There's only one religious scandal

We've seen a few religious scandals recently, but they all have exactly the same plot. A controversial person moves into a job previously occupied by a more popular person; he does something weird, and annoys people; he eventually leaves. This plot was invented by Anthony Trollope.

We've seen it all before.

Thanks to
*
a change of Prime Minister,
the machinations of Cormac Murphy-O'Connor,
insufficient investigation by the Vatican,
sloppy thinking by Archbishop Peter Smith,
*
Barchester
Rome
Westminster
Blackfen
*
is stunned by the arrival of
*
"well, my dear, I rather believe you are right"
"self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism"
"I'm not kidding you, I actually can't remember which way I voted"
"I didn't mention his rainbow mankini, did I?"
*
Bishop Proudie,
Pope Francis,
Cardinal Vincent Nichols,
Fr Steven Fisher,
*
who
*
blocks the reappointment of Septimus Harding to Hiram's Hospital.
accepts a Bolivian artefact that glorifies Marxism.
celebrates a "Gay Mass".
drives away the lovers of the traditional Mass. 

A powerful German bishop. Or is this just a lookalike?

The faithful are further outraged by the conduct of 
*
Obadiah Slope,
Cardinal Kasper,
Mgr Keith Barltrop,
a certain deacon,
*
who
*
decides to woo Mrs Eleanor Bold.
pushes heretical doctrine on the subject of marriage. 
does not understand the Church's views on transgenderism.
sits in a shed stirring up trouble.
*
In the end, the new man
*
is forced to accept Mr Arabin as the new Dean,
retires, leaving Cardinal Pell to be elected as his successor,
gets a stiff letter from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith,
resigns and goes to teach in a school,
*
and everyone lives happily ever after.

Mourning the departure of Fr Steven Fisher.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Smith

Our story is set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. The Smith Lords are all-powerful, imposing their will on all intelligent life-forms. The cruel dictator, Darth Smithius, ferociously suppresses the old ways, which are still practised by the Latin-speaking Tradi Order - the ones who know how to use the Extraordinary Force. He drives them back as he imposes the Ordinary Force.

The all-powerful Darth Smithius.

The Tradi knight, Tim-obi Wan Fin-igan, is urged to flee the land of the black fens, and he takes refuge on the distant planet Thanetooine at the gates of Mar. Nearby, he finds another Tradi Master, Marcus Yoden, the custodian of the gates of Ram. Meanwhile, the black fens see the arrival of the young master Annoyin Stevefisher, who in those days has not yet turned to the Dark Side; he is considered to have been broadly neutral in the recent Clown Wars, when so many masses were taken over by puppets, clowns and liturgical dancers. The people of the black fens expect that the Extraordinary Force will be with him.

The temple in the black fens. Note the impressive array of light-sabres.

As we wait to see what Annoyin Stevefisher will do, we have a comic interlude, with various subsidiary characters such as the following:

The Wookiee cries in triumph, watched by the robots RAD2-D2 and CORM-3PO,

and of course this one:

Flabba the Shedd.

Back to the plot. In the black fens, Annoyin Stevefisher shows an instant hostility to the Tradi Order, rejecting the Extraordinary Force, and and driving many into exile. Nearly a year passes, and the black fens lie in ruins. It transpires that Annoyin Stevefisher has turned to the Dark Side. He even declares his intention to teach in a secondary school. From now on, he will be known as DARTH FISHER.

The dreaded Darth Fisher.

The power of the Smith Lords is now unchallenged, and the Evil Empire holds sway everywhere except on the planet Thanetooine. We shall have to wait for three more films before we see the Return of the Tradi.

Personality test for holy orders

These days, people applying for jobs are often asked to fill in an online personality test, or situational judgement test. Just in case any of my readers is thinking of applying to become a priest, bishop, cardinal, or whatever, here is a selection of the sort of questions you may be asked to answer.

1. You are a young woman vicar in the Anglican church, hoping for a successful career. You have seen how Kate Bottley has managed to draw attention to herself by self-centred fooling around in the House of God. Do you:
(a) Go one step further, and become the first stripping vicar, after which media fame and fortune will await you?
(b) Learn to play the saxophone, so that you will quickly be promoted to the executive position of bishop under sax-discrimination legislation?
(c) Pray "God help us"?

