Tributes flood in for Ted McCarrick

So farewell then, Theodore "Ted" McCarrick, now gone to that great beach house in the sky (other destinations are possible). Naturally we have been overwhelmed with tributes to the great man.

A great loss to the rice industry.

DONALD WUERL

When I became Archbishop of Washington in 2006, there was talk of the great spiritual leader who had preceded me, but I'm afraid that I never met him, and certainly never worked with him. I wonder what became of him?

This picture is probably a forgery.

MARKO RUPNIK

Uncle Ted was a man after my own heart, although his taste was for boys and seminarians, rather than nuns. But let's be broad-minded! He's a great loss to the sexual abuse community.

"Uncle Ted" by Marko Rupnik.

KEVIN FARRELL

Now that he's dead people are telling all sorts of tales about Uncle Ted, but I can assure you that in all the time that I shared an apartment building with him there was never any hint of misconduct. All I remember was that the central heating made odd screaming sounds in the night, and Uncle Ted would shout "QUIET" at it, but I assumed that he was merely attempting to perform a miracle.

POPE FRANCIS

"This is the complete dossier on McCarrick."
"I'll say I knew nothing."

Who?

Pope Francis's autobiography - the 3rd and last phase

In this final instalment of Pope Francis's autobiography Life: My Story Through History, subtitled Why I was right and all other popes were wrong, which is published today, the Holy Father explain his most brilliant decisions of the last few years.

Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

Traditionis Custodes.

My evil predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, died in December 2022. I was very pleased to comfort him in his last few months by phoning him up three times a day to tell him that I was repealing his own Summorum Pontificum and banning the traditional Latin Mass.

My main ally, with one of his great interests, cakes.

It was not going to be easy. At the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments there was one of my arch-enemies, Cardinal Sarah. A man who not only read books without pictures in them, but even wrote them. Yes, an intellectual, and a backwardist who kept quoting the Bible!

Luckily his deputy was quite the opposite, and had never been accused of being an intellectual. An overweight power-mad bully, he reminded me of someone: who could it have been? Well, never mind. So out went Sarah and in came the Yorkshireman Arthur Roche. Uncle Arthur was delighted to have this opportunity to serve me. Provided that he was made a cardinal, he would do anything I wished: "Make the TLM compulsory? Hold all masses in the Yorkshire dialect? (I must admit that the idea of the Italians and Polish reciting 'Ee ba goom, tha Lord be with thee, luv!' was rather appealing.) Just tell me what you want and I'll do it!"

So we agreed to ban the TLM, and to lean on bishops to make sure it happened. It would take a while to remove these masses entirely, so we made it hard to find them. Advertising them in the parish newsletter was OUT. Even mentioning them was now a SIN. The bishops knew that promotion was now conditional on persecuting traditionalists. AND WE ARE WINNING!

Austen Ivereigh.

I first encountered Austen in the Vatican gardens.

Dr Austen Ivereigh has been one of most loyal allies. Because he keeps dogs, he is entitled to call himself an expert on Canine Canon Law, and as is well known, he has written many biographies of me. In the first he portrayed me as a wise and holy man, in the second he upgraded me to saint, and in the third he saw me as the fourth person of the Trinity.

Recently we have been holding a synod on synodality, and Austen has been a lively and vocal participant. I gave him a little badge marked EXPERT, and he is very proud of it. Of course I haven't broken it to him that whatever the synod decides is irrelevant since I will make the final decisions. Did I ever mention that I am infallible? Sometimes it embarrasses me, being so infallible!

The synod logo. Silly, but not by Rupnik. Sorry, Marko!

Fiducia Supplicans.

You will remember that the main message of Amoris Laetitia was "Hey, adultery's cool!" Now, more recently, I thought I would try out "Hey, same-sex marriage is cool!" To do this I needed the cooperation of someone at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ladaria was no good, he might actually have had some moral scruples, but I knew just the chap to replace him.

Yes, we had come full circle. I chose my old mate Víctor Manuel Fernández, known as Tucho. Since the days of our friendship in Argentina, he had made a career out of working as a male kissogram and also by writing dirty books. Just what we needed.

So - and here my Jesuit training came in handy - we decided to make it permissible to bless same-sex couples, provided that we didn't call them that. They could be described as an alliance, brace, coalition, confederation, deuce, doublet, duo, dyad, item, pair, partnership, twain, twosome or union, but NEVER a couple.

Unfortunately, Fr James Martin LGBTSJ gave the game away!

