Pope Francis upsets the Turks

Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey, has angrily condemned Pope Francis's description of the Ottoman Empire's murder of 1.5 million Armenians as "the first genocide of the 20th century".

"Hey, Francis, we only killed half the population. Not a real genocide!"

Clearly, mentioning this sort of thing is bad manners, and according to poor injured Ahmet "an evil front is being formed before us. Now the pope has joined it and these plots." Apparently, this is the end of the famous saying "Turkey's voting for Christians". Pope Francis, in turn, has responded by giving up turkish delight, which he was going to do anyway, given that doctors had told him he was getting overweight.

The Holy Father is no longer delighted.

We are expecting further outspoken comments from the pope any time now. It is thought that he may mention the War (you know, it involved someone called Adolf Hitler, generally understood to be something of a bad egg), if he can face the wrath of Angela Merkel. Or he may go even further and talk about Stalin, in which case Vladimir Putin won't be sending him any more Christmas cards.

Preparing for a meeting with Angela Merkel.

Of course Turkey is one of our highly esteemed allies in NATO, so that if Pope Francis's tactless mention of the Armenians is to be regarded as an attack on it, then the UK, USA, etc., will be asked to declare war on the Vatican. The UK is already calling up its shock troops, the geriatric ACTA Brigade, which has been dying to have a pop at the pope for several years, especially during this era of diplomatic tension with the Bishop of Lancaster.

ACTA's youth coordinator rushes to the defence of Turkey.

Salve, salve! Basil Loftus takes on the Gestapo

We have to thank Joseph Shaw for drawing our attention to the heroic words of Mgr Basil "Lofty" Loftus of the Catholic Times:

Like the Gestapo in the Channel Islands during the last war who had to admit that they couldn't make everyone speak German, but forced them to drive on the right-hand side of the road, that Congregation had, regretfully, to admit that it could no longer make everyone worship in Latin, but by means of an unintelligible translation it would force them to conform to an alien culture in order to demonstrate its own superiority.

"It is I, le cleric!" Basil Loftus reveals himself to an amazed audience.

We are in the early 1960s. It is over 1500 years since the Romans left Britain, but still the hated Catholic Church attempts to force its people to worship in Latin. Luckily, as seen in the television series Salve, salve! there is a heroic resistance movement in which Lofty is a key player.

Hated and feared by all is a theological consultant by the name of Josef Ratzinger of the Gestapo, whose main aim is to suppress the use of "vernacular", a language spoken by everyone, and insist on Tridentine rites that nobody has ever been able to understand.

The hated Herr Ratzinger of the Gestapo.

Resistance to the Nazis is centred on the Vatican II café, where Lofty the pianist plays a selection of his favourite Catholic songs, including "It ain't necessarily so," and "Imagine there’s no Heaven." These are later expanded into hard-hitting heretical articles for the Catholic Times satire page.

Vernacular is a difficult language to master, and Lofty's own preferred translation of the Mass, which begins with "Good moaning!" is clearly defective in some respects. Moreover, his style is based less on "Listen very carefully I shall pray this only once" than "Don't bother listening to me now, I'll be saying the same again next week, or maybe something sillier."

Mgr Basil "Don't mention the war" Foltus.

Unfortunately, Lofty gets crazier as time goes on, and it obliges his listeners to put cheese in their ears if they wish to maintain their sanity. The war against the hated forces of Latin continues, and victory is by no means assured.

Prayer 2: Who do I pray to?

Our mini-series on prayer continues. More correctly, the title of this piece should be "To whom do I pray?" and if you didn't spot that you may be the sort of person who says ungrammatical prayers. Be warned.

The first thing to note is that not all prayers are uttered to God, or even to the saints. For example, if Giles Fraser comes on Thought for the Day, telling us what Christ thought about Greek debt, the reaction of millions is to shout at the radio: "Shut up, you clown! Just shut up!" This is clearly a prayer addressed to Giles himself.

Our Fraser, who art always on Radio 4...

Then again, if your car breaks down, you may well pray to it. "Come on! What's wrong with you?" Frankly, this sort of prayer is less likely to work, and your car would benefit from a proper (and not necessarily religious) service.

Right! I warned you!

But let's consider prayers issued in more conventional circumstances. Obviously, some prayers are directed to God, as they should be. "Our Father!" etc. No problem. But then, at least in the Catholic tradition, some are addressed to other members of the congregation: "I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters..." Or, in the Protestant traditions too, "The Lord be with you," then "And also with you" or "And with your spirit". Is this a prayer to God, or just talking about God behind His back?

"It's 'Ite, missa est' from me." ... "And also from him."

Then we come to the vexed question of praying to saints. Catholics like to recite the Hail Mary, pray to guardian angels, and talk to saints. The idea is that these guys may intercede with God, or even perform miracles through delegated divine power. Protestants aren't always too keen on this idea, of course. Brother Bosco of the Calvary Chapel would condemn it all as idolatry, worshipping graven images, etc.

Today being St Blaise's day, this may be a good time to pray for healing of injuries and afflictions of the throat. Luckily, St Blaise is a saint, for a lesser being might say "Look, you've all ignored me for 364 days of the year. Why does everyone have to pester me today?"

A challenge for St Blaise: a giraffe with laryngitis.