Ite, Missa est!

2. You are a member of the Magic Circle of English and Welsh bishops, and currently a lowly Blessed Prestidigitator, but hoping to be promoted to the inner ring of Sacred Conjurers. Unfortunately, one of your deacons has set up a blog "Safeguard the Bishop of Rome" in which he lists many threats to orthodox Catholic doctrine (ACTA, The Tablet,... all the usual suspects). The Grandmaster of the Magic Circle is leaning on you to do something. Do you:
(a) Tell the deacon that he will spend the rest of his life in a brief period of voluntary prayer and contemplation if he doesn't want to end up locked in a garden shed?
(b) Set up your own rival blog in which you tell of all the exciting things bishops do, such as eating cake with nuns?
(c) Tell the Grandmaster to mind his own business, and take the plank out of his own diocese before trying to remove the speck from yours?

3. You are a fairly inexperienced pope, who is very popular with atheists but totally distrusted by Catholics. Do you:
(a) Pick an easy target such as the Curia, and insult them in fifteen exciting new ways?
(b) Promise to write an encyclical on a topic almost totally unrelated to the Catholic faith, e.g. climate change, pizza toppings, or which football club Catholics should support?
(c) Look around for anyone who may be more popular than yourself (Burke, Müller, Pell, ...), and appoint them to an "invisible" position looking after the Knights of Cyprus, the Bishops of Crete, or the Rooks of Gibraltar.
(d) Proclaim some new and absurd piece of doctrine infallibly, e.g. "From now on, everyone is saved"?

"My usual fee for an audience is $100,000, your popeship."

4. You are a young priest whose well-meaning but totally clueless aunt has given you a gift subscription to the Tablet. When the first copy drops through your letter-box, do you:
(a) Phone your bishop and ask if he will come round and exorcise it?
(b) Read it from cover to cover, and comment "My, that Tony Flannery's a smart young chap, isn't he? If only he were on our side"?
(c) Thank your aunt kindly and wonder whether it would be any good for lining the parrot's cage?

5. You are an embittered old Swiss Catholic priest and theologian. Although you are not allowed to teach Catholic theology, you have written 348 books, with titles such as "My struggle for freedom" and "Why I am still a Christian". But you are still not regarded as a Great Prophet. Do you:
(a) Fill your garden with more statues of yourself?
(b) Phone up Tina Beattie and ask her if she can get you a job at Roehampton?
(c) Buy yourself a New Testament, to find out exactly what Jesus really said.

And finally... a horror story.

6. You have been appointed priest at a parish that has a regular Tridentine Mass, attracting worshippers from other parishes. The worshippers have been led to believe that things will carry on as normal. Do you:
(a) Carry on as usual, in an attempt to become as well-respected as your distinguished predecessor?
(b) Close down the Latin Masses, for that is surely the will of God, as expressed in the Spirit of Vatican II?
(c) Like (b), only you get in some good ranting at the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker?

Answers: there are no right answers. But you didn't get the job.

Three wise men turned away from Blacklefen

1. When Jesus was born in Blacklefen in the days of Fis-herod the king, there came three wise men from the East, saying, "Where is He who hath been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him."

The three wise men, somewhere on the M25 motorway.

2. When Fisherod the king heard this, he was troubled and said, "We don't want any of your sort here, thank you very much. Worship of the Messiah is reserved for local people, and ye have come from afar."

3. "For did not the prophet Smiff decree that we should give priority to the humble shepherds, who abide in the fields nearby?"

4. For there were indeed shepherds at hand, and their worship was conducted in simple words such as "Wurr! Tis a foine day!" because they had learned their trade from listening to the Archers.

"Ooh arr, there's good news, lads," saith the angel in the tongue of the shepherds.

5. "Moreover, O wise men, ye have come from afar," said Fisherod, "and ye speak not the local tongue of Blacklefen."

6. For the wise men had studied the language of the Roman empire, which is called Latin; indeed, it had been encouraged in the days of King Finiganus, he that now reigned over the gates of Mar.