If you want any more, you'll have to buy the book. It should soon be available from second-hand bookshops for about 50p. Eccles.

Pope Francis's autobiography 2 - our hero starts work

Our serialization of the book continues from Part 1.

Me with my troublesome predecessor!

The Year of Mercy

Quite early in my reign I decided to institute a Jubilee Year of Mercy. As well as being very humble, I am also a particularly merciful man - except to people I don't like - so I initially proposed a slogan "Be merciful like the Holy Father!" However, owing to a clerical error (the cleric in question has now been mercifully laicised), it came out as "Merciful like the Father", which isn't at all the same thing!

My great friend Marko Rupnik was in Rome, and so I asked him whether he could provide one of his artistic masterpieces as a logo. "The most appropriate thing would be a two-headed skiing instructor with three eyes," he said, "just as soon as I finish some work I have to do with my 'Nuns in Bondage'." The NIB wasn't an order I had ever come across, but I was pleased to know that Marko was reaching out to these ladies.

An artistic masterpiece!

Amoris Laetitia.

One of my early triumphs was the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which followed two Synods on the Family. In those days I hadn't yet got hold of the best way to run a synod, namely, to invite trouble-makers to chatter to each other, flatter them by calling them experts, and then ignore everything they say!

A few weeks before the report was due, I received a letter from Adolfo Nicolás, who was then head of the Jesuits, saying "Holy Father, your recent documents have been too easy for people to understand. Please insert some ambiguity, heresy and confusion into the next one, or we may have to review your membership of the Jesuits."

I think I did rather well. The result was that four turbulent cardinals sent me five Dubia. These were questions such as "Are you off your head?" and "What do you think you are playing at?" and they were very difficult to answer! So I ignored them completely, but made a note that a bit of Merciful Persecution would be needed.

Luckily, two of the cardinals died quite quickly, and one was very old. This just left my ARCH-ENEMY, Raymond Burke! I gradually took my revenge, so that now, at the time of writing, he is penniless, homeless, and under order to walk around ringing a bell and shouting "UNSAVED! UNSAVED!"

Here I have him in a painful grip known as the "Chinese Burn".

Pachamama

One of my great triumphs as pope has been to welcome other religions into the "big tent". Muslims, Hindus, Aztecs, Fire-worshippers, Pagans - even Anglicans - they're all just following slight variations on Catholicism. So when the time came to welcome the Amazonian indigenous groups, we bought a job lot of Pachamama idols and showed reverence to them.

My dear friend Austen Ivereigh, who has already written six seven books about me, including "The Pope Francis keep-fit book" and "Pope Francis's insect-based recipes", told me that Pachamama was actually just a name used by the Blessed Virgin Mary: this sounded a bit TOO Catholic for me, but I let it pass.

Then what happened? Newspaper headlines worldwide!

POPE'S IDOLS NOW IN SANTA MARIA CHURCH.

FRANCIS IDOLS THROWN IN TIBER

POPE APOLOGISES TO PACHAMAMA FOR EARLY BATH

What nonsense! As if I would ever apologise to anyone, even an Amazonian fertility goddess!

Just a perfectly ordinary day in the Vatican.

You may be wondering where the sex idols are now. Well, I passed them onto my great friends Marko and Tucho. They were delighted!

Part 3 is the last part. Honest.

The last eight saints

We have reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup of Uncrowned Saints, and because Elon Musk, in his wisdom, is changing the rules of Twitter polls, this may be the last one we run. It also has to be completed by Easter Saturday.

So - unless we can find a way round this - no more world cups of bad hymns (Lord of the Dance), bad cardinals (Cupich), ugly churches (St Francis de Sales, Norton Shores, Michigan), instruments from Hell (vuvuzela) etc. etc.

So we'll use this post to record the results of the final rounds of the (last?) Twitter World Cup.

Pope Leo XIII 61.8 v Fulton Sheen 38.2

Leo takes it, surprisingly easily. Well, they are both very strong candidates, whatever Cardinal Dolan thinks.

G.K. Chesterton 51.8 v Karl I of Austria 48.2

The lead changed hands several times, but finally GKC won the contest. The vote was 52-48, but all requests for a second "people's vote" that might give a different answer will be rejected.

Pope Pius XII 58.9 v Pope Benedict XVI 41.1

Experience tells, as the old campaigner beats the newcomer in the Pope v Pope quarter-final.

