2024

With apologies to George Orwell.

Winston Smith's route to Mass took him past the People's Aborturama. Here, citizens were encouraged to punish their unwanted children with painful execution, so that their organic components could be recycled for the good of the state. Seeing officers of PrayPol, the Prayer Police, standing nearby, Winston hastily put his hands in his pockets and arranged his features into a large smile. That way, nobody would accuse him of praycrime.

A scene of explicit praycrime.

Naturally, Big Brother had no objection to the use of prayers, provided that they were taken from the Synod 2021-2045 Handbook. This had been compiled by the late Citizen Ivereigh of the Ministry of Religion on the instructions of Pope Francis the Godly, whose remarkable brain was now operating for eternity thanks to the miracles of science.

The Pope (aged 148) continues his work.

State-approved prayers were mostly addressed to Pachamama, the People's goddess, and involved repentance for environmental wrongs, such as plasticstrawsinning or candlecrime. Unauthorized prayers outside the People's Aborturama, the Youthinasia retirement home, or DragonQueen, the children's gender reassignment playground, were of course severe examples of praycrime, and the offender was liable to compulsory re-education.

A doubleplusungood example of praycrime.

Re-education mostly consisted of the guilty citizen being imprisoned in the Greta Thunberg Education Facility (formerly Oxford University), where the offender was forced to listen to endless lectures on Critical Race Theory, Gender Theory and of course Climate Change (scientists had recently revised their estimates, revealing that the World would be consumed by fire no later than 2090).

Winston arrived on time at the Pachamama Cathedral Mosque. Mass would start with a two-minute Hate of White People, who, it had been established by the Big Sister of Oceania (formerly President Meghan of the United States), were responsible for all the evils of the world...

To be continued? I hope not. Just read the newspapers if you want more.

Vatican explains its Christmas Nativity Scene

December 11th 2021.

After the 2020 fiasco, in which their Christmas Nativity Scene featured Fisher-Price toys, a spaceman, and a statue of Moloch, the Vatican has produced what Pope Francis has described as a "traditional crèche" for its 2021 offering.

Nobody could be offended by this one!

Said a spokesman, "Our sculptor has been influenced by 1970s British television in his design. Although there are also influences from ancient Peladon."

He went on to explain that the young lady on the left was clearly the Virgin Mary, and actually a resembled a human being rather than the 2020 rag doll. The older man on the right was Joseph, and also designed to resemble a real human being.

The one-eyed egg was not of course supposed to be Our Lord (who is missing entirely to avoid offending non-Christians), but was almost certainly an angel. The two warriors were in fact shepherds, as it was a well-known fact that first century shepherds always wore armour to protect their sheep against wolves (cf. Gospel according to St James Martin).

Moloch, included in the 2020 nativity scene as an ecumenical gesture.

Reactions from the public have been largely favourable. Dr Taylor Marshall, in his show, described the scene as "very moving", and Austen Ivereigh added "I see the one-eyed hexapod as an embodiment of Pachamama, whom we all adore. See my new book Pope Francis talks in his sleep, consisting of magisterial eavesdroppings on the papal slumbers."

By the way, Dr Marshall, if you ever read this, "Eccles" rhymes with "freckles". Stay saved.

Did Bergoglio steal the election?

Supporters of Cardinal Scola are encouraging him to take legal action over the 2013 Conclave. This resulted in the election of Cardinal Bergoglio to the papacy, even though all the evidence was that Scola was far more popular.

"It says here that 150,000 cardinals voted for you and only 50 for Scola."

The legal case is based on various claims of cheating:

• Apparently, votes were received in the names of several dead cardinals, including Martini, Bugnini, Duèse (Pope John XII), and Judas (Iscariot).
• Allegedly, there was a surprise delivery of 100,000 votes, all in the name of Jorge Bergoglio and, very suspiciously, marked "Printed in China".
• Several cardinals claimed that they were prevented from voting, having been told by the St Gallen Mafia representatives that "The polls are closed", or "You are not wearing the correct-coloured socks" and even "Only votes for Bergoglio are permitted."
• Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor was seen talking to several cardinals with weak eyesight and offering to help them fill in their ballot papers.

