Hark! The Herald's writers sing, "William Cash, where is thy sting?" Catholics all sent away: Father Z and Mary K. Torkington and Allain too Now have met their Waterloo. Holy Smoke and Coppen fled, Hitchens just a figurehead. Hark! The Herald's writers sing, "William Cash, where is thy sting?"
The CH spent so much time muddlerating comments that nobody wound the clocks.
As a compromise, Mr Coppen has promised that the print edition of the CH will, from now on, include a blank page on which readers can write their own comments. Subscribers will also be given a green biro for this purpose. A request from Paul Priest, Archbishop of Corby, that a dozen blank sheets be provided, has been turned down.
The main person affected by the CH's draconian decision.
Paul Priest writes:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! OH GOOD GRIEF! WEEBLE WEEBLE!!!! I'M A TEAPOT!!!! You poor fools, you're shutting down the only medium by which orthodox Catholics (and I am the only one left) can express their opinions. How else are we supposed to tell the bishops of England and Wales, the cardinals, the pope, and even some of the saints that they are out of touch? First, Catholic Voices didn't want me - and I could have given some splendid 5-hour soundbites on radio and television. Then you refused to publish my series of articles Apologia pro vitis omnium ceterorum (Apology for everyone else's lives), subtitled "You is not orthodox, only I is orthodox."
The only person who ever listened to me is Damian Thompson - God, how I love that man! No, I don't have a crush on him, but it's no secret that it was due to my efforts that Damian won the Catholic Lovely Legs Contest last year, narrowly beating Professor Tina Beattie.
Tina - lost out to Damian on the "swimsuit" round.
Well, we know who is to blame. Phil, the ex-Telegraph troll with his army of implausible sockpuppets (this is true, E.) and also mad Eccles and his friends. Oh Eccles you think you're so wonderful because you have friends and I don't.
Well, the Catholic Herald is doomed now. I went round six Asda stores yesterday and not one of them had a CH on sale. In contrast, I asked the assistants "Do you have any Tablets?" and they all replied, "Yes, try the pharmacy section." I rest my case. What is clear is that Catholic Herald journalism is going to die out. For example, I know already that Fr Lucie-Smith is planning to give up writing - he only posts his 500 words in the expectation of receiving a 20,000 word response from me, politely correcting his errors and telling him what a nincompoop he is.
Even in Corby Cathedral, orthodox worship has almost disappeared.
Worse than that, the Catholic Church in England and Wales is doomed: there is a systemic catholic dispossession and disenfranchisement, to the extent that outside the major cities catholicism will cease to be, within the next generation - and what are you doing to help? Stopping me from putting forward the orthodox viewpoint, which nobody else is prepared to defend, not even Damian Thompson (see, Eccles, that proves I am not in Damian's pocket!)
Meanwhile His Holiness thinks some sort of balance needs to be redressed... putting the trads back in their box, accusing them of being pelagian, jansenist, ultramontane, anti-conciliar and anti-conciliarity, donatist, pharisaically legalistic, sexually prurient, uncharitably insensitive, coldly insular and alienating... and allowing the more liberally 'pastorally aware' to be given some fresh air and some lebensraum to inspire them to rebuild the Church and bring the lost home... with verbal support in every soundbite and media opportunity... I blame Austen Ivereigh and...
Afraid we'll have to cut you off there, Paul. Sorry!
Now, which sockpuppet shall we use today?
Dear Fr Arthur,
Being a man of advanced years (36), I sometimes drop off in your sermons. To my horror, I awoke at one moment and distinctly heard you say the word "knickers". To the best of my knowledge I have never heard such bad language in a church service before. If you are referring to something in the Bishop's Letter, then a little respect is needed, don't you think?
Fr Arthur uses a rude word.
Eccles, you moron,
My sermon was about refugees, and I was encouraging my parishioners to donate much-needed gifts to the "jungle" at Fraseur St Gilles, near Dunkirk. These would include any spare pullovers, knickers, tins of beans, Eccles cakes, pet hamsters, rowing-boats, guns, and copies of Enid Blyton's The Famous Five discover Transgenderism that you may have. But no sausages.
May I remind you that these days social awareness is more important than religion, and so we don't talk about God in our homilies.
A mysterious photo in the Catholic Herald.
Dear Luke Coppen, Editor of the Catholic Herald,
What exactly is a wee box? Is it what we used to call a toilet cubicle? And why should the Herald print a photo of Mrs Sturgeon inaugurating some?
No reply was received.
Walking on custard.
Dear Graham James, Anglican Bishop of Norwich,
Could you explain this photo of you jumping up and down on a tray of custard? Is it an attempt to ingratiate yourself with the great Damian Thompson, custard correspondent of the Spectator? Or is it merely a new liturgical dance?