Thomas à Kempis 51.4 v Marcel Lefebvre 48.6

A lot of SSPX fans voted in earlier rounds, but Tom managed to scrape through this time.

---

Semi-finals (starting on Easter Sunday).

Pope Leo XIII 71.7 v Pope Pius XII 28.3

A "two popes" semi-final. Leo takes this, surprisingly easily, and declares himself "fighting fit" as the final approaches.

G.K. Chesterton 47.6 v Thomas à Kempis 52.4

A "two writers" semi-final. A close match, and Thomas heads for the final, leaving GKC to contest the bronze halo.

---

THIRD PLACE PLAYOFF

Pope Pius XII 55.6 v G.K. Chesterton 44.4

Pius takes the bronze halo. John Cornwell bites his leg off in embarrassment.

FINAL

Pope Leo XIII 64.1 v Thomas à Kempis 35.9

A surprisingly easy win for Leo. Gold halo for him, and silver for Thomas.

How to conduct a papal funeral

Today we have another instalment in our long-running series "How to be a good pope", providing useful advice to those readers (Hi, Blase! Hi, Arthur! Hi, Luis!) who have already booked a fitting with Gammarelli ("Pope Suits For All Sizes").

The story so far: your predecessor, Pope Benjamin, took the advice of the St Gallbladder Mafia, and resigned his office (for after Cardinal Comic Murphy-O'Blimey put a horse's head in his bed, and Cardinal Godless Dandruff enquired about fitting him for concrete boots, he felt it was time to call it a day).

Of course, some argue that he had resigned the Munus but not the Ministerium because he said the wrong words for resignation: these traddy Latin terms mean that he could still be pope. Of course you don't accept this, especially since the St Gallbladder chaps have given up trying to threaten him and gone back to money-laundering financial speculation instead. Now he is believed to have died - but maybe his last words were invalid and he is not really dead? What a mess.

Eccles: get on with the advice. We haven't got all day. Pietro.

"All-purpose funeral homily. Do not read this bit out. Oops!"

Well, one thing you have to do at Pope Benjamin's funeral is to preach a homily. Now, this will be difficult, as your usual homilies consist of a stream of insults. Not today, please! Avoid words like "rigid" and "backwardist", whatever you thought of your predecessor - in any case, you have spent the last ten years reversing all the changes he made. So keep your homily totally bland, the sort that can be given for anyone who dies - you're not very good at profound theological statements, anyway. At the end you may end with "And so we say farewell to [fill in name here]" and everyone will be pleased.

Here comes trouble...

Later in the service, the faithful will wish to receive Communion. Some rigid troublemakers will want to receive on the tongue while kneeling, but this will not go down well with all the priests present. The solution is to provide a range of priests etc. of different flavours - some rigid priests, some less traditional ones, some dressed as clowns, some holding balloons, and of course a few extraordinary ministers (they don't have to be very extraordinary, the usual vestments of tee-shirts, jeans and trainers will be fine). Then the congregation can make its own choices.

Finally, one disadvantage of a papal funeral is that you cannot exclude cardinals, even the ones you are avoiding. The last time that Cardinal Tao of China turned up you managed to avoid him by hiding in a broom cupboard, and so he couldn't complain to you about China's policy of rebranding members of the secret police as Catholic bishops. This time it's not going to be so easy. Cardinal Tao has been taking lessons in the game of hide-and-seek, and will certainly find you if you hide under the bed or in a cupboard. Does the Vatican have a "Pope's Hole" where persecuted popes can hide? If not, you'll have to meet him.

Now, gentlemen, I want a clean fight.

Or you could release some photoshopped pictures to make it look as though you met him? No, people will see through that. Make it a short meeting, in a sacred place, so that he cannot practise the ancient martial arts of Chop Suey or Foo Yung on you. Your own Papa-Slappa may be good for enough for young female pilgrims, but will never defeat a cardinal with a black belt!

As for what you say to him... keep it short. Pretend you have an urgent appointment with two cardinals who want to ask you a few Dubia. This may even be true, but if it is, I can't help you.

Tributes to Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI

As the Catholic world (and many others) mourns the death of the Emeritus Pope, we found a variety of alternative tributes.

Kevin McGhoul of the Daily Moron.

So that's got rid of Benedict then! Did you know that he was Hitler's right-hand man and founded the Hitler Youth? I can reveal that is true name wasn't Benedict, but Joseph Goebbels. After the war ended he changed his name to Ratzinger, then a bit later he hid himself away in Rome to avoid the Nazi-hunters. I know all about these things.

