Serialization of Pope Francis's autobiography 1

We are deeply privileged to be able to print excerpts from the autobiography of Pope Francis, Life: My Story Through History, subtitled Why I was right and all other popes were wrong, which is to be published on St Joseph's Day, the 75th birthday of the great Cardinal Cupich.

All the stories that Austen Ivereigh never knew about!

My early career.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I worked for a time as a bouncer, throwing people out of clubs; I came away from this job with a black belt in the ancient martial art of Papa-Slappa, which I use whenever people annoy me.

I then trained as a chemist, but this was an unhappy time, as I rejected all traditional teaching (e.g. "do not put arsenic in people's sandwiches" and "acid baths can harm people") in favour of my own magisterium.

I make coffee for my friend "Tucho" Fernández.

I train as a priest.

After my unhappy experiences as a chemist, I was looking for another career, and my mentor, Fr Juan Perón SJ, suggested that I was best suited to be either a priest or a confidence trickster. In the end we compromised, and I became a Jesuit.

A few pages omitted here, Let's get on to more recent history. Eccles.

I become pope!

In 2005 I had already been a candidate for the papacy, but inexplicably the Holy Spirit, who has the final say in these decisions, burst out laughing and gave the job to Cardinal Ratzinger instead. What was I to do?

Little did I know, apart from the fact that they telephoned me about it every day, that the Holy Spirit had appointed an organization called the St Gallen Mafia, whose job it was to make sure that Ratzinger did not stay around too long, and that I should take his place. Apart from the Godfather, Ivo Fürer, there were other notorious people. I remember Martini, who put a horse's head into Benedict's bed; Danneels, who once nailed a seminarian's head to the pew; and Kasper, who made Benedict an offer he couldn't refuse.

Carlo Maria Martini and his Uncle Baal.

Eventually, the Holy Spirit caused Benedict to resign suddenly, and persuaded the conclave to elect me as Pope! As someone once said "Thus proves that God has a sense of humour!"

To follow:

* How I corrected the errors of 2000 years of Catholicism!

* Amoris Laetitia! How adultery became cool!

* Pachamama! How I came to love idols!

* Traditionis Custodes! How I applied Fr Juan Perón's methods!

No backwardism in MY Church!

* Austen Ivereigh! How a garden-gnome became a theological expert!

* Synods! How to waste the time of your most irritating friends!

On to Part 2!

Pope Francis addresses the Curia

Dear brothers and sisters,

Start with something friendly. Usually you insult them for twenty minutes without a break, and it doesn't go down well.

You are awful, but I like you! God commands us to love everyone, even time-serving wastrels such as yourselves, so I do love you. Honestly. Have a good Christmas, or Eid, or Hanukah, according to choice! Just don't overeat, you fat slobs.

"Remember Christendom no longer exists. Least of all in Rome."

Hmm, not bad, that seems to have won them over. How about some Process Theology now? I know it's heretical, but dress it up in scientific language.

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Francis. Its ten-year mission, to initiate processes, to avoid occupying spaces, and to give birth to new historical dynamics. To boldly go where no Church has gone before.

After all, E=mc²; on the other hand time wastes our bodies and our wits but we waste time so we are quits. In the immortal words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, "May the Force be with you". Or as R2D2 put it, "Bleep, bleep, bleep!" And I think there is a message there for all of us.

A true prophet.

Brilliant. Now, a tribute to Cardinal "shaken but not stirred" Martini. After all, he was the arch-modernist whose St Gallen group got you the job.

Cardinal Martini, in his last interview, a few days before his death, said something that should make us think: "The Church is two thousand years behind the times, still following teachings from the first century. We need to change everything. Socialism, liberation theology, revolution. Give Baal a chance!" Makes you think, doesn't it?

Martini (or Baal).

Wind up with a grumble about rigidity. That always goes down well.

As many gymnasts will tell you, rigidity is a great temptation, which must be resisted. It leads to imbalance, and falling off the high bar. The same applies in Catholicism. Keeping the same religious opinions for years on end, just because they are traditional Christian teaching, leads to erecting fences on the terrain of common good, turning it into a minefield of incomprehension and hatred. That's how minefields are created - ask any engineer.

Wind up now, they're getting bored.

Well I would bless you with the sign of the cross, but I find that very rigid. So I'd just like to thank you for watching me and my little show here tonight. If you've enjoyed it, then it's all been worthwhile. So, until we meet again, good night, and I love you all!

No more old Catholics to be canonized

A decision has come down from the Vatican that only Catholics inspired by the Spirit of Vatican II will henceforth be eligible for canonization. "We let Newman through the gate, but that's the last one," said a spokesman. "From now on only modernists can become saints. The next one will probably be Cardinal Martini."