Well, one final remark. It may well be OK to pray to saints. However, the next stage of familiarity - holding a séance and summoning them to a darkened room where a load of slightly tipsy dinner-party guests are sitting at a round table holding hands - is OUT. St Blaise may be willing to help with sore throats, but he prefers to remain at a distance, and you will NOT get a better service if you invite him into your home.

"I don't usually do home visits."

So in the next instalment we'll consider what you should say to your chosen prayee.

There's good in all of us

This blog has occasionally been criticised for taking a negative attitude towards certain people - apparently casting down the mighty from their seats and exalting the humble and meek isn't appreciated if you're one of the ones being cast down - so today we get into the Christmas spirit and praise everyone. After all, even Pope Francis is supposed to have said that all of us are redeemed, and this also applies to our pets, especially cute ones.

Mother and child, by A. Hitler.

Sister Wendy Beckett comments: This charming picture, from the "Nazi" School of art, shows a touching scene of a mother and child. See the devotion in the mother's eyes, as she regards her little baby, born to be Führer, while he looks around, perhaps wondering whether he needs more Lebensraum. Evidently, the artist was a kind and sensitive man, who knew the true meaning of love. Do look up his life history, as I am sure that we can follow his example in many ways.

Lord Voldemort.

Damian Thompson writes: Lord Voldemort, sometimes incorrectly called "Lord Tom Voldemort" by people who don't know how to refer to peers of the realm, was a talented wizard. I knew him well in his childhood in Reading, when he was simply Tom Marvolo Riddle; he attended the same primary school as I did, before winning a scholarship to Hogwarts, and was a very clever boy indeed, coming second in the class (to me). Although a devout Catholic, he was strongly influenced by the Spirit of Vatican II, and this may have contributed to the bad press he received in later years. I blame Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.

Basil Fawlty attempts to mend a broken-down car.

Andrew Sachs explains: Basil Fawlty has received a lot of bad press, from those who see him as a bad-tempered bully. However, we must wonder whether with such a personality he would have been better suited to another occupation, for example, as a deacon in the Croydon area. In any case, having encountered both him and Russell Brand, I have to say that Mr Fawlty was a much kinder person all round, and he definitely never made nuisance telephone calls or tried to harass bank staff going about their lawful business. No, with all his faults Mr Fawlty was a kind and generous man, and he certainly wouldn't have written a pretentious "bookie wookie" called Revolution.

The Blog, by Franz Kafka

Nobody has identified Kafka's reference to the Governor (below): some say he is intended to represent a bishop, others that he is a headmaster or a vice-chancellor. In the end, it doesn't really matter.

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K.: he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. As he switched off his computer and prepared to leave the house, there was a knock on the door and a man entered. "Who are you?" asked K. The man did not reply directly, but told K. that he was under arrest. "Arrest?" asked K. "By whose authority?" The man explained that he came at the order of the Governor, who was unhappy with K.'s blogging.

The Governor.

The Governor was man who held great power over him. "What have I done wrong?" asked K. "That's something we're not allowed to tell you." Another man entered and added, "Go into your room and wait there. Proceedings are under way and you'll learn about everything all in good time. Meanwhile, you'll stop blogging, if you know what's good for you."

"I've done nothing but tell the truth on my blog," explained K. "He admits it," said the first man. "Make a note of his confession." "He doesn't have the Governor's authority to tell the truth on his blog," said the second man. "He'd have done much better to write a totally uncritical blog, saying 'More kudos to the Governor!' every time his master did something remotely praiseworthy."

More kudus!

"What will happen to me?" asked K. "We can't tell you that," said the first man. "Any punishment will be entirely voluntary, although of course you won't be able to escape it. We can't even tell you how long it will last, as that's a secret known only to the Governor."

"People were complaining," said the second man. "Who were they?" asked K. "We're not allowed to tell you," replied the man. "Just accept your punishment without resisting." "Well, it will give me an opportunity for prayer and reflection," said K. "I know the Governor doesn't go in for that sort of thing, but I do find it helpful."

An opportunity for prayer and reflection.

"Look," said the first man. "Will you stop bringing religion into everything?" "You might consider the case of Tina B.," said the second man. "She blogs, but she follows a totally uncontroversial liberal secular agenda. As a result she is worshipped as a demi-goddess. Nobody ever told her to shut her Kuchenloch."

"We're not here to help convicted criminals," added the first man kindly, "but let me tell you something. You made the mistake of blogging under your own name, so that your enemies could track you down. Now you're in deep trouble. Why, you didn't even password-protect the most controversial posts."

K. was reminded of the case of the famous blogger Bruvver E., whose passion for the truth was legendary. Nobody knew or cared who he was, apart from an obsessive man in the South of England, who had run up a huge telephone bill by phoning up random people called Eccles and screaming "Aha!" at them.

Mr E.C. Cleese? Aha! Your secret is out!

"Will I see the Governor?" asked K. "I must plead my case. After all, I was merely pointing out certain dangers that threaten us all." "See him?" asked the first man. "Of course you can't see him. He has issued a statement saying you are guilty, and that is final. Just accept that his high status means that his decisions can't be questioned." "You should have appealed to his vanity," said the second man. "Even if his own writings might be rejected by Bryony G. as being too banal, you must always praise him."

K. became silent - for a long time...