How to change the Catholic Catechism

This is another instalment in our long-running series "How to be a good Pope", targeted towards those of our readers who are looking forward to sitting in the hot seat and want to be fully prepared.

Now, it may arise at some stage in your pontificate that your best friends are involved in homosexual scandals. After all, it could happen to any of us one day. Suppose that "Uncle Fred" (of the St Wormwood and Gall Mafia that got you the papal job) has been sodomising the wrong people. Suppose that his bosom friend Kevin Farrago denies knowing anything about it, in spite of sharing a bed home with Fred for several years. Suppose that Cardinal "The Donald" Whirl never knew that the diocesan funds had been used to pay off Fred's victims. Suppose also that there's another dodgy cardinal in the loop, who keeps tweeting "Nighty night snugglebum" to his sisters. Suppose that Cardinal Spinach... oh, never mind.

Trouble with the Barque of St Peter? No, you're doing fine!

Quick! A distraction! It's not enough to ask your friend Father Martin James to tweet some new heretical thoughts about how Jesus learned how to do miracles by talking to the little boy who was wandering round with five loaves and two fishes. No use inviting even more dodgy characters to the World Meeting of Dysfunctional Families in Dublin. Kim Jong-un has only said "maybe", Omar al-Bashir is out massacring people, Barack Obama is playing golf, and Emma Bonino is too busy designing a more powerful bicycle pump. Oh, what can you DO?

Simple! Rewrite the Catechism. Do it secretly before announcing it, and do in a Jesuitical way, so that people will be arguing whether you have really tried to change Catholic teaching under their feet. The Death Penalty is a good one to experiment with. Now we know you're against it, although traditional Catholic teaching hasn't gone that far. But you can pretend that it has.

"It's for a new touchy-feely Communism, where you don't murder the dissidents."

Now, the language you use has to be Jesuitical, or else people will understand exactly what you're trying to say. We've gone past Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Sin and Redemption. You could try "inadmissible". That's a good word that can mean anything.

Of course, once people have got used to receiving updates to the Catechism, perhaps by daily emails, you can change it as much as you like without worrying too much about traditional teaching. Homosexuality disordered? No, of course not. Transgenderism a delusion? Not likely! Adultery a sin? Oh COME ON, haven't you read Amoris Laetitia?

"Bless me, Father, for I have done something inadmissible."
"No, my daughter, the Pope has changed the Catechism, and it's all right now."

Meanwhile, in the popular press, it's POPE ECCLES HAS CHANGED CATHOLIC TEACHING. If they think you can do that, maybe you really can do it?

The Dictator Pope

A new book by Marcantonio Colonna has revealed that behind the image of Pope Francis as a humble, merciful, foot-washing, baby-kissing uncle there lies the heart of a fiend.

A chaplain who once mocked Pope Francis disappeared without trace.

Amongst the revelations in this startling book are the following:

* General Galtieri never wanted to invade the Falkland Islands in 1982, but simply wished to devote himself to breeding llamas. However, the rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel, one Jorge Bergoglio, pushed him into a costly war.

Francis issues threats against Fra' Matthew Festing's pet hamster.

* Pope Francis very humbly refuses to allow his friends to call him "Holy Father", preferring the term "Generalissimo Franco".

* Pope Francis refers to his Swiss Guards as the "Stormtroopers": there is a secret elite corps in the Swiss Guard that is responsible for assassinations.

Everyone fears the SG.

* The original title of Amoris Laetitia was Liber Terrae Dominationis - a manual of world domination - but the Pope was persuaded that this was too obvious.

* Two of the cardinals who submitted the Dubia to Pope Francis have died - as Oscar Wilde (or possibly Agatha Christie) put it, to lose one might be a misfortune, to lose two looks like a remarkable stroke of luck for someone.

Alt-comedian Steve Colbert swears allegiance to the Pope.

* All Jesuits are Licensed to Kill.

* Pope Benedict is being kept prisoner in an underground cell in the Vatican, emerging only for photo-opportunities with glasses of beer.

* The name "Francis" was chosen as a tribute to Francis Ford Coppola, the producer of the Godfather films.

"I like the hammer and sickle, but could you remove the religious bits?"

Of course, I haven't read the book yet, and it may be about something else entirely.