Three less-wise men worshipping at the gates of Mar.

7. "Alack!" said one of the wise men, "we have nowhere else to worship. Also, we bring costly gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, such as might stimulate the domestic economy of a young couple bringing a Messiah into the world."

8. "What tales we shall have to relate," said another one. "Surely the evangelists St Zuhlsdorf, St England, St Eccles and St Mundabor will tell of our deeds. Yeah, and St Damian, he that is called the Spectator."

9. But Fisherod charged them not to speak of these matters (so it is somewhat lucky that an account hath come down to us), saying that it was sometimes a mortal sin to report the truth.

10. Thus the wise men said Adstringite illud pro alaudida! which, loosely translated, means "Stuff this for a lark!" and returned to their own homes.

A lark, like unto that for which it was stuffed.

What did not happen at Blackfen

In view of all the stories flying about, linked with the arrival of "Stormy Steve" Fisher, the new priest at Blackfen, it is the duty of this blog to provide a categorical denial of the more outrageous rumours.

Dear Eccles, is it true that Fr Fisher stripped off his shirt during Mass, and shouted "I can take on any two of you traddies with one arm tied behind my back?" Or is this exaggerated?

Eccles: this story is completely exaggerated. Fr Fisher remained correctly dressed throughout Mass, and he would never have tried to face up to some of the more muscular women who attend Mass at Blackfen.

Definitely NOT Fr Steven Fisher.

Dear Eccles, is it true that Fr Fisher used his sermon to denounce the Extraordinary Form Mass, and to say that nobody who participated could ever be saved, in fact only he was saved?

Eccles: it is unlikely that Fr Fisher would go against the Spirit of Vatican II, which we all adore so, by reducing the role of Latin, since its importance was emphasised in the Vatican II document De liberalis comburendis. Moreover, I do not think he has claimed to be more saved than... well, me, for example.

Dear Eccles, is it true that Fr Fisher denied Communion to someone who refused to hold his hand out for it? Did he really use the words "Come on, stick those paws out, you dog!"

Eccles: this story seems to have been exaggerated, as well. Obviously in an EF Mass sticking out your grubby paws is a no-no, and Fr Fisher would be aware of that.

"Oh dear, I don't think Fr Fisher's going to like that."

Dear Eccles, is it true that Archbishop Peter Smith burst into the church while Fr Fisher was preaching and shouted, "You're a very naughty boy. Go to your shed!"

Eccles: Archbishop Smith is always very keen on correct liturgical behaviour, and he would naturally be horrified if he thought that one of his priests was anything less than a beacon shining in the wilderness. He has not intervened, so nothing can be wrong.

Dear Eccles, did Fr Fisher greet one of the stalwarts of the congregation with a cry of "You live five miles away! P*** off!"?

A welcoming church.

Eccles: No, Fr Fisher realises that even people who live as far away as Chislehurst have souls - of a sort - and should therefore be welcomed to the Lord's Table.

Dear Eccles, is it true that Fr Fisher has placed copies of the Tablet and Babes in Custard at the back of the church, "to fulfil a deeply-held spiritual need"?

Eccles: It seems unlikely that such filth would be introduced into a church, so I am afraid this is another misunderstanding.

Probably more spiritual than the Tablet, but still banned from Blackfen.

Fr Finigan goes to Margate

The parish of Blogfen is today in deep mourning at the news that its priest, Fr Tim Finigan of the excellent Hermeneutic of Continuity blog is moving to Margate.

Fr Tim Finigan and Fr Sean Finnegan, priest-bloggers par excellence.

The most obvious theory to explain this move is that traditionalist priest-bloggers are like Martello towers, and need to be placed at strategic points round the coast to repel invaders: thus we have Fr Blake in Brighton, Fr Finnegan in Shoreham, and several other reliable people in similar places, such as Fr Marcus Holden in Ramsgate.

The Anglicans considered a similar strategy at Walmington-on-Sea.

Indeed, moving inland we do not seem to find a similar concentration of high-profile traditionally-minded priests - although one well-known blogging deacon has apparently been sent to Coventry by his bishop - so there we are. Q.E.D., as the Latin liturgy has it.