The first victim of this new rule is Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who was due to be beatified in a few weeks time, now that his body has been wrested from the pudgy grip of Cardinal Dolan. The USCCB have pointed out that it is almost unheard-of for an American bishop to have lived a life of purity and decency ("We've all got boyfriends," claimed one bishop), and so there must be something nasty in Sheen's history.

Fulton Sheen appears on "What's my line" and writes down his occupation.

Elizabeth the Scalier, also known as the Angriest, who has left Patheticos and now works for Bishop Barron's "Throw our words into the fire" empire, has come up with the suggestion that perhaps Sheen had some homosexual relations in his CV.

It is believed that in a few days time she will have come up with more imaginative speculations - possibly the existence of a beach house in which seminarians were abused. Obvuously, mere homosexual activity is not considered a bar to canonization these days, indeed in some Jesuit circles it is really a sine qua non.

No doubts about Cardinal Martini (a.k.a. Baal)!

An interview with Cardinal Kasper

For many Catholics, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's Prefect of the Congregation for Introducing New Heresies, is a Godlike figure. He must be, as otherwise how would he dare to contradict so much teaching from the Son of God Himself? We were determined to interview the man they call "St Wally the Absurd".

We made our way to his Vatican apartment "Dunprayin", and we were admitted by the butler, Tommy Rosica; in fact, Rosica initially tried to block our way, but a shrill cry of "All are welcome, Tommy! Give him Communion, whoever he is!" forced him to let us pass. We did not take Communion.

A scary disguise for Hallowe'en. Heresy or treat?

"How nice to see you, Eccles," said Kasper, as Rosica retired in order to practise martial arts on his "Cardinal Burke" punchbag. "Excuse my lying on the floor - I'm trying to see things from the cat's point of view today. May I offer you a mouse?"

I hastily declined and asked him about his latest claims following the publication of Amoral Lay-Teaching (a blockbuster written by the Pope, with additional material by Cardinals Baldisseri, Cupich, Danneels, Marx, Kasper, Nichols, and Schönborn; also Fr Thomas Reese SJ, Fr James Martin SJ, Fr Tony Flannery, Dame Tina Beattie, Sister Margaret Farley, Mr Joe Biden, Mr Tim Kaine, Prof. Hans Küng, Mr Michael Coren, Mr Ed Stourton, the man at the off-licence, and a very nice devil-worshipper we met at the sauna baths).

Namely, Kasper had decreed that it was not only possible for the divorced and remarried to take communion, but actually a great scandal if they didn't. "That is what we decided at the Synod," he explained, "and it supersedes all the teaching of the last 2000 years.

"Surely the Synod actually refused to agree that?" I asked.

Baal The late Cardinal Martini, who taught Kasper all he knows about orthodoxy.

"Look, if the writers of Amoral Lay-Teaching deliberately put in a footnote saying 'Don't worry about all that SIN nonsense, ha ha ha!' then surely that proves you wrong, Eccles?"

Kasper now got up from the floor. Sticking straws in his hair, pouring custard down his trousers, and painting his nose red ("I've got to go to Mass soon, and need to be properly dressed"), he referred me to his fifteen books on theology and Christology. My German is not very good, but I promised to try and make my way through his magnum opus, Eine Nürnberger Wurst mit Kartoffelsalat, bitte! which, he said, encapsulated the essence of his thought.

So, receiving a friendly parting kick on the backside from Rosica, I said farewell to the greatest theologian of this era, or indeed of any era.

The life of a secret nun

With the news that Pope Francis has killed the fatted calf for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (the "prodigal nuns"), some readers have contacted me, saying "Who are these ladies? They don't look like nuns at all. Could they be the Women's Institute?"

"F" briefs the secret nuns.

Let me make it clear at the outset that I will have no truck with any jokes about their unusual habits. Now, where we?

The secret - or plain-clothes - nuns are an elite order of Catholic agents. They go around in "mufti", and are in most respects indistinguishable from ordinary members of the public. Their director, "F" has given some of them a "Licence to Pray", although this is only permitted in emergencies. One of their most famous agents is "Double-six seven", 667, or Jackie Bond, who often introduces herself by "The name's Bond, Sister Bond".

In England, "M" entertains some less prestigious "uniformed" nuns.

