually read them.

Do you renounce all the orthodox Catholic blogs, such as Protect the Deacon, What did the Pope really say?, The Hermit of Continuity, and Father Ray Bloke?

Verily, they are a thorn in our side.

Nasty traddies seeking to prevent dialogue in the Church.

We now come to some ACTA-specific vows. Do you live in fear?

We live in fear.

What do you want?

We want dialogue!

When do you want it?

Well, now would be a good time to have a chat with the bishop, although it seems that he's blessing the lesbian knitting circle this afternoon, and then he's got a joint service with the Freemasons, and we mustn't forget that he's conducting a circle-dancing class this evening...

Finally, some vows of modernism. Do you renounce Latin, a language spoken by Nero and Caligula (here he may name other famous nasties who spoke Latin)?

We do.

Do you swear always to worship God in English, except when we have joint services with the local Maharashtran community, when we may have a Mass conducted partly in the Marathi dialect, for convenience?

आम्ही करू.

पवित्र जिव्हाळ्याचा परिचय एक विलक्षण मंत्री (An extraordinary minister of Holy Communion).

Do you abjure Gregorian chant, hymns written by dead people such as Charles Wesley and John Henry Newman, and any hymns with more than one basic idea in each verse?

We do.

Do you adore the songs of Paul Inwood, the publications of Kevin Mayhew Ltd., and all hymns where you can go "clap clap", "ch-ch" or "fizz-pop" in the chorus?

Yes.

BONG! You said "Yes". That's the end of the game.

The Pilgrim's Ogress 3 - Poirot investigates

Continued from Part 2

The story so far: Eccles is trapped in the Tablet fortress in Hammersmith, having been locked in a cell by the fearsome Professor Tina Beattie, who is driving him insane with excerpts from her infamous stage show (banned in Clifton and San Diego). Meanwhile, his Aunt Moly is waiting for him in a nearby pub. Agatha Christie continues the story.

When I've found Eccles, I must discover who stole my moustaches.

Poirot scrutinised the old lady who had demanded his help. Meticulous as always, he straightened the six gin bottles on the table in front of her, and bade her speak. "So, Madame, you say that your nephew has disappeared? Tell me the exact circumstances."

"He left me here, and went out..."

"Eh bien, did he say where he was going?"

"He mentioned tablets. And some rubbish about unsaved persons. Woeful."

To emphasise her point, Auntie Moly picked up an empty gin bottle and threw it through the open window in the general direction of a passing archbishop, who had been furtively heading towards the Tablet offices across the road. The bottle struck the prelate a glancing blow on the head. Exclaiming to himself "My God, there really is a curse on the Tablet!", he came into the pub to recover from the shock.

From now on it's tea only, Moly!

"Alors, Hastings, the solution to the mystery lies in that prison across the road!"

"You mean..."

"Yes, Eccles may be locked in one of their little grey cells."

The two men left the pub, and knocked on the door of the Tablet offices. In his career Poirot had confronted many villains in their lairs, and he was reminded briefly of the notorious Hans Kong, who frightened young women to death with a hideous statue of himself. Then he thought of the fateful day that he had finally caught up with Annibale Bugsbunni, the alleged freemason who had been exploding liturgical time bombs.

Worshippers from the cult of Bugsbunni.

"Sacré Pepinster! They do not answer, Hastings. Let us search the premises."

Eccles was still a captive, and he was looking for a ventilation shaft, having read somewhere that this was the standard means of escaping from imprisonment. However, there was none, and the sulphurous fumes wafting round the building were causing him to choke.

Elsewhere, Poirot and Hasting came across a group of Tablet staff, attempting to calm Elena Curti, who was screaming as if in great pain.

Elena Curti reacts to some shocking news.

"Good grief! Is she all right, Poirot?" asked Hastings, seeing the star journalist writhing in agony.

"I think so, mon ami," replied his friend. "She is possessed by the Spirit of Vatican II, but she has just learned of Pope Francis's condemnation of the hermeneutic of rupture. It is causing a terrible reaction."

Leaving the Tablet staff to do their best for the poor lady, Poirot and Hastings moved on to the cell where Eccles was imprisoned, and released our hero.

"That wasn't much of an adventure, Poirot," complained Hastings. "I was expecting the Tablet staff to provide you with some clues to Eccles's whereabouts."

"That is right, Hastings," said Poirot, as the three of them left the building, "but in the end they all turned out to be totally clueless."

"Boom! Boom!" says Basil Loftus.

To be continued by another author.