Welcome to Pagan Voices!

My dear friend Austen Ivereigh and I have decided to start a new organization, Pagan Voices. The object of our team will be to improve the Pagan Church's representation in the media, above all in news programmes and debates. Expect to see us on many radio and television programmes in future, where we are certain to make a big impression on bishops and broadcasters alike.

Our new logo, the pregnant Pachamama idol.

The founding of our organization is a direct response to the bad publicity that the recent Pachamama Synod received in the Catholic media - many people labelling it as "pagan" without fully understanding the spiritual nourishment obtainable from pagan beliefs. Austen and I meet regularly to say prayers to the great Mother Earth Goddess, to kiss the soil, and to talk to the trees. Today my colleague received an offer of £10 million from a Nigerian who wants to borrow his bank account. If that doesn't prove that Pachamama answers our prayers, then I'm just a useless lump of wood drifting down the Tiber!

So far we have not yet received an answer from Pope Francis to our request that he become a sponsor of Pagan Voices. Although he was present when Our Lady Pachamama was honoured, we fear that he may use the same excuse that Jeremy Corbyn did when spotted participating in a wreath-laying ceremony for terrorists: "I was present, but I don’t think I was actually involved."

Pope Francis is not yet a fully-confirmed member of our Church.

Still, Austen has already begun work on the third and last volume of his Pope Francis trilogy, "Pope Francis, the great pagan," which should be out in time for Christmas 2020.

That's it really. If anyone wants to become a "Pagan Voices" spokesman, contact Austen, and he will book you onto his classes, where you will learn to speak in a deep mystical voice, throwing out all the standard catchphrases abour Mother Nature, Laudato Si', and the Great Pregnant Earth Goddess who will give birth to new Redeemer (or so Austen tells me).

Is James Martin the Church on Earth?

The Catholic Church is probably unique in having, at any time, a single person on Earth who embodies it, is treated with universal respect and deference, and who is relied upon for a blizzard steady stream of writings, sermons, aeroplane interviews, etc. After all, the Anglicans do not refer to Archbishop Justin Welby as the "Holy Father", and, since they have no agreed doctrines, they cannot call on him for guidance.

The Quakers do have a "Holy Father", but he does not say much in a non-porridgeal context.

Some Catholics have thought that Pope Francis was the Head of the Church, but this is clearly wrong. Indeed, we have the following guidance from the blessed Austen Ivereigh to put us straight: “Francis is increasingly reflecting the style, temperament, attitudes of the majority of the Catholics." This is worrying, if true, as it suggests that the Pope is lazy, bad-tempered, and selfish, hardly ever goes to church, and disagrees with Catholic teaching on homosexuality, divorce, abortion, etc. (at least, if we are to take senior American Catholics as our model).

Austen Ivereigh, on Al-Jazeera, says he cannot eat another sheep's eye.

Luckily, Pope Francis is not the true head of the Church, and there has come someone whose ballet shoes he is not worthy to kiss. Yes, it is Fr James Martin LGBTSJ, the expert on building bridges, who can develop new Catholic teaching at the drop of a rainbow-striped biretta.

Blasphemy? Heresy? Or simply top-quality trolling?

Fr Jim tweeted a similar sentiment last year and was roundly condemned for it (I think this was the occasion of his blocking me on Twitter). Still, good heresies never die*, and he has repeated the same nonsense this year.

* The blessed Austen claims that the Pope's reforms "recover a deeper tradition in the Church", which sounds like a revival of the 2nd Century organization "Gnostic Voices".

So we must conclude that Fr Jim the bridge-builder (Pontifex absurdus in Latin) embodies the Catholic Church. Better than that, he *is* the Church.

Move over, Supreme Quaker, we have our own spiritual leader!

The Pope Francis charm school

Some critics say that I, Eccles, am occasionally rude and insulting. I don't see it myself, but then I came across the following advert and couldn't resist.

A chance to brush up my skills!

The course started badly, as one of the assistant tutors, Fr Müller, was not present. "He's at Mass, Holy Father," explained an aide.

"Drag him out!" shouted the Pope. "God is used to being kept waiting, but I AM NOT."