Who would have thought that this man would end up as Pope?

You know that Jimmy Saville was a Catholic? Well, doesn't that prove that Benedict covered up child abuse? Also he was transphobic, homophobic, claustrophobic, and [I'll think of some more phobias later]. Our ace correspondent Greta Thunberg tells me that his carbon footprint was enough to kill three polar bears every week!

Fr Tommy Rot SJ.

I forgive Benedict for his many faults - mainly sacking me from Amerika magazine because he realised that I was a useless toad. During his papacy and that of Pope John-Paul II - come to think of it, during all papacies except the present one - free debate was suppressed and only people who actually believed all that Catholic stuff were allowed to guide the Church.

Benedict described homosexuality as "intrinsically disordered" - an accusation which has set the Jesuit movement back many years. No, the big mistake the electors made in 2005 was in choosing someone who was wise and intelligent - they certainly avoided that error when it came to the 2013 conclave!

Instead of listening to other opinions, Benedict insisted on Catholic teaching! You wouldn't catch Pope Francis telling people what to do, or what to believe! He listens to everyone, from Pachamama downwards!

Professor Doctor Max Beans.

As you can read in the 25 articles I have written since I heard about Pope Benedict's demise yesterday morning (Boston Globule, Commonwart Magazine, Les Crocks, The Beano, Huffington Puffington, Gelato Weekly, ...) the reign of Pope Benedict was a disaster. He may have been the greatest theologian in the world (after myself, that is!) but he was responsible for a revival of traditional Latin Masses, the Ordinariate, and a legacy that Pope Francis is finding it hard to destroy. Hermeneutic of Continuity! I tell you, if Francis knew what it meant, he would be cancelling it!

Benedict made many Catholics feel orphaned, and not only those who were complete bastards already. If only he had been more progressive!

Will that do, Eccles? I have to write ten more hit pieces before lunchtime. The Babble-on Bean blog is getting impatient!

Fr Thomas Reese SJ decides to forgive God

As "inspired" by this.

I forgive God. I hope others can too.

By Fr Thomas Reese LGBTSJ.

I see God as a holy but flawed individual who did the best He was capable of.

I first met God in 1994 when I had been a Jesuit priest for 20 years. We Jesuits are well-known for our many achievements in the realms of science, but it is only rarely that we turn our attention to religion. For example, there are the medieval scientists Jacobus Martinus, who was the first person to build a rainbow bridge; Jorgeus Bergoglius, the engineer who worked on rigidity; and Arturus Sosus, who invented the tape-recorder. So it was quite a surprise for me when I first learnt that it was possible to be a Jesuit and also to believe in God.

At the end of my first prayer, I asked for God's blessing — because I sensed I was in the presence of a divine being. But I also knew I was in the presence of a creator who, as Judge Eternal, had done irreparable harm to the church. There were scores of theologians, professors and priests who had been led to believe that they had sinned in some way, generally by disobeying Divine Commandments.

Controversial propaganda, used to attack my friends.

God's problem was that He treated theologians as if they were graduate students who needed correction and guidance. As a result, my last question to the Lord was, "Do you ever worry that you may be judging too much?"

He laughed and responded, "What a silly little man you are."

My own difficulties with God began shortly after I became editor of America Magazine, a journal of propaganda published by U.S. Jesuits. I wanted to make America a journal of criticism, explaining where God was wrong, and why the Bible should be rejected.

For years we had to contend with adverse reactions from God. Not just lightning strikes on the office of America, a voice thundering REPENT! down the chimney, plagues of boils and frogs, but even criticisms from self-styled authorities such as Pope Benedict.

The America offices.

I tried to make America the top journal of dissent, inviting moderate Catholics such as Cardinal Kasper to tell us where the Church had gone wrong, and even asking Cardinal Burke along so that other contributors could mock him point out where he was wrong.

However, it was clear that God was unhappy with the magazine, and it was time to go. Later, the election of that chap from the St Gallen Mafia lifted my spirits a little, as I realised that I was not God's only critic.

God has not asked for my forgiveness. He probably still believes that what He did to me and to numerous theologians was the right thing for the Church, but I still want to forgive Him.

In short, I see God as holy but flawed. He did the best He was capable of. For all of us, that is the best we can say. In the end, finally, only WE can judge.

Arthur Roche v Agatha Christie

Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, today admitted that he had "never heard of Agatha Christie".