Some of the films in which Sister Bond's exploits have been recorded are Dr Küng, From Eccleston Square with Love, You're Only Resurrected Once, On His Holiness's Secret Service, and The Man with the Golden Vestments. Fans of the Bond series will remember another recurring character, the eccentric Cardinal K, who provides our heroine with the latest in a series of improbable new doctrines produced in his laboratory. Many of them don't work properly, or have undesirable side-effects.

Cardinal Martini - shaken but not stirred.

One question remains though: why are all "F"'s secret agents old ladies in their 70s? Wouldn't a younger agent be better able to thwart the plans of Ernst Stavro Dawkins or Rosa Toynbee? Sister Bond admits that this might be so, but maintains that it is all part of her disguise as a harmless old woman, whom nobody could possibly take seriously; and so far this is the case.

A Christmas Carol

Martini was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The Catholic world was stirred but not shaken to hear that Martini, the "Commie Cardinal", had gone to meet his Maker, to tell Him where he had gone wrong.

Berscrooglio knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Berscrooglio and Martini were partners for I don't know how many years...

Cardinal Berscrooglio, living humbly.

(Get on with it, will you, Eccles, nobody wants to read an entire novella. When do the ghosts appear?)

All right then. Berscrooglio looked out of the window at the jolly Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, as they processed towards St Traddy's Church in order to celebrate a Mass in the Extraordinary Form. "Bah! Humbug! Self-absorbed Promethean Neo-Pelagians" he sneered, and retired to bed.

Berscrooglio lay, half-awake, until the clock had struck midnight; then the curtains were drawn aside; and then, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, Berscrooglio found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them.

"I am the Ghost of Synod Past," exclaimed the spirit, "also known as Vatican II. Come and see what we did!" The ghost took Berscrooglio back to the 1960s, to a vast meeting of the Great and Good. And Basil Loftus. There the Wise Fathers of the Catholic Church decided to follow the Spirit of the 60s, and encourage the faithful to become hippies. Well, actually they didn't, but somehow sex, drugs and rock-and-roll crept into the spiritual life of the Church soon afterwards.

"I, the Ghost of Vatican II, took most of the credit for this," explained the spectre. Every night in the Vatican there was a rumbling sound, as of an earthquake. It was an army of dead popes, all turning in their graves.

The Ghost of Synod Past.

Moving on quickly, now: the next night Berscrooglio was visited by the Spirit of Synod Present (or at least, only just past), which manifested itself as a smiling man with a fanatical expression on his face. "I am Kasper, the Spirit of Synod Present," said the grinning spectre. "I have come to change the church's teaching on the family; that of course includes homosexuality, divorce and adultery, which are jolly good things that can only make the family stronger. O Berscrooglio! Beware Burke! Send him to Africa, we don't take any notice of people down there. Or even as far as Malta will do."

The Ghost of Synod Present.

Berscrooglio woke at dawn with a shudder, but he knew that his torments would continue. Sure enough, when midnight arrived, a third horrific phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached him. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. "Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Synod Still To Come?" he asked. "Strange Spirit, who art thou? Cormac? Vin? Tiny Tim Radcliffe? Surely not Catherine Pepinster or Tina Beattie?"

"I am all these, and none," said the Spectre. "My name is Legion, for we are Many. See how the Church fades away, as we make it conform with the world!"

The ghost of Synod Still To Come.

"Horrible! Horrible!" said Berscrooglio. "After all, Uncle Benedict was right - it is time for us to become religious again! It is not too late for me to repent - away with my giant Pinocchio puppets, my copy of 'Tango-for-Dummies', even my CD of 'Paul Inwood's Greatest Bath-Time Gurgles'!" Hurriedly dressing, he made his way through the early morning mist to the livestock market, where he bought the largest tiger you ever saw, and left it at Cardinal Kasper's door as a Christmas present.

A present for Cardinal Kasper.

"God bless us, every one!" said Berscrooglio. "Even Eccles!"

The Pilgrim's Ogress 5: The Spy who Saved Me

Continued from Part 4.

Ian Fleming takes up the tale.

"Get 007 over here at once," said F to his secretary, Cardinal Munnipenni. "He's the only person who can deal with this crisis. Tell him to leave his aunt behind - I will brief him on his own."

A few days later, Eccles arrived in Rome, having been flown in from a secret mission somewhere in South London. Ignoring flirtatious glances from Munnipenni (they still had a few such problems in the Curia) he went straight into F's office. "The name's Eccles, Brother Eccles," he exclaimed.

Pope Francis (sitting) briefs Eccles.

"Bless you, 007," said F. "I'm afraid we're out of dry Martini - he died last year."

"So I heard," replied "Eccles. I was shaken but not stirred by what he had to say."