He then went on to explain that the New Ways Ministry had recently given him an award as the most humble pope since Alexander VI, and he was confidently expecting the Freemasons to award him the Order of the Golden Moose for services to humility. So we could certainly learn from him!

"A drone! With a radar attachment to detect neo-Pelagians and zap them!

A Jesuit in a rainbow cassock wandered in, smoking a strange-looking cigarette. "Hey, man, is this the Coccopalmerio?" he asked, and promptly fell over. A fellow-student explained to me that "Coccopalmerio" is slang for a particular type of party, although he did not give details.

Meanwhile, the Pope had taken advantage of the break in the proceedings to fire one of his cardinals. In fact, he said "Off with his head!" but it was unlikely that things would be taken that far, and the Swiss Guards would simply break one of his legs. This is what "mercy" means!

Pope Francis concluded his course by explaining that, no matter how charming you were, you could easily be misunderstood. For a Jesuit, this is not a problem, of course, but he showed us a tweet from one of his most loyal sycophants.

This is not gloating, this is mercy.

"Unfortunately Ivereigh couldn't attend today's class," he said, "which is a shame, as he could learn a lot from it."

What a pity there isn't some sort of organization that could give training to Catholic commentators such as Austen, so that they could express themselves clearly and avoid being misunderstood!

Cries of "loony" show Austen Ivereigh is making progress

A special article for Cranx written by Pope Francis.

Austen Ivereigh's misrepresentation of my Order of Malta Anschluss has allowed his critics a potent new line of attack. Traditionalists have already mocked him for his ambivalent comments about Castro, his insistence that Amoris Laetitia should be taken seriously as part of the Magisterium, and his dismissal of everyone who wants clarity in Catholic teaching as some kind of "dissenter".

"Austen, where are your wits?" the posters that appeared in Rome last weekend sarcastically asked.

"I think I've found a working brain cell!"

Now the real irony here is that Austen Ivereigh in fact possesses one of the finest minds of this era, or indeed of any era. All right, they call him mad, but didn't they call George III mad? As one Catholic Voices official I spoke to last week put it, "We are here to serve Austen Ivereigh, and not to question any of his comments. The doctrine of Iverical Infallibility is one of the cornerstones of the Catholic Voices Faith, and we remain loyal to the last."

Don Bergoglio and Anto-Spadza sally forth to attack wind-Müllers.

Actually, I don't know why Austen used a cartoon of Don Quixote to illustrate his article about me - presumably he never read the book - but the quotation he uses ("The dogs are barking, Sancho, it's a sign we're advancing") applies equally to my distinguished biographer. The more jokes people make about his startling resemblance to Ronnie Corbett, the more they laugh at his articles, the more we see this as a sign that this "knight of the woeful countenance" is really on the ball.

John Allen Jr attempts to see things the Ivereigh way.

Anyway, I hope I have now made my point in as confusing a way as possible - if I start being too clear they'll throw me out of the Jesuits - so now I really must get down to a day's work - perhaps taking over another Sovereign Order, perhaps inventing new insults, perhaps sacking some more people, and perhaps simply thinking of new ways of not answering those Dubia!

A pope's work is never done.

Holy Father expected to resign soon

This may shock some readers, but the man revered by millions of Catholics as their leader - the person who tells them what to think - is now expected to move on to another job before long.

Things began to unravel for him a month or two ago, when it was clear that he refused to regard the communist tyrant Fidel Castro as simply a brutal dictator, and went from bad to worse when he became involved in the storm over Amoris Laetitia.

SInging "The Holy and the Ivereigh" together.

Yes, Austen Hercules Ivereigh, the Holy Father of Catholic Voices (expected to merge soon with its rivals Anglican Waffles, Muslim Screamings and Secular Spleens), is getting further and further out on a limb, and will surely drop off soon to take a cushy job as Pope Francis's confidant, odd-job man and assistant wielder of the Spadarine sockpuppets.

Some say he jumped the shark when he referred to critics of Amoris Laetitia as dissenters, urging Pope Francis to break with Catholic tradition and ignore the four cardinals' dubia. Others say that this was a mere training leap - over a mackerel, say - and that he was really saving his athletic exploits for an attack on the Polish Church: their fault, roughly speaking, is that they are unhappy at the way Pope Francis contradicts the teachings of their own Pope St John-Paul, not to mention the 260-odd previous popes, the apostles, and a certain Jesus Christ of whom some theologically-expert readers may have heard.

