World Cup of Patron Saints of England

A bit of a new venture here - usually we go for Bad Hymns, Bad Cardinals, Ugly Churches, Instruments from Hell, etc. (and some of these contests will be due for a repeat soon, as they were last held in 2018). But here we're going for something GOOD.

I have 32 candidates to be patron saint of England. All are English except George, Augustine of Canterbury, and Joseph of Arimathea. Will George hold onto his title, or will someone else be more popular? The Twitter poll begins tomorrow.

Very few of our entrants have slain dragons.

Meanwhile a plug for an old piece I wrote about St George.

Our candidates (did I forget anyone obvious?) are:

Aelfflaed of Whitby
Aethelbert of Kent
Aidan
Alban
Aldeberge of Kent
Augustine
Bede
Boniface
Chad
Cuthbert
Dunstan
Edmund
Edmund Campion
Edward, king and martyr
Edward the Confessor
Etheldreda
George
Gilbert of Sempringham
Hilda
Hugh of Lincoln
John Fisher
John Henry Newman
Joseph of Arimathea
Margaret Clitherow
Nicholas Owen
Odo of Canterbury
Patrick
Swithin
Thomas Becket
Thomas More
Wilfrid of York
Wulfstan

"A dragon outside, you say? On my way..."

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N.B. It seems that the hashtag #WCPSE has also been used by the Western Canada Paranormal & Spiritual Expo, but I am sure they won't mind. They probably saw it coming anyway.

Is Pope Francis really weird?

One thing that both traditionalists and modernists seem to agree on is that Pope Francis is a very unusual pope. Is he the new broom that will sweep away traditional Catholic doctrine for good, institute same-sex marriages, stop everyone from "obsessing" about abortion, and free the oppressed and fearful - such as the aged folk of ACTA, who eagerly await the second coming of the Spirit of Vatican II? Or is he basically a mildly eccentric old uncle, who means well, but occasionally seems a bit dotty?

Pope Francis turns down the offer of a nose-piercing.

The explanation for Pope Francis's behaviour is very simple: he is not European, and therefore not what some people expected. Let us explain this with reference to three types of pope: a hypothetical English pope, a German, and an Argentine.

An English pope.

An English pope drinks dry martinis, wears evening dress under his fanon, thinks Lourdes is a cricket ground, spends the evening watching Strictly Come Liturgical Dancing, and Downton Abbey, and gets his theology from the works of G.K. Chesterton. The style of liturgical dancing he prefers is Morris dancing, or the Alleluia Cha-Cha of Paul Inwood. All educated Englishmen are like that.

A German pope.

A German pope wears Lederhosen, drinks beer, eats lots of sausages, gets his theology from the heavy guys like Hieronymus von Kartoffelsalat, and reads Kant in the bath. He may prefer the sort of liturgical dance where everyone slaps each other in the face and ends up under the altar.

An Argentine pope strives to please one of his flock.

However, Argentine popes are rather different. They are often brought up on a diet of corned beef, and addicted to watching the sort of football match where fouling is tolerated (so be careful the pope doesn't trip you up when God isn't looking). The greatest theologian he has read is Diego Maradona. The tango is the natural liturgical dance for an Argentine pope, although he may not take part himself. It is not known whether such popes are likely to have scorpions tattooed on their shoulders.

An Argentine handball player and theologian.

Jewish popes are the most eccentric, perhaps. Although they don't wear red noses, as far as we know, they often have a fascination with fish, and dress even more simply than Pope Francis. Very strange.

Congratulations! You've been elected Pope!

St George

April 23rd is St George's day, so if your real name happens to be Jorge Mario Bergoglio, or if you are English, Greek, Catalan, Bulgarian (and a whole lot more), or live in Preston (yes, really), Genoa, Rio (and a whole lot more), then you will be dancing in the streets today!

Of course, if you are a dragon, you will not be celebrating.

Some people who will not be celebrating quite so enthusiastically are the good folk of Bury St Edmunds. Until the middle ages, Edmund was the patron saint of England (he blogged under the name On the side of the Angles), and like George he was a martyr. Still, there is nothing to stop you wearing a sugar-beet in your button-hole on November 20th if you do wish to honour this great Suffolkman.

The Vikings win this round.

Georgia, Egypt, Romania, ... but not Ireland, of course, where St Patrick is celebrated. He's known for driving all the snakes out of Ireland, which seems to be slightly easier than driving all the dragons out of England - unless there weren't very many in the first place. But we must not forget Preston.

St George's church, Preston. Note the absence of dragons.

Ethiopia, Portugal, Iraq (???) ... Anyway, the villain of our story is the Emperor Diocletian, who for some reason didn't like Christians. "Nasty, vile, bigots!" he called them. Nothing changes much, does it? So on April 23rd 303 he tortured St George a little, just to make things more interesting, and then decapitated him. Probably a simple death from Viking arrows would have been more enjoyable.

St George, as seen by the Vatican.

Well, let's see the St George's flag, in its most usual manifestation - at least in England. Whenever the England football (soccer) team is in distress, which is every two years or so, the whole nation prays to St George - which is tough luck if the opponents are India, Ukraine, Serbia, ...

St George, pray for us all.