---

A joke. Anyway, so Pope Francis goes to confession, and the priest says "Let's cut this short, Holy Father. I've read the book."

Everyone who disagrees with me is Satan

When you're debating religious or political issues, I find that insulting your opponent is the best way to win the argument. For example, the people who imposed same-sex "marriage" on us - something that ten years earlier everyone had recognised as absurd - managed to get their way by means of the powerful slogan "Bigot! Bigot! Bigot!"

A happy couple (now long-since forgotten).

On Twitter it is well-known that everyone you disagree with is literally Hitler. There are lots of 127-year-old Germans with silly moustaches sitting around in sheds, shouting hateful Nazi slogans such as "We don't think much of the EU" and "Er, perhaps Donald Trump is a better bet than Hillary Clinton."

Is this literally YOU?

Curiously, this is mainly a left-wing thing, and you don't see conservatives labelling people as Stalin or Mao - probably because for so many lefties, these mass-murderers are still regarded as heroes. So the insult becomes a compliment.

"And this attachment is for hitting cardinals with."

So we come to Satan, himself. I must plead guilty on this score, since I have long referred to Mrs Clinton as Hell Cat, and regarded her as a tool of the Devil. This is mainly because I don't share her enthusiasm for dismembering live babies and selling the remains off commercially (this is what is technically known as "planned parenthood").

Still, there are apparently worse things that one can do. Pope Francis himself picked out what he considered one of the great evils of the world when he described parish secretaries as like "disciples of Satan" - we never got to the bottom of this little rant, but one theory is that he had decided to make one of his spontaneous 3 a.m. phone calls to a random victim, but had been told to get off the line, have a cup of cocoa, and go to sleep. EXACTLY what Satan would say.

"Oh Lord, I hope that's not the pope again.

And now he's at it again. Pope Francis told the Curia that resistance to reforms is inspired by the Devil. Since these reforms apparently include modernisation and gradualism (discernment), we have a problem here, as these are the sort of thing that previous popes were very much against. Odd, that.

Unfortunately, the Holy Father has now run out of superlatives. All I know is, I'm glad I don't work for the Roman Curia. Two years ago it was a listing of their "spiritual diseases" and now they're being told that they're ALL LITERALLY SATAN. Call this job satisfaction?

USS Enterprise crew praise Pope Trek on 1985th anniversary

The crew of the Starship Enterprise have joined the chorus of praise for the long-running serial Pope Trek as it celebrates its 1985th anniversary.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Pope Trek tells the adventures of Captain Francis, as he travels round the universe encountering strange new life-forms and boldly going where no man has gone before.

"Pope's log, Stardate 2016."

Captain Francis is ably assisted by his Press Officer, the Vulcan Greg Burke (replacing Federico Lombardi), whose job it is to find some Logic in the Captain's utterances. There is also an army of "red shirt" officers, whose main role is to stand in the firing line and soak up attacks.

A group of red shirts, waiting to be zapped.

Pope Trek has developed its own range of catch phrases, which its fans love to recite. "We're showing mercy - shoot to kill!" is one; "The Church of England's attacking - there are An-Klingons on the starboard bow" another; "Damnit, Captain, I'm a Jesuit, not a religious man!"; "The Synod's broken down - ye cannae change the laws of Catholicism!"; and so on.

In "The Rosica block", Captain Francis encounters a strange new life-form.

Pope Trek has been praised for its highly original plots, full of surprises, in which one never knows what the crew will get up to next. Says one of the actors in it, red-shirted Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), "My favourite episode was the one where all logic said that we should head east (Ad Orientem), but I kept insisting that this was too dangerous."

"Don't move, Captain, this phaser is the most dangerous weapon you've ever seen."

Jorge Bergoglio, the actor who plays Captain Francis, said today that he was pleased with the popularity of Pope Trek, and sometimes he felt that it was "almost real".

Pope seeks Catholic forgiveness for persecution

After apologising to the Protestant churches for the persecution they suffered during the Reformation - and most of us didn't even know that he was personally responsible, so it's very good of him to take the blame after all these years - Pope Francis has now made the grand apology that we've all been waiting for.

Cardinals queue up to forgive Pope Francis.

"It's time for me to apologise for the persecution for which I myself am responsible, rather than some long-dead people that I never even knew," he said. "Therefore I wish to apologise to traditional Catholics for all the persecution they have suffered in the last three years."