VIncent Nichols learns about the liberal sport of shark-jumping.

Well, we shall miss Uncle Austen if he retires to Rome in order to give the pope a helping hand, but from here he doesn't have many options. Either he has to come out with more and more ludicrous statements ("Why Fidel should be canonized," "Bring back torture for Cardinal Burke," or "52% of Catholics are literally Satan"?) or (unlikely) tell us the answers to the dubia so that we can all get back to being holy people again, or shut up for a few months and write "Pope Francis Volume 2 - the Vatican Strikes Back", or... well do something else.

Meanwhile, Austen has not yet answered our 5 yes/no dubia: Are you off your head? Do you need a lie down? Are you serious? Did you really say THAT? and Have you been hacked?

Don't equate Catholic Voices with violence

Flying back from Kraków, Pope Francis became tired of reading the souvenir magazine, Pole Dancing for Catholics, so he stood up and gave yet another impromptu off-the-cuff press briefing. This was instantly seized on as either a fundamental change to Catholic teaching or yet another non-event, depending on whether you read the Tablet or else some of the Catholic papers.

"I do not like it when people associate Catholic Voices with violence," asserted the Holy Father. "I know that Austen Ivereigh is greatly feared in Catholic circles, but he is basically a peace-loving man, even if he does occasionally come out with statements about Islam that would turn Damian Thompson's hairpiece white."

Francis (protected by a barrier) "reaches out" to Dr Ivereigh.

Every day we read in our newspapers, or see on television, signs of people being intimidated by Catholic Voices. The amazing Caroline Farrow, who has spoken out on Catholic issues on so many television and radio programmes that we have lost count - these include Strictly Come Dancing, Match of the Day, and even Midsomer Murders - can reduce a secularist to a quivering heap of jelly in 30 seconds flat. Even the Archbishop of Corby hides under the baked bean shelves at ASDA when he hears Mrs Farrow on the radio.

However, Pope Francis claims that such people are essentially peaceful. "Take Greg Daly," he said. "Yes, do take him. He tells me he's the only man in the world who understands the Irish question, and occasionally people have fallen into a coma when he tried to explain it to them. But people can fall into comas for other reasons, you know, and one should not blame Catholic Voices for that."

Young people playing Pokémon Go manage to miss the Pope entirely.

In another announcement, Pope Francis commented on the success of World Youth Day. "From now on, we're going to have similar smaller-scale events in every town in the civilised world. They will take place on Sunday mornings, mostly, and involve much smaller gatherings of Catholics for Mass. Obviously, I can't be everywhere, so I am appointing a group of deputies to do the 'Hey, I'm the big superstar' bit. I've even thought of a catchy name for them - priests!"

Here we think Pope Francis may - for once - have gone a little too far.

Peter D. Williams versus Hans Küng

Welcome to another edition of Unbelievable with me, Justin Bieber Welby Brierley. Today we have a no-holds-barred fight between Peter D. Williams of Catholic Voices, and Professor Hans Küng, learned professor and Catholic priest in good standing (it says here).

"King" Küng discusses female ordination.

JB: So, Professor Küng, would you like to tell us when you first went mad?

HK: Jawohl. It happened when I was a student. One day I suddenly realised that I was right about everything, and the Pope was wrong. Clearly, the Catholic Church needed a programme of urgent reform. I wrote half a dozen books about it over the next few weeks, and became a priest. As a result Pope John called the 2nd Vatican Council, and appointed me as his main expert on the Catholic faith.

Pope St John XXIII - he owed everything to Hans Küng.

Of course, since then I have been badly betrayed by the Catholic hierarchy. Joseph Ratzinger, who I appointed to Tübingen, was a big disappointment: in those days I was the Dean and he was a mere Professor, so he used to clean my car and do my shopping for me. But he soon left to go to a more conservative establishment, and now refuses to recognise that his subsequent success was all due to me.

Then I used to write letters to that Polish pope - can't remember his name - asking to be made a cardinal, but he ignored me completely. Now at last Pope Francis is taking notice of me. I sent him 17 of my recent books and he said he had never laughed so much since Maradona scored a goal with his hands! Great guy.