Look inside a Martello tower and you may find a priest.

What's Margate like?

Neither the Bible nor Shakespeare mention Margate, but it does feature in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land in the section called The Fire Sermon:

On Margate Sands.  
I can connect  
Nothing with nothing.  
The broken finger-nails of dirty hands.  
My people humble people who expect  
Nothing.

The Margate shelter where Eliot wrote The Waste Land (yes, really).

Buddha's original Fire Sermon was not preached at Margate, and it is said that he complained for many years that he had missed an opportunity of sampling the best of British fish and chips, not to mention cockles, mussels and whelks. Without a healthy diet of seafood how can you found a good religion? We know all about Galilee...

Anyway, it just remains to wish well to Fr Finigan, and of course to Blogfen too. Meanwhile, there are always day trips for those suffering from a hermeneutical deficiency...

Special trains on Sunday mornings?

The Pilgrim's Ogress 4 - the guilt of Titus' Grandma

Continued from Part 3

Eccles's Anti Moly takes up the tale.

After my stupid nephew escaped from the Tablet headquarters in Hammersmith, he wanted to go to Blogfen, a woeful traddy parish somewhere near Sidcup. Eccles had heard that there was a meeting there in honour of Titus' Grandma, to which Catholic bloggers were invited. My nephew somehow thought that he would be welcome.

This is Titus, but we never met his Grandma.

It was quite difficult to get to Blogfen, because our donkey, Micky, carrying the emergency gin supplies, wasn't allowed on buses or trains. Also, Eccles wanted to go incognito, as he had heard that a lunatic from Croydon was out for his blood; so he dressed up as a clown and pretended to be his brother Bosco. We missed the religious events, but arrived in time for the party.

Our donkey, also in disguise.

The event was very strange. There was an old man called "Lofty" present, who said he had come along in order to shut down as many blogs as possible. He also had an interesting theory, based on turning over several pages of St Luke's Gospel at once, that Jesus was only on the Earth for one week - Born on a Monday, Baptised on Tuesday, Retreated on Wednesday, Did His ministry on Thursday, Crucified on Friday, Rose on Saturday, Ascended on Sunday. Lofty spent most of the party exchanging scowls with someone they called the "LMS Chairman", and in the end the two of them went outside for a punch-up and never came back.

Eccles asked me to republish this photo of Basil Foltus as a young man.

Eccles says he will always look at Tina Beattie in a new light, as a result of the Blogfen party. As a leading Catholic thinker, she had come to the meeting, and Eccles, who is a little infatuated with her, asked her to dance. It was woeful seeing "luvvly Tina" and my idiot nephew Eccles tango-ing to a Gregorian chant, but this was supposed to be an occasion for getting to know new people.

Hans Küng was there too, and I thought he and I might dance, so I went up to him to ask. Silly me, it was his statue! Apparently Fr Finigan, the host of the party, had been given a copy of the original statue, and had not yet found a good home for it. Well, after a bottle or two of gin, it was an easy mistake for me to make.

Woeful - this man refused to dance with me.

Several more traddy bloggers were also present, many from the Brighton area. I remember talking to a man called Bones; he had come with his friend Blakey from Brighton, who kept saying "I 'ate you, Gardner", although we never discovered who this Gardner man was.

Bones (with an unusual cross) and Blakey.

But the person I remember best, because he talked for three hours without interruption, was someone they called "The Archbishop of Corby". I jotted down a few gems of his conversation, such as, "Make sure you understand the question you're asking, Ma'am, but it seems you prefer a black and white answer to a labyrinth of conditional logic gates you won't even acknowledge, as it's a question of objective disordering circumstances and Noachide/natural moral law, exposing your ignorance of intention/motive and circumstantial factors." This was in response to "Would you like another cup of tea, your Grace?" from a lady in a mantilla.

Sitting on the naughty chair.

Ah well, I slipped under the table shortly after that, and don't remember much more. Such is life, eh? What's more, they played Gregorian chant all afternoon, and not the music I wanted to dance to. Woeful.

