Eight eminent journalists battle it out

Here is the draw for the quarter-finals of the World Cup of Bad Catholic Journalists. Eight superstars are battling it out, and updates to this post will be made as the results come in. Voting starts tomorrow.

1. Thomas Rosica v Antonio Spadaro.
42-58. The witless worm beats the plagiarist into submission.

2. Massimo Faggioli v Mark Shea.
77-23. Wisdom and ice-cream win over great charm.

3. Christopher Lamb v James Martin.
17-83. Lambkin has talent, but Jimbo is a class act.

4. Austen Ivereigh v Michael Sean Winters.
77-23. No surprises there, although MSW does his best.

Round 1 weeded out most of the non-entities, leaving mostly people of known power and influence. The carnage in Round 2 was severe: first Dawn the Merciless and the Horan of Babylon were left reeling; then feminism took a knock as Tuna Buttie and Ma Pepsi were sent back into the kitchen.

Supporters of Bobby Mickens demand a re-vote.

Comrade Dettloff was then made an unperson, and Ratty Mickens was narrowly cast aside; finally Liz Bruenig, who got into Round 2 by asking her followers to support her, joined pianist extraordinaire "Paderewski" Walford in the bin. There's enough discarded talent there to make the Amazon Synod look orthodox!

Anyway, we look forward to some interesting fights now, with lots of blood on the carpet.

Place your bets on Martin, Ivereigh, Faggioli, or an outsider!

The trial of Pope Francis

Cardinal Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Jorge Mario Bergoglio, alias the Bishop of Rome, alias Pope Francis, alias Peter, alias 'Umble Frank, you are charged with heresy...

Omnes: ...on three counts: heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action - *four* counts.

Ladaria: If there are any more quotations from Monty Python, I shall clear the court. Anyway, where is the defendant?

Guilty or not guilty?

Defence Counsel (Austen Ivereigh QC, Fellow in Contemptible Church History at Campion Hall, Oxford, author of Pope Francis, the Great Redeemer): The Messiah is unable to be here, My Lord, as he does not know of the charges and wouldn't answer them if he did.

Aidan Nichols OP: He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty Pope...

Ladaria: I'm warning you...

Nichols: I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition... oh, well never mind.

Ladaria: Since I am indeed Spanish, I'll let you off with that one. Now, what evidence do you wish to present, Fr Nichols?

Nichols: Amoris Laetitia, the Pope Francis book of insults, 200 reports of very dubious behaviour from LifeSite, etc., wielding this finely-crafted stang, covering up sex crimes, driving the popemobile like a maniac, misbehaving every time he takes an airline flight, contradicting all Catholic doctrine since the 1st century, illegally taking over the Order of Malta, ...

[2 hours later]

Nichols: ... and appointing that compete and utter villain Cupich as a Cardinal.

Ladaria: Serious charges indeed. Does the defence have anything to say?

Ivereigh: Pope Francis is literally Christ, and this is the scribes' fault.

A charge of blasphemy against Dr Ivereigh?

Fr Hunwicke: Better sell your shares in Bergoglio PLC, Austen, they're rapidly becoming worthless.

Massimo Faggioli (screaming): These complaints are all the work of extremists. All the students in my class agree with me - at least the ones who passed did.

Deacon Donnelly: You're just jealous because Fr Nichols is a better theologian than you.

Tina Beattie: Aaagggh! It's Deacon Nick, my mortal enemy. [Faints]

Michael Winters of the Fishwrap: Deep down, the accusers know that Pope Francis is right when he tries to change Catholic doctrine on a daily basis.

Stephen Walford, author of Pope Francis is right even when he's wrong: Exactly, Catholic doctrine is nothing more nor less than what the pope of the day says it is.

The Spanish Inquisition reaches its verdict.

Ladaria: This doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. Does anyone have anything to say, apart from ad hominem attacks?

Jimmy Akin (who he?): None of the signatories to this letter have doctorates in the relevant fields of canon law or sacred theology. Therefore they aren't as clever as I am. My verdict is that the accusations don't amount to heresy.

Ivereigh: Of course not! (To stockbroker on phone): Don't sell the shares just yet.

Nichols: Well, we should perhaps have said apostate, heterodox, dissenter, heresiarch, nonconformist, protestant, schismatic, outcast, separatist...

Ladaria: I've had enough of this. Pope Francis, wherever you may be, I find you not guilty. But don't do it again. Er... who's going to tell him?

Spadaro: Tell him? We don't tell him these things. He hasn't even heard about the Dubia yet!

The Mad Auster's Tea Party

With apologies to Lewis Carroll.

There was a table set out under a tree, labelled "Catholic Church", and the Massi Hare and the Mad Auster were having tea at it: the Wintormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep.

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: "No room for converts! No room!" they cried out when they saw Alice coming.