"Now, we're sending you back to England on a special mission. According to the Protect Me blog, there have been a number of disturbing incidents in your country. A sinister organization called ACTA is determined to destabilize the Catholic Church, and we'll need you to go undercover and infiltrate it."

Tipped to be the next "Bond girl".

"What will it involve, sir?" asked Eccles. "Any good-looking girls that I can collaborate with?"

"Probably not this time, Eccles," said his boss. "Most of the members seem to be over 70 years old. Now, to join ACTA you will need to sign its mission statement, all about how you are inspired by the Second Vatican Council, but - and this is the important thing - there is a mysterious supplementary paragraph to sign up to, as well. This is top secret, and we don't know what it contains. We want you to get hold of a copy of it - it could be dynamite!"

"How do I make contact with ACTA?" asked 007.

"We have sent three other agents already, but they've all disappeared mysteriously. Probably they were spotted as being our people, because they didn't know the passwords or the funny handshakes; or maybe they rolled up the wrong trouser-leg. You'll need to be careful, Eccles."

"Anything else you can tell me, sir?"

"Yes, there have been one or two other mysterious incidents, recently. We don't know if they are related. For example, a priest who was supposed to interpret Catholic teaching in sign language turned out to be producing total gibberish."

Warning: total gibberish.

"Ah yes, I heard about him, poor fellow. Was there anything else?"

"It's a long shot, but at Saatchi and Saatchi in London they have put a blasphemous representation of Mary and Joseph on display. We don't know whether there's a link to ACTA."

Not Joseph and Mary.

"I'll get back to England straight away," promised 007.

"Before you go, drop in on C. He'll issue you with some equipment for your mission."

"C" with Zuhlsdorf^TM "Mors Vobiscum" liturgical beretta.

007 said his goodbyes to F, and went to see the man they called "C" or "Cormac".

"Now, Eccles, listen carefully," said C. "You'll be going in disguised as a priest. What I am giving you looks like a mobile confessional, but it is programmed to recognise voice patterns. Once someone says the words 'Miser Peccator', the confessional is flooded with an evil gas, sending the sinner to sleep."

The booby-trapped Portofess.

Thanking C for his gift, although wondering how he would ever persuade ACTA members to admit that they might have sinned, Eccles made his way back to England and rejoined his aunt.

To be continued by another writer.

Catherine Popehater writes

The Editor of the Tabloid comic explains how Cardinal Spartini was right to challenge the Catholic Church's conservatism.

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Catherine Popehater

Cardinal Spartini, who died recently, has denounced the Catholic church in no uncertain terms. In a message from beyond the grave he tells us: Having a lovely time. Wish you were here. Weather wonderful, hope I don't have to go anywhere hotter. That horrible imposter Pope Benedict has paid tribute to Spartini, the man who should really have been Pope, in the words, "Ach, I'll miss old 'Bonkers' Spartini. Man was a loony liberal, of course, but he was very kind to his white cat."

If the conclave of 2005 had gone the way it should have done, Spartini would have been Pope, and the Catholic church would have been able to undo some of the worst excesses of the John-Paul II years, such as the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Collapse of Communism.

The Berlin Wall. Its demolition was never authorized by the Vatican II documents.

Spartini was a keen champion of liberalism, and felt that the Catholic church should change its attitudes on contraception, divorce, gay marriage and prostitution. My own mother was aware of these issues: when I was a child she would look sadly at me and say "Catherine, if only I had been allowed to use contraception!" Vatican II implicitly enjoined us to ordain lesbian prostitutes, and this was swept under the carpet by traditionalists trying to take us back to the dark ages, when people such as Christ, Peter and Paul were preaching their out-of-date doctrines.

If Spartini had become Pope we should now be seeing a more liberal Catholic church, ready to ordain a woman Pope, ending discrimination against people on the grounds of sexuality or religious belief. I would have faced fierce competition from Polly Toynbee and Harriet Harman, but I am sure that in the end I would have been elected Pope in spite of my mildly pro-Catholic views.

Why are these ladies not allowed to be cardinals?

What do we see in the modern Catholic church? A return to outmoded forms of worship where the use of ancient words such as "Gloria," "Alleluia" and "Amen" - words incomprehensible to most of us - is encouraged. The reading of outdated books such as the Bible, rather than Das Kapital or The God Delusion. No wonder Spartini was horrified.

Still, it's not all bad. The Catholic church maintains its traditional opposition to murder, and I think most of those present at Vatican II were happy to accept this. But the ideal Spartini legacy would be for the Catholic church to help with the rebuilding of the Berlin Wall, and to fight for the collapse of capitalism.