This is the sort of music I prefer.

To be continued by another author.

Eccles befriends two bloggers

I done two good deeds today. De fust one was when I got a call from my freind Sister Fortis, wot lives in Blogfen wiv 23 cats and a few hungry mantillas.

De cat Bergoglio.

Sister Fortis is takin part in de forty hours of adoratoin at Blogfen, where you aint allowed to eat or drink, although you is allowed to write bloggs. She asked me if I could look after her cats while she was adorin.

Sister Fortis, sans mantillas, but wiv some of de cats.

De cats is all named after famuos Cathlics. She got Monsinger Newton, wot used to be an Anteater, but converted to bein a Cat. Dere is also Nichols, a very naughty cat wot never does what he is told. Among de lady cats dere is Pepinster, wot hisses a lot, and scratches de uvver cats - dey gives her tablets to keep her calm. One of de most interestin cats is Zuhlsdorf, wot is known for "kitty kill" - he brings in dead voles and sparrows, also de milkman and a passin liberal priest.

Kitty kill.

Well, I is gonna have a hard time lookin after de cats, but luckily my Anti Moly (who has gone back to Austriala) left some gin behind, and dey seems to be much quieter after I mixed it wiv dere CATFOD meat.

Update: de neighbors is complainin about yowlin noises all de night keepin em awake. I fink it is de cat Inwood, wot aint got any idea of mellody and just wont shut up.

---

De uvver good deed I has been doin in to cheer up my freidn Damain Thopmson, wot has been gettin a bit depressed lately. He has put a washin machine in de music room of Thopmson Towers, so dat he can play Bach while watchin his undies goin round and round (we knows he is a holly man, as he says he sees mystic visions - dis must be wot dey calls a Deus ex machina).

To cheer up my friend Damain I went on de web and ordered a bespoke set of boxer shorts dat he can wear when he goes to Mass.

Put dese is de machine, and you will see visions of holly men.

In fact Damain weren't at all amused, and so I tried out Plan B - invitin round to tea de well-known Stephen Fry wot suffers from uncontrollable bonhomie. Dis means dat he becomes very borin and makes pathetic jokes about Cathlic priests and child abuse. Damain aint reely very fond of Mr Fry, especially when de bonhomie is out of control, and so de party was not a success.

The five moods of J. Stephen Fry.

The Boat of Fools visits Blogfen

You stupid cat, you left the iPad at home.

This week our "Mystery Worshipper" attended the church of Blogfen, in which every parishioner is a distinguished blogger.

---

What was the name of the service? Mass v. 1962.

Did anyone welcome you personally? Yes, when I arrived, they said: "We haven't seen you here before. What blog do you write? What's it about? I explained that I wrote the spiritually nourishing Eccles blog, and they let me enter.

Who conducted the service? Fr Tim Finigan, one of the famous "Finigan and Finnegan" team of priestly bloggers.

Fr Finigan discusses a question of hermeneutics with Fr Finnegan.

How would you describe the pre-service atmosphere? People were piously consulting their iPads. Looking at my neighbour, I could see that she was drafting a post for her blog eccentric.visitors.blogfen.com, although she hid the screen when I tried to read it.

What books did the congregation use during the service? No books! They all had iPads, smartphones, or laptops. One more traditionalist worshipper insisted on using an older computer.

A traditionalist worshipper, refusing to use a post-Vatican II computer.

In a nutshell, what was the sermon about? Fr F. explained the Hermeneutic of Rupture, which meant that, although worship was best conducted in line with traditional methods, it was necessary to reject some old-fashioned technology (here he glared at the blogger pictured above, who was now feeding a paper tape into his IBM mainframe).

The women all wore traditional mantillas at Mass.

Did anything distract you? Yes, there were some children present. They were mostly blogging away piously throughout the service, but occasionally they hit each other with their iPads.

A young blogger learns about bytes.

How would you describe the after-service coffee? In fact, full details were being written up for coffee.blogfen.com even as I drank it. We were served Musket Monk coffee, which had been sent as a present from a blogging priest in the USA whose name I didn't catch.

---

Coming soon - we visit a totally different kind of service.