Friday was the 50th anniversary of the indult given by Pope Paul VI permitting the use of the Traditional Latin Mass in England and Wales. For those who don't know, it is sometimes called the Agatha Christie Indult because one of the high-profile signatories of the petition that led to it was Agatha Christie herself (read the Wikipedia article to see who else signed). It is said that Pope Paul VI was an Agatha Christie fan, which helped to get the indult.

Dear Holy Father...

However, the story does not end there. Uncle Arthur, in a mysterious letter to Cardinal Nichols, has claimed that the CDW had no record of this indult (and anyway, if a copy were to turn up, then of course Merciful Francis's "De Traditione Comburendo" Mot. prop. would supersede it).

"I've never even heard of this Agatha Christie," claimed the fat man. "They tell me that she's a writer of detective stories, such as The Mysterious Affair at Rome, Why didn't they ask Benedict?, Death on the Tiber, and Hickory Dickory Doctrine (and I take that as a personal insult), but I find that hard to believe. Anyway, I prefer Father Brown, especially this new man on the television who is basically an Anglican."

A twist in the plot.

Lieutenant Columbo happened to be passing at the time. "Just one more thing, before I go, Archbishop," he commented. "I see that your CDW shredder isn't working too well, and I happened to find this page on which some words are readable. Here's one bit. Dear Agatha. And here's another bit. Of course ... never abrogate .. Traditional Mass. Oh, here's one more fragment. How about a novel ... ambitious Yorkshireman ... cardinal despite ... totally useless? Any idea what these could refer to, your Grace?"

"No idea," responded Archbishop Roche. "I'm only the Prefect of the CDW. I'm too busy for that kind of stuff. Why, some people keep telling me that there was a Pope Benedict whose words totally contradict Trad. Comb. I've never heard of him. Officially, he never existed."

Found in the CDW archives.

Now, Arthur old man, about your other great blunder, saying that the TLM was abrogated... well, you can see that demolished elsewhere by Fr Hunwicke . And in many other places.

The Traddy-Ban captures Rome

Catholics worldwide have been stunned by the news that the Tradi-ban is now occupying Rome, led by the triumvirate of Bar-Golio, Pah-Rolin, and Ahfah-Roche. Last night Rome was full of Tradi-Ban troops singing the victory anthem "Trads Cussed".

Sadly, nobody suspected that when President Bidenict XVI withdrew his forces in 2013, the brutal forces of Tradi-ban would soon be able to take over and occupy the eternal city and from there rule the entire land of Catholistan.

"Someone's singing Salve Regina! Send in the elite Swiss Guard commandos."

With the Tradi-ban in power, there will be many new restrictions on the rights of Catholics - and in particular, they will be deprived of freedom of worship. Women will be told how to dress: mantillas and long dresses are out, and they will be forced to wear the soulless uniform dictated by Bar-Goglio, namely, bergos (crop tops and yoga pants).

President Bidenict has so far not commented on the Tradi-ban coup, and at his advanced age he now spends most of his time sleeping and eating ice-cream. However, there has been criticism worldwide of his hasty withdrawal, which left many Catholics in danger of persecution.

The Tradi-ban's forces fail to destroy a strategic target.

All is not lost, however. Political commentators such as Max Beans, Lamb Chop, and Tom Risible have welcomed the Tradi-ban as finally bringing Catholistan kicking and screaming into the 1970s. And we know how seriously people take their views.

Pope's doctors admit "we should have removed the spleen."

The surgeons who removed Pope Francis's semi-colon this week have now admitted that they removed the wrong organ. "We see now that we should have removed his spleen, and probably also the gall bladder in which he stores up all his bile," they said.*

*The board at the foot of the papal hospital bed said "pain in the backside", but this was not a medical diagnosis.

As Evelyn Waugh would have put it: A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Francis that was not malignant and remove it.

The pope's behaviour has been increasingly bizarre in recent weeks.

Francis has returned from hospital full of venom and bitterness, and it took him just two days to issue a new Motu Proprio "Traditionis Custodes" (an anagram of "Ass! Idiot! Destruction!" but that is probably just a coincidence). Subtitled "Why Benedict is wrong and I am right", the papal scribbles begin with the phrase Guardians of the tradition, the bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome, showing that the pope could have had a successful career as a comedian if he had wished.

"Nobody's ever called me a guardian of tradition before!"