Alice's first experience of Catholicism.

"There's plenty of room, you've driven all the other Catholics away!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

In the distance, Alice could see other tables, also labelled "Catholic Church", including several of a more traditional appearance, which were well-populated. Still she decided to stay with this curious trio for a while.

"Have some tea," said the Massi Hare encouragingly. Alice took a sip and started coughing badly. "It's got pepper in it!" she said.

Too much pepper and darkness in tea made by the Duchess of Rosica.

The Wintormouse woke up briefly, said "We made the tea, so why should she complain about it?" and then fell asleep again.

The Auster tapped his head significantly. "She's neurotic," he explained. "See my learned article in Crux, the journal of Catholic psychiatry."

"I want a clean cup," interrupted the Massi Hare: "let's all move one place on."

The Auster moved on and the others followed. Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the Massi Hare, who had just upset a jug of heresy into his plate.

The Spadaro explains to Alice that round here 2+2=5.

"The Wintormouse shall tell us a story," said the Auster, who had clearly established himself as the leader of this quaint trio. "Wake him up!"

"Once upon a time there were four little sisters," the Wintormouse began; "and their names were Amoris, Laetitia, Laudato, and Si'; and they lived at the bottom of a well-"

"What did they live on?" said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.

"They lived on half-baked doctrine,' said the Wintormouse, after thinking a minute or two.

"They couldn't have done that, you know," Alice gently remarked; "they'd have been ill."

"So they were," said the Wintormouse; "very ill."

This nonsense was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off towards another table, from which the sweet sounds of Gregorian chant were emanating. Suddenly the Cheshire Catholic appeared before her once more, grinning from ear to ear.

The Cheshire Catholic.

"Can you just answer five questions for me?" said Alice to the Cheshire Catholic.

"No, I don't think so," said the Cheshire Catholic, fading away until only a grin was left.

"Oh how irritating everyone is," said Alice.

Just then the Rigid Rabbit rushed past muttering, "I'm late for Mass, I'm late for Mass!" and so Alice decided to follow him, as the most sensible person she had yet encountered.

The Rigid Rabbit.

Catholic converts - are they all nutters?

A special in-depth analysis for Crux, by Austen Ivereigh, with additional insults from Michael Sean Winters and Massimo Faggioli.

Converts!!?? Arentchasickofem??!! Blimey, I think they're all neurotic!!?? Not like me!!?? I've got a badge from my brain-care specialist saying that I am "almost sane"!!??

Shouldn't all converts wear one of these??!! Stands to reason, innit!!??

Pope Francis tells me that he has a serious problem with converts. Unlike most Catholics they have actually taken the trouble to study the teachings of the Catholic Church, and they keep tripping him up every time he gets it wrong. This is what we intellectuals call "a distorted hermeneutic". Curiously, that's also what my doctor told me I had got, when I strained myself throwing stones at converts. But I no longer need to wear a truss for it.

When I was press secretary to the Archbishop of Westminster, he drew my attention to a little-known convert called St Paul. We don't hear much about him these days, but my researches have shown that he was clearly neurotic!! Well, there you are then!!

Edith Stein - another neurotic convert. H/T @drcrouchback

A neurosis is a pathological or extreme reaction to something that simply doesn’t correspond to reality. For example, a sample of Crux readers were asked for their reactions to my writing:

10% were suicidal,
20% said "I'm a teapot, I'm a teapot",
50% had severe bruising to their heads through repeated facepalms,
and the other 20% said they could no longer sleep with the light out in case the Ivereigh Monster came to eat them up.

Oh, I forgot John Allen, who simply said, "FANTASTIC STUFF, AUSTEN!! KEEP GOING!!"

A friend in Ireland writes: "I keep seeing people who seem to have converted because they believe what the Church teaches. What a change from the old days, when Catholics were Catholics because their parents were, and it was considered bad form to mention religion at home!"

Enda, you're right!!

Enda Kenny, the most prominent "Catholic Voice" in Ireland!!

Conversion should be an act of humility. New Catholics should say themselves "Am I as humble as Austen Ivereigh?" They should forget all that they have learned about Catholic doctrine, and listen to the wise voices of people like me. It means faith - in the Pope and in me!! It means trusting that the Pope is guiding the Holy Spirit, and that I can do no wrong!!

Francis is the first to invite criticism - it bounces off him like water off a duck's back. Yes, he is always willing to clarify Catholic teaching, as Cardinal Meisner could have told you, if he hadn't died while waiting for an answer!!

So, let's have no more converts!!?? They're all nutters!!??

Vicious attacks made on Sarah

Holy Land, about 2000 BC,

Faithful Catholics, who do their best to respect Pope Abraham, have been shocked by the persistent attacks on his wife Sarah from various ultra-liberal writers such as Christopher Goat of the Stone Tablet, Robert Mickheap the manure-dealer, Massimo Bean, Mike-and-Bernie Winters, etc. who find that she has this distressing habit of taking God's teaching seriously.