Pope Francis reads Hans's views on the priesthood.

JB: Now over to you, Peter Williams.

PDW: Thank you so much for having me here, Justin, and it is an honour and a privilege to be able to talk to a learned man as distinguished as Professor Küng, and to point out that he is barking mad.

JB: Now, what's all this about women priests?

PDW: Jesus... the priesthood... anamnesis... Last Supper... memorial sacrifice... no dames...

HK: Nonsense... Jesus not even at the Last Supper... Priests not mentioned in the Bible... 1 Corinthians 11... my book Why is the Pope going to Hell?...

PDW: Sorry... no evidence of your views in the Biblical texts... Matthew 16... John 21... scripture... tradition...

HK: Read my books: The Gospel according to St Hans, or The letters of Hans to the Romans... I studied 7 years in Rome... priest in good standing... the Mass is never a sacrifice... think of all the suppers at which Jesus DIDN'T say anything about His Body and Blood... I've been a Catholic for 86 years... young whippersnapper...

"Read all these books? Why I wrote them all..."

PDW: Why would anyone want to call themselves a Catholic if they were not a Catholic?

HK: My views are shared by millions of Catholics... well, some... well, I met some men down the pub who did... Why do you insist on referring to the Bible, as if it were some sort of Holy Scripture?

Some men down the pub.

JB: Can I intervene here, and ask the professor what he thinks about giving Communion to Catholics who have murdered their wives, buried them in the garden, and run off with their same-sex lovers?

HK: This is an everyday situation, and I see no problem with it. Clearly the Church must change its teaching on this matter.

PDW: Er... interpretation not in accordance with scripture... Ephesians 55... Daniel 42... Revelation 99... Bingo!

HK: All the Protestant churches interpret scripture my way! Well, the Calvary Chapel does, and the Jehovah's Witnesses think I'm wonderful. You Schweinehund! I'll get you afterwards.

JB: Well, that's all we've got time for now. If you think that Peter D. Williams is a bullying thug who has gone out of his way to humiliate a distinguished old man, then please do write in and tell us.

Peter D. Williams. The hard man of Catholic Voices.

The full version is here.

Missing veteran found safe

Some items of religious news have just come in.

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Basil Loftus - safe and well.

A Vatican II veteran, who disappeared from his care home after being told that he could not attend celebrations for E-day - because he didn't really believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ - has been found safe and well. Monsignor Basil Loftus, 93, escaped from his minders in Ravenloonie, in northern Scotland; he was eventually found wandering round the Catholic Times muttering that the Church kept asking him to assent to doctrines which no true Protestant could stomach. Also he would sue anyone who called him a heretic, especially if it was the pope.

Said one spokesman: "He really shouldn't be allowed to wander around unattended. Sometimes he just says the first thing that comes into his head, and it causes annoyance to so many people." A member of the public, Dr Joseph Shaw, added: "He came and sat next to me on the bus; after two minutes of his ramblings, I couldn't take it any more. In the end I was forced to go and sit somewhere else."

Basil has now been returned to his care home in Scotland. He is not believed to be dangerous, just very boring.

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The bishops of England and Wales today were today in crisis, after their headquarters were officially labelled "unsaved". Said a spokesman, "I know that some of us have been getting a bad press lately, but it seems a little cruel to say that we are 'unsaved'."

Bad news for the CBCEW.

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Finally, it was announced that a computer had narrowly failed to pass the Turing Test, which requires a machine to respond to questions so that it cannot be distinguished from a real person. The computer, a Retro 84, was programmed to contribute to Twitter, trolling the timeline of a prominent speaker for Catholic Voices, and making inane comments on everything she said.

Ooh, look what @fairdove has been saying today. Not a make-it-up-as-you-go-along Catholic like me LOL.

Initially it was thought that the Retro 84 was a genuine Catholic woman, but when it started loading its comments with meaningless words such as "bigot" and "homophobe", and when it described Hans Küng as an "eminent theologise", it was clear that in fact it was simply a computer program speaking, possibly one influenced by the legendary Professor Stanley Unwin.

This computode Catholibabe knows its trollybanter! Amazey.

Christians and antisocial media

Deacon Tommy, the most miserable man on the Internet, explains how social media brought him friendship.

