Eight bad Catholic writers

It's quarter-final stage in the World Cup of Bad Catholic Writers. In the previous such competition, in 2019, the dreadful eight were Faggioli, Ivereigh, Lamb, Martin, Rosica, Shea, Spadaro and Winters.

Where are they now? Well, Lamb, Rosica and Spadaro have fallen by the wayside (you must try harder, lads!), but the chamber of horrors has three promising replacements: Fernández, Lewis and Rohr.

So farewell then, Lamb Chop!

And goodbye, Spidero!

Shea - who tells me he is a humble man - is really enjoying this world cup, and voted for himself. But will he be able to go further? The draw is a real killer:

Víctor Manuel Fernández v Mark Shea.

Richard Rohr v Massimo Faggioli.

James Martin v Michael Sean Winters.

Mike Lewis v Austen Ivereigh.

The last match is particularly juicy as I have in stock some new photos of the contestants.

Mike, from the "Where Potato Is" blog.

Austen's a lumberjack and he's OK.

The quarter-finals begin on Monday 12th February.

---

RESULTS AS THEY COME IN.

Víctor Manuel Fernández 82.8 v Mark Shea 17.2.

Tucho makes it into the semi-finals. Not surprisingly, cheesy @chezami can't compete with the Pope's favourite pornographer.

Richard Rohr 20.0 v Massimo Faggioli 80.0.

The Babble-on Bean makes his second semi-final. I don't think Rohr has been trying recently.

James Martin 85.1 v Michael Sean Winters 14.9.

Well, it had to be Jimbo, the man they naturally thought of as someone to invite to St Patrick's for the sacrilegious funeral of a "trans woman". MSW can feel no shame at losing to such a character.

Mike Lewis 32.2 v Austen Ivereigh 67.8.

Two very similar characters - rude and stupid. In the end, experience won over youthful ambition. Mike would get the "most promising newcomer" award, except that Tucho has gone further...

---

SEMI-FINALS

Víctor Manuel Fernández 64.1 v James Martin 35.9.

Jimbo has been spending much time recently blessing sins, but this was not enough to get him past the porn king.

Massimo Faggioli 19.9 v Austen Ivereigh 80.1.

An easy win for the little man. Beans has been very quiet recently, while Austen is frightening us with the prospect of yet another book about Pope Francis.

---

THIRD PLACE PLAYOFF

James Martin 73.4 v Massimo Faggioli 26.6

As expected, Massimo Faggioli, who occasionally has his lucid moments, could not compete with the Jesuit from Hell. Bronze medal for Jim.

---

FINAL

Víctor Manuel Fernández 72 v Austen Ivereigh 28

In the end, in this battle between Pope Francis's best friends, it was an easy win for Tucho, and Austen has to settle for the prestigious silver medal.

Melon girl bad!

Some of our leading Catholic commentators (notably Massimo "Beans" Faggioli and Christopher "Lambchop" Lamb) have pointed out that the beliefs of the probable new prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, are hard-right, fascist, extremist, worse even than the hated orange man Trump, definitely something that would make even Mussolini say "Hang on, you're going a bit far there!"

Melon girl bad!

These beliefs include:

1. Claiming to be a Catholic Christian.
2. Opposition to abortion.
3. Opposition to euthanasia.
4. Opposition to same-sex "marriage" and "parenting".
5. Defence of the Biblical male/female family.

Golly! I can hardly bear to copy down such a manifesto of hard-right fascist filth!

Top commentator Lambchop of the Bitter Pill.

It is vitally important that Italy should have a prime minister more in sympathy with Catholic values, namely:

1. Claiming to be a "devout" Catholic, perhaps of the Bidenesque sort
who has new batteries fitted every Sunday morning so that he can
stagger off to church and fall asleep.

2. Encouragement of abortion, as late-term as possible. 

3. Euthanasia - well, be careful here, for if we are going to get
rid of old useless people then some presidents and popes may need
to worry. Correction. Apparently this only applies to
killing old people who are not millionaires.

4. Support of same-sex anything-you-like and suppression of all
opposition, which is described as "hate", "bigotry", etc. even 
though 50 years ago everyone would have agreed that same-sex
marriage was a joke.

5. The Bible!? Sheesh! This went out with the Synod of all Synods.
Ask Austen Ivereigh, who has been too busy acting as an "expert"
to join the concerted attack on the Melon Girl.

Ice-cream man good!

Melon, lamb chop, beans and ice-cream. A good recipe for indigestion.

Cardinal Sarah - Dontchahatehim?

Exclusive revelations from Christopher Lambchop of the Tablet.

Tablet readers all know that the Leader of the Opposition to Pope Francis is Cardinal Sarah. In this hatchet job in-depth analysis, I can exclusively reveal some of the things he has been trying to keep secret.