Pope Abraham and Cardinal Sarah.

Sarah herself has maintained a dignified silence in the face of abuse, which has even come from well-known clergy, such as Kasper the Jester ("She's a bit, er, African, isn't she?" he says) and Fr James Lot SJ, who has been attempting to build bridges with the LGBT community in the Cities of the Plain (supported by his wife Rosica the "Pillar of Salt" broadcaster), although the last bridge fell into a lake of fire.

Of course Pope Abraham's own ministry has not been uncontroversial. Some have accused him of trying to change Church teaching on infanticide, after a mysterious incident involving his son Isaac at Moria, and the subsequence apostolic exhortation A Moria Sacrificia. Indeed, the situation has become so bad that Abraham has refused to answer all dubia asking him to explain what on earth he means.

Cardinal Burke, have you tried submitting your dubia using a six-year-old sockpuppet? You might get a reply that way.

Of course, some say that Abraham is merely following Sarah's advice to "remain silent", and it is rumoured that they have not spoken to each other for 93 years.

The real fear of Sarah's critics is that she will survive Abraham, and take over as Matriarch: the "Mesopotamian Mafia" are hoping to elect someone more liberal such as Isaac, who is not expected to take church teaching very seriously.

Some mockers have portrayed Abraham as a cartoon character such as Superman, Scooby Doo or Popeye.

Pope meets "gay marriage" bigot

The world was in a state of shock today, after it was revealed that during his American trip Pope Francis had had a personal meeting with someone whose extreme views on same-sex marriage have made them a hate-figure throughout the civilised world.

"He may look like a friendly uncle, but he has disgraced himself."

Said one commentator, "I was really looking forward to the pope's visit to the USA, and in fact I thought that this might even be a good occasion to become a Catholic. But after I heard about Pope Francis's meeting with Barack Obama, I realized that I could not be a member of a church led by someone who was capable of talking to people like that."

The pope's secret meeting with Barack Obama.

Other commentators rushed into print. John Allen Jr, of Crux, said, "Only time will tell what the significance of this meeting really is, so I'm going to write a long article explaining that nobody knows what it's all about." In the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Winters dashed off a hard-hitting piece demanding an explanation of why the pope had been allowed to meet people without his permission.

Meanwhile, everyone agrees that it was a good move for the pope to have met Kim Davis, the heroine of Kentucky. She was clearly a much more interesting person than Obama, who had spent his entire meeting with the pope in droning on about golf and taking selfies.

Damion Thomson treads on our toes

A special hatchet job by Mike Winters, reprinted from the National Protestant Reporter ("Fishwrap").

Damion Thomson (it's Damiun Thomspon. Ed.), who is an associate editor at the Spectator, is a brilliant and wonderful writer, whom we admire very much. However, he has written a piece that is wrong from beginning to end.

Mike (R) and Bernie Winters.

Damyan correctly points out that Pope Francis is a Jesuit: most people don't know this, because they don't read the Fishwrap, where all the newest versions of Catholic belief are written about in sympathetic terms by our own tame Jesuit, Fr Thomas Reese.

Damain claims that Pope Francis isn't a Marxist-Leninist with Stalinist tendencies, as we at the Fishwrap devoutly hoped. Indeed, he says that Francis is not going to change Catholic doctrine in any significant way: for example, Damein thinks that there is no chance that blood-drinking lesbian lizards will be ordained to the priesthood within the next five years. Instead, Damoin claims, the pope's priority is to reform the Roman Curia, forcing all those fat lazy bureaucrats to renounce evil or be fired.

Pope Francis hands out specially blessed P45s (pink slips) to the faceless bureaucrats.

We know better. The pope has previously warned, correctly, about neo-pelagianism and new forms of gnosticism. These are heresies we associate with conservatives - they grow from the same spiritual soil as orthodox beliefs and practices. So we should reject orthodox practices in order to avoid heresy. Er, this doesn't make a lot of sense does it? Never mind, let's skip on to a METAPHOR.

Reforming the Curia, and rewriting Catholicism in the process, are not small beer. But whether they are small or large beer - and mine's a large gin, if you're buying - the pope has reminded us that old wine should not be put into new wineskins, and that work is the curse of the drinking classes, while candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.

"We said we'd sue Him if He didn't change water into wine at our same-sex wedding."

These facts are as true as they were two thousand years ago, when the apostles went to the tomb and found that Christ was not there. We are proud to say that, since then, many readers have gone to the pages of the Fishwrap and also found that Christ was not there.

(After 3 months they still haven't corrected the spelling of "Damian". Looking at the original article might have given them a clue. E.)