St Luke Coppen (R) with St Timothy of Margate
Following the lead of the Catholic Herald, it has been decided that from now on the Bible will be published in magazine format, rather than as a newspaper. A problem was recognised on that historic day when Christ rose from the dead, and the news came too late for our publication deadline. It's true that our website carried the news, but the regular Bible readership complained that they had to wait 50 years before they were able to read a full report in St Matthew's Gospel.
St Mary Madeleine Teahan: her eye-witness account of the Resurrection was delayed.
So from now on we are moving to a "magazine" format. We shall still carry news items - for example, we were first to break the news of St Peter's escape from prison - but from now on readers will see more Epistles (if we recruit St Paul Priest to the writing team, we are confident that we shall have no shortage of those). We also encourage informed speculation on religious matters, and so we have sent our special correspondent St John Zuhlsdorf off to Patmos, from which we expect some interesting Revelations in due course.
St John Zuhlsdorf: destined for Patmos.
Other religious papers have changed their format in recent years. It is true that the Tablet, originally edited by Moses, rather lost its way when it stopped being printed on stone, and is said to be no longer interested in God's commandments. Still, its recent Should Christians worship a Golden Calf? poll was very popular, and is said to have influenced many Catholic bishops in England and Wales.
Moses: not satisfied with the direction the Tablet has taken.
We Catholics really have our backs to the wall.
Luke Coppen interviews Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.
LC: Now, you took part in the conclave at which Pope Benedict XVI was elected. Did you think that you yourself might become Pope?
CMOC: Yes, it seemed very likely, since the other cardinals, whenever they met me, would usually cross themselves and say "Lord, have Murphy" or sometimes "Lord, have Murphy-O'Connor's!" So I had a few names prepared, just in case. My first choice was Peter, but I didn't want to overshadow the other pope who bore that name. So I thought of some less-traditional alternatives, in order to continue our modernization of the Catholic church. Names such as Elton or Sting. Or Eminem. After all, I'm already "His Eminence," so "Pope Eminem," wouldn't have been much different.
LC: I gather you got on very well with Gordon Brown.
CMOC: Yes, indeed. Once you ignore his tendency to throw mobile phones at people, he is really a very nice man. I took to him because we both wanted to reduce the poverty gap between Britain and the Third World. Indeed, I gather that financially Britain is now as broke as most third-world countries, so in that sense you can say he succeeded.
Where's Wally? Damian Thompson at the Notting Hill Carnival.
Damian Thompson reports on the persecution of Catholics.
Is a shocking new wave of anti-Catholicism sweeping Notting Hill? Consider this: I saw a shop advertising "Catholic and chips," where people were queuing up to eat fried Catholic out of a newspaper. Elsewhere, shops are selling equipment for trapping Catholics by sticking hooks into their mouths.
You won’t have heard about this atrocious persecution. That's because – forgive me – I’ve played one of the oldest tricks in the journalist's book. For Catholics read Fish.
I think I need to go and have a lie down. The noise of the Notting Hill Carnival is driving me mad. Next week, if I'm feeling better, I'll blog about Joyce Grenfell's hairstyle.
Eccles Ecce Homo, by Cecilia Giménez
Sister Wendy Beckett analyses a newly-discovered fresco.
When we look at this charming painting of our Saviour, what is our first reaction? Do we see a handsome young film star, a 1st century Jewish preacher, or a monkey in a hoodie? What is the artist trying to say here? Is she saying that our Lord is the King of Kongs? Or simply that, if it were not for the divine spark given to us, we should also be merely great apes? Is a monk all that different from a monkey?
The genius who painted this fresco - wonderful in its simplicity and naivety - is saying all these things, and more. Do you remember those lovely words in the Book of Kings? ... brought from thence gold, and silver, and elephants' teeth, and apes, and peacocks. I am sure that Cecilia Giménez had these beautiful lines in mind when she painted her fresco.
When we say our prayers tonight, let us reflect on this painting, on those words from Kings, and on the challenges they pose to us.
St Stephen of Hungary, one of the politest men ever to use the Internet
St Stephen explains what Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith can teach us about manners
Fr Lucie-Smith occupies an honoured place in the Catholic Herald, and is universally known for his charm and courtesy. He...
Comments
The Archbishop of Corby
Hold it right there, dude! You may be a saint, King of Hungary, and one of the most famous celebrities ever to come out of Esztergom, but that cuts no ice with me, squire.
When someone writes on the Catholic Herald website, we need to know whether they are writing in their capacity as saint, royal personage, and celebrity blogger, or simply in a private capacity.
We in Corby have far more respect for those people who call us "boring pretentious windbags" than we have for those who try to make us "love one another..."
(Another 10,000 words cut here. Sorry!)