Could this be the real @pontifex?

It's no secret that I am a keen user of Twitter, which is a wonderful vehicle for insulting and upsetting people. In particular, I find that anonymous Twitter profiles raise my blood pressure. Of course I don't often throw bricks through the windows of other tweeters, or make trouble with their employers, but it is something I would like to be able to do if push came to shove. But now I have relented, and this is due to an anonymous profile that goes by the name of @pontifex (for those whose Latin is as bad as mine, this means Bridge-Builder, so I naturally assumed that he was some kind of civil engineer).

The wobbly bridge - a clue to the identity of @pontifex?

This @pontifex uttered a Tweet that was sent on to me: Dear friends, please pray for me during my pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Naturally, I gave him the usual treatment: I sent him a nasty message, and blocked him on Twitter. I have a friend who is an IT expert, and he managed to track down @pontifex to the Vatican; after a bit more snooping we had the confidence to send the following to @pontifex: Hello, @pontifex, or should I call you Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto? Does your employer know you Tweet in office hours?

My Archbishop, Smiffy, and others from the CBCEW, trying to work out what they think of civil partnerships.

However, @pontifex was fully understanding, and his kindness and charity moved me to tears. Yes, it really did. Or it may have been the onions in the shed where I do my antisocial media stuff. @pontifex said that he'd heard about me, and he was going to offer prayers on my behalf. Being a humble person, he lives in a shed as well, so there is a bond between us.

The humble shed in which @pontifex lives.

Actually, I think @pontifex had come across my blog "Catholic Vizzes", where I make witty personal attacks on priests, members of Catholic Voices, and anyone else who is more popular than I. Maybe I shouldn't mention this, but a certain bishop to the west of the Pennines told me that he wished his own deacons could be as charming and restrained as I am!

So in my general crusade for peace, I have decided to accept that @Pontifex is (nearly) as good a Catholic as I am, and my latest theory is that he is Br George Pontifex, a monk from Cambridge. Still, I gather that he also uses a "sockpuppet" title, Pope Francis, and this definitely not the name he was born with!

Deacon Tommy (with help from Agatha Christie) gets the measure of Eccles.

Honecker College Students Union chooses its speakers

And now over to Honecker College, London, where the student union committee is going through the formal vetting procedure for its invited speakers.

Humphrey Stalin-Jones, president of the Students Union.

Tamara Gaddafi-Smith (save-the-sardine awareness officer and LBGTWTF rights): So we're inviting Abu Hamza, Rosemary West, Kim Jong Un and Ed Miliband. All good solid Guardian-readers apparently. I can't see us having much trouble with them!

Claud Pol Pot-Johnson (support loyal Myanmar, troops out of Norfolk, and feminist goats liaison): No problem there. Also, I think Gerry Adams, Peter Tatchell, Stuart Hall, and Bashar al-Assad could be invited. I can't see any difficulties there.

Philippa Trotsky-Brown (gay hamster support and eat the Royal Family campaign): Stuart Hall? A better choice than Jimmy Savile. He was a Catholic, you know. Also could we invite Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter and the Dark Lord Sauron?

I would be delighted to visit your college. What's for dinner?

Claud: I'm not sure of their addresses, but their CVs look fine. I'll try and contact them. So there's just one more name on the list?

Tamara: Yes, one Peter D.C.X. Williams of Catholic Voices. Well, we can't have him, he hasn't gone through the correct procedures.

Philippa: Ah yes, Rule 94: the candidate must renounce God and declare unconditional support for gay sex. But there's not much chance of that, the word "Catholic" is rather a giveaway. REFUSED.

What a terrifying person. No wonder he's banned.

Tamara: Funny you should say that, our next nominee is someone called Catherine Pepinster.

Omnes: No problem!

A pope's guide to Twitter

Your Holiness,
Many of us are very pleased to see you on Twitter, but I think it's time that some friendly person took you aside to explain that you're not really using it properly.

So far, so good... or is it?