The Pope went on to apologise for the treatment of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, for the bullying of Cardinal Burke, and for frightening people with threats to change Catholic teaching on marriage and the family.

"I apologise for not clubbing President Morales over the head with this abominable object."

The Holy Father went on to apologise for all the insults he had come out with on a daily basis, including the notorious "self-absorbed Promethean neo-Pelagian" epithet. He was also very sorry for his ferocious outburst against the Curia in Rome, when he accused them of suffering from "spiritual Alzheimer's".

"Such rudeness is inexcusable," he admitted. "As Pope I am supposed to preach love and mercy, but sometimes I simply can't manage it. But you know how irritating Catholics can be - just because Jesus taught something, and it's been agreed by the Church for two thousand years, they tell me it has some sort of official validity, and so I can't change it. You wouldn't find the Protestants making that sort of mistake!"

"And I'm sorry I left handprints all over your painting."

Pope Francis embraces the Spirit of Corbyn

As Jeremy Corbyn MP looks increasingly likely to become the next leader of the Labour party, support has come from an unexpected (?) source, for Pope Francis has put his weight behind Mr Corbyn's candidature. Given that all four of the candidates are atheists (or "agnostic" when talking to Christians), there is no reason why a Catholic pope should not make a free choice whom to support.

Jeremy Corbyn, with trademark cap and beard.

It is said that the pope is planning to trade in his zucchetto for the traditional socialist's silly cap, and he will probably want to grow a beard in solidarity with Mr Corbyn, for there are distinct signs that the Holy Father is sympathetic to the ideals of the MP for Islington North. For example, he picked up a most exciting Marxist relic on his recent trip to South America.

"Yours for 200 Bolivianos, Papa. It fell off the back of a lorry."

It has always been accepted behaviour for great religious leaders to fraternize with dodgy people (or "sinners" as we used to call them), and Jeremy Corbyn's links with Sinn Fein, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. are seen as a sign of his greatness. Similarly, the pope is not hesitating to dive head-first into the murky world of politics, including Argentina's obsessive campaign to grab the Falkland Islands and its reserves of oil and gas liberate the oppressed sheep of the Malvinas.

"Will this get me back on Cristina Kirchner's Christmas card list?"

Let Pope Francis have the final word:

Some people have described Corbyn as a joke candidate, and totally unfitted for the position of spiritual leader of 300,000 Labourites. Still, it should be remembered that, although it is the duty of faithful Labourites to show respect to their political father, who is the occupant of the chair of St Keir the hardy, his words need not be treated as infallible except when he speaks ex cathedra on matters of party policy. If we understand that, then we can all get along fine.

Pope Francis receives inappropriate gifts

Pope Francis's tour of the South American countries of Ecumania, Bolshevia and Paradoxia continues to be a great success, and reinforces the important role of Latin - or at least Latin America - in the Catholic Church. Everywhere he goes he is welcomed with generous gifts, although some of them may be considered inappropriate.

A nerve gas canister for the pope!

In Ecumania the pope was presented with a nerve gas canister, guaranteed to emit the finest quality Sarin.

Commentators are divided as to what Pope Francis said on receiving the gift. Some say that he asked "But does it cause climate change?" while others recorded his response as "Just what I need to deal with Cardinal Kasper!" Our Spanish is not good enough to tell the difference.

Elsewhere in Ecumania, the pope was given an Incan "sacrifice knife", stained with the blood of many victims, as a gesture of Incan-Catholic reconciliation. It was not clear whether he intends to use it during the next synod.

The Spirit of Vat-Inca II.

Strangest of all was what happened in Bolshevia, when President Evo Immorales presented him with a "Bolivian army knife" containing a hammer-and-sickle, a crucifix, and a device for getting stones out of horses' hooves. The pope and the president then burst into a spontaneous rendition of the Monkees' song "Then I saw her face, now I'm a Bolivia."

Workers of the world, unite!

We are looking forward to the pope's visit to Paradoxia, where perhaps he will be given some Nazi artefacts to put on his mantelpiece. After all, many Nazis fled to South America at the end of the war, and there is a thriving "Catholics for Hitler" community, which would like to increase its influence in the Church. These days, we are asked to welcome everyone.

Choosing a present for the pope.