After seven years of Pope Francis's reign, it may be too late to reverse the result of the election, which would result in the (very popular) pulping of Amoris Laetitia and Fratelli Tutti, the sacking of Pachamama as deputy God, and the dismissal of dodgy cardinals such as Cupich and Uncle Wilt Gregory. Also, where would this leave vice-pope Calamity Tagle?

Uncle Wilt was expecting to get the vote of the Emperor Nero in the next conclave.

As usual, Pope Francis has refused to comment, and he was last seen hiding in his basement, apparently praying at the tomb of St Peter and asking for his vote.

Has Francis been replaced by an android?

Various theories have been advanced about the mysterious device seen attached to Pope Francis, as observed on Marco Tosatti's lovely blog. Is it a radio, enabling him to receive instructions from his controller, Fr Spadaro? Could it be a medical device, allowing the Pope to operate at a faster rate than the average 83-year-old? Or is it simply a communicator produced by the primitive indigenous peoples of South America, enabling him to stay in touch with Pachamama?

That mystery object.

No, in fact the truth is (probably) rather different. When the St Gallen Mafia arranged for Jorge Bergoglio to become Pope, they also constructed an android, which was programmed with all the knowledge and experience of that great cardinal. Bergoglio himself had said many times that he did not wish to be Pope, so, when the white smoke emerged, they hurriedly dressed the android in papal robes and pushed it out onto the balcony of St Peter's. The mystery object is an electronic component that is not usually visible.

At first, the android performed reasonably well. However, gradually some electronic faults began to develop - writing Amoris Laetitia caused the circuitry to overheat; more problems were seen when the android was placed in an aeroplane, and the plane's electronic components caused it to produce random teachings; desperate attempts by Baldisseri and his fellow-engineers to rewire the Pope simply led to more errors.

A hitherto unpublished picture of Pope Francis.

In the last week or two, more degradation of performance has been noted. The Martini 2.0 filter that was fitted has started to malfunction; the Sign of the Cross relays are getting rusty; there is an overloading of the Pachamama diodes; the Catholicism over-ride has stopped working; and the infallibility chip is in danger of catching fire.

Quick - can someone reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, before it is too late?

The Catholic case for Nero

From America Magazine, edited by James Martin LGBTSJ.

Following our very popular article The Catholic Case for Communism, we have commissioned Dean Dettloff to write The Catholic Case for Nazism and The Catholic Case for the Rwandan Genocide, which are also bound to go down well with our readers. Today's piece explains why the Emperor Nero was not the villain that is usually claimed, and should certainly be canonized.

Nero: statesman, violinist, and LGBT icon.

Nero has had a bad press for his lack of ecumenicalism towards Christians, but we should not hold that against him. His execution of St Peter and St Paul might be interpreted as showing a certain hostility to Catholicism, but modern studies have shown that these Church fathers were greatly over-rated compared with more distinguished theologians such as Hans Küng, Massimo Faggioli, Cardinal Marx, and of course the Holy Father himself. We can be sure that when Nero went to the Pearly Gates, and found St Peter there waiting for him, the two greeted each other as old friends!

"Hey, our old mate Nero will be along soon!"

Apart from his controversial habit of putting people to death, Nero was known as a prominent member of the LGBT community, and one would have to be truly homophobic to criticise his incest and his relationship with a trans woman called Sporus. Moreover, his violin-playing was legendary. As Rome burned, he entertained the crowd with a performance of "Shine Jesus, Shine" in which they all joined in with the words "Blaze, Spirit, blaze, Set our hearts on fire!"

No, Nero was a warm-hearted Catholic, of the sort to whom we must build bridges. It is a scandal that people such as he could not preach at Mass.

© America Magazine.