Tina Beattie and Lambchop at a Tablet party.

First, did you know that, despite being called Sarah, he is in fact a MAN? This sexual ambivalence could be the reason why he wants to persecute women by not letting them become priests. What do you think?

I can also reveal that he is BLACK; in fact he comes from the African country of New Guinea (memo: check this). His long opposition to dictators, notably Sékou Touré, has no doubt prepared him well for his current role as leader of the opposition to Pope Francis. He opposes him in "Yes, Minister" style by supporting Pope Francis while secretly undermining him - in fact so secretly that nobody except me even guessed that he has a passionate hatred for the Pope!

"Yes, Holy Father." Sarah undermines Pope Francis's work.

Sarah's connections are sinister in the extreme. The Knights of Columbus bought copies of his book! Gosh, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that other extremists have got copies too - we have had no denials from Damian Thompson, Father Zuhlsdorf, Pope Benedict XVI, Boris Johnson, or Donald Trump, have we? His connections in Africa are also very dubious - could he secretly be a Lefebvrist - perhaps even too extreme for the SSPX? Seems likely, eh?

He's certainly an intelligent man - he studied Scripture in Rome and (unlike Pope Francis) has learned how to read without moving his lips! Too clever for his own good, eh? Francis, being merciful and saintly, refused to exile him to a war zone such as Syria, although he richly deserves that!

Sarah remains extremely loyal to Benedict XVI, unlike most reasonable people, who hated him from the start. Controversy arose in January, when he even dared to co-author a book with him, disregarding Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation Senex Maledictus ("Curse the old man!")

He has this obsession with traditional Catholic teaching - he was the one who put a stop to Pope Francis's attempts to make a "filial correction" of Jesus Christ. He even likes celebrating communion ad orientem (an African term meaning "refusing to grin at the congregation"!)

Arthur Roche wonders how to take advantage when his boss turns his back on him.

Well, Sarah himself is nearly 75 now, and Pope Francis, who works mainly with the cardinal's faithful second-in-command, the bluff no-nonsense Yorkshire test-cricketer Arthur Roche, will want to kick him out of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. For he has noticed that Sarah spends much of his time talking about worship and sacraments - which Francis doesn't understand - rather than climate change and migration - which he does.

Good riddance, I say! Clear off, Sally, and take your parallel magisterium with you!

Adapted from The Outsider - another hagiography of Pope Francis, published by Austen and Ivereigh (20p at your nearest jumble sale).

Newman was my kind of Catholic

A guest contribution from Christopher Lambchop of the Tablet.

There is little doubt that celebrity saint John Henry Newman would have been an ardent Remainer. So says Fr Ignatius Harrison of the Birmingham Oratory, and his wise words are backed by Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, who is still recovering in hospital from the removal of his spine.

Of course we cannot be sure exactly how Newman would have resolved the current crisis. Would he have campaigned for a second referendum? A simple dropping of Article 50? Or perhaps he would have asked for another 20-year extension? We can never be entirely certain, although scholars who have read his writings are sure that he was crying out to be ruled by such giants as Juncker, Verhofstadt, Von der Leyen, and Barnier.

Christopher Lambchop with an unknown lady (probably Tina Beattie)

Likewise, we can tell from his Apologia pro Greta sua, that Newman would have supported the Extinction Rebellion's current campaign to shut down the world's cities. It is known that he never flew in an aeroplane, and there are accounts of his gluing himself to hot air balloons in an attempt to bring people closer to God. As he said in 1895 "We have only 12 years in which to save the world," and his words are as true now as they ever were. When we see our heroes engage in interpretive dance moves in order to help our planet survive, we know that John Henry Newman is looking down and wishing he was there.

Vestments worn by St John Henry Newman.

Moving on to Catholic issues, a subject we tend to avoid in the Tablet, we know that Newman would have enjoyed the current Amazonis Laetitia summit. Not just for the opportunity to stick feathers in his hair and worship pagan fertility idols, but also for the new doctrine that it promotes - notably the ordination of women as deacons (sha-women joining the sha-men). A pioneer in every way, Newman records in his writings how he used to confess his sins to the trees in Oxford, and listen to the wisdom of the wisteria.

On the wider scene, Newman was a keen feminist, a promoter of LGBT issues (history records that he never married), and in short, a typical Tablet reader. Modernism was his creed, as we know from his famous letter to Pope Pius IX, which begins "Get with the programme, baby-oh. This infallibility wheeze is a great opportunity for you to rewrite Catholic doctrine."

"Newman made me a modernist."

Yes, Newman was definitely my type of Catholic.

Will this do? Actually, he seems to have been a bit of a old fogey, and rather a stuffed shirt, but we'd better not say that. Chris.