You see the problem here? You are following only 8 people, and they have very similar names, for example, Papa Franciscus, Pape François and البابا فرنسيس. If you are going to use sockpopes, you ought to make them less obvious, Holy Father, and conceal them by following lots of other people as well as yourself. Call yourself something more subtle such as "Geo. Bergoglio", or "Anonymous Holy Man", or perhaps "Vatican Big Cheese", or even just "Happy Catholic". All the names that cry out "I'm holy, and don't you forget it!" such as "Miser Peccator", "Holy Smoke", or "On the side of the angels" have probably been taken already, I'm afraid.

Now, you may think that 2-million-plus followers is something special (after all, Dawkins has less than 800,000 and Justin Welby a pathetic 40,000), but even the Dalai Lama's stuff is read by over 7 million fans; when you leave the realms of religion and go into show-business, you find Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Barack Obama all around the 40 million mark. And Obama can't even sing.

Justin Bieber Welby. The one who sings, anyway.

So what are you doing wrong, your holiness? Well, take your latest tweet: We cannot be Christians part-time. If Christ is at the center of our lives, he is present in all that we do. You're using U.S. English, very good; that will bring in our American friends. A very sound comment, but it does read a little too much as if you're trying to preach to us. When did you last crack a joke? Or post a funny picture?

This man thinks he's a cardinal, but he's just a lunatic. ROFL. Love you all. @pontifex

Yes, that's the sort of thing. Now you should really be following more people and interacting with them. You like football - why not follow Diego Maradona? Then, every time he mentions the "Hand of God", reply with "You're a filthy cheat!" That's the way most people use Twitter.

Or, for a good laugh, follow the Tablet! You've probably never heard of it, but it's a brilliant spoof account, parodying a supposedly Catholic newspaper. It tries to cram in as many heresies, mis-statements and sheer fantasies as it possibly can. You'll love it!

What do you think, folks? Shall I make this chap a saint? Bless! @pontifex

Finally, you need to have a regular circle of Twitter enemies, with whom you swap insults. There's no use talking to Richard Dawkins or Stephen Fry - they get upset too easily. Besides, your natural home is with the Catholics: they like squabbling on Twitter, so join in the fun. Say that you quite like Catholic Voices, and see how long it takes before you're accused of being a sockpuppet living in Brighton!

Is this a sockpope, or the real thing?

The dark side of Catholic Voices

What is this sinister organization known only as Catholic Voices - is it linked to the Freemasons, Opus Dei, Mafia or the North Korean government? In a special guest post, Damian Thompson expresses his concerns.

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The Faceless Kathleen Griffin (official CV portrait).

Whenever the media wish to hear the views of a Catholic on one of the major religious issues of our day - for example, the election of Pope Francis, the government's attempts to redefine marriage, or whether coleslaw is so called because it resembles the inane witterings of the Rev. Richard Coles - you can be sure that Catholic Voices will worm its way onto the airwaves.

A sinister albino monk - is he the power behind Catholic Voices?

Oh, they wouldn't let me join, would they? They said I had a squeaky voice and couldn't be relied on not to storm out of the studio if challenged by Peter Hitchens. Wasn't it simply that they were scared that, if they taught me the funny handshake and the secret passwords, I could expose them to the world?

Austen "Ronnie Corbett" Ivereigh - told me to grow up.

Look at the people involved: Jack Valero (Opus Dei), Caroline Farrow (mother of 12, and bullying commentator on my blog), Peter Williams (Right to Life), ... well, the list speaks for itself. Then look at how they are funded - by donations from individuals and organizations. That's very mysterious, don't you think?

Robert Mugabe - a prominent Catholic. Does he donate to CV?

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Paul Priest, Archbishop of Corby, adds his own concerns.

Brilliant article, Damian! Have you noticed that many of the Catholic Voices people are converts? This means that, say ten years ago, they may have been atheists, Muslims, Satanic fire-worshippers... who knows what? Do we really want Satanic fire-worshippers speaking out for the Catholic church?

On the side of the angels...

What's more they promote the time-bomb of Vatican II-type liturgical/doctrinal/moral Vichyist revisionism. Trust me, I know an ontological paradigm shift when I see it - we were warned about them in the encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI, which I've read from cover to cover, not to mention the complete works of Dan Brown.

Piero Marini presents Pope Benedict XVI with a liturgical/doctrinal/moral time-bomb.

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So there we have it. Be afraid... be very afraid. These faceless anonymous secretive people, who are never off your television screens, are clearly hiding something very sinister.