So, apart from the obvious question "Quis custodiet ipsos traditionis custodes?" we serious Catholic commentators need to ask some fundamental questions:

1. What is he doing?
2. Why is he doing it?
3. Will he get away with it?

Two popes doing what they do best.

Now the pope's reasoning behind the repeal of Summorum Pontificum without even waiting for Benedict to die may be seen as just another case of loutish bad manners (like refusing to answer the Dubia, slapping pilgrims, snubbing Cardinal Zen, etc.) but in fact it is dealing with one of the worst crises in the church: the popularity of the traditional Mass.

I'm sure that these things are randomly chosen.

After all, there can be nothing more serious! Child abuse, idol-worship, the persecution of the Church in China, Fr James Martin's sodoministry, Devout Catholic Biden's abortion mania, the widespread embezzlement of Vatican finances, the squandering of Peter's Pence on dirty films, heretical papal documents, ... all these are trivialities compared with the use of the same Mass as our grandparents used before Vatican II.*

*Did you genuflect when Vatican II was mentioned? I did. Fun, wasn't it?**

**Remember that Vatican II changed nothing at all. Which is why everything has changed.

The cunning plan:

1. Blame the traditional Mass for causing a schism.
2. Cause a schism by banning it.

"All right, lads. You know where he lives. You know what you have to do.

Priests: if you wish to celebrate a Mass in the Extraordinary Form, it is very simple now: all you need is for your bishop to ask the Pater Sanctus for a signed letter giving permission (one for every time you wish to celebrate). Pope Francis is very good at answering letters (ask Burke, Brandmüller, etc.) and will gladly take time off from his Pachamama devotions to scribble you a note.

Curiously, some bishops are actually giving Pope Francis (and his evil side-kick the sinister Dr Rauci) a shock, by saying that they will continue to allow Latin Masses as before. Some really are "Traditionis Custodes" after all. Amazing!

"Muscles" Barron prepares to celebrate the Extraordinary Form.

Incidentally, all this was foreseen two months ago in the writings of the Prophet Eccles.

Vatican sale - everything must go!

The first we heard of this was on Wednesday, via Edward Pentin who bothers to read Vatican press releases so that we don't have to. The Vatican is broke, and everyone is taking a pay cut. Cardinals will have their salaries cut by 10% (surely it would be simpler to give redundancy notices to 10% of the cardinals? I can give you a list) and the ordinary workers suffer cuts of 8% down to 3%.

It is not recorded what pay cuts popes (current and emeritus) will be taking - a real missed opportunity for Francis to show how humble he is. This may be because questions may be asked about why we need both a pope and an emeritus pope. What do I know?

"Now, I'm afraid that one of you will have to go."

Next week's Motu proprio will give details of the Vatican fire sale to raise more funds. The faithful are no longer sending in Peter's Pence, since they are being spent on unpleasant films like Confessions of a Rocketman - and Elton John's sequels, involving Busman, Cabman and Bicycleman, don't sound any better.

I have already bought the tombs of three saints, which will go in my living-room once I have removed all the other furniture. I was hoping for some prestigious ones such as Pius V from Santa Maria Maggiore, but mine are obscure ones such as Pope Wilton III, Pope Jimbo XVII and Pope Ted, of whom most people have never even heard.

I also bought a popemobile - well, not the popemobile, just a unicycle that Pope Francis uses for exercise, or so I am told by his totally reliable business manager "Honest Giovanni" Becciu. My neighbours give me admiring glances as I cycle round the garden, bless them, and then fall off into the compost heap.

Late News: I am getting increasingly annoyed at a succession of itinerant priests who wander into my living room and say Mass at the tombs there. I don't care if you've been thrown out of St Peter's Basilica, you're not coming here. And get out of my kitchen - that's a refrigerator, not a sarcophagus.

The whited sepulchre of Pope Bosch.

We interview Pope Benedict

As the Fake News Correspondent of the Italian newspaper Così fan tutte I was very pleased to be granted an interview with Emergency Pope Benedict (memo: check his official title).

My German is not very good, although after a lifetime of watching World War II films I have picked up a few useful phrases, such as "Heil Hitler", "Schweinehund", and "For you, Britischer pig, ze war is over." Still, I didn't need to use these, as we spoke in English.

"Eccles! Delighted to see you!"

Eccles: Now, Holy Retired Father, it is very good of you to give me an interview. My first question to you is: "Who is the Pope?"

Benedict: Well, it's not me, is it? Francis, I suppose.

Eccles (coming in for the kill): So if I were to contradict the claim that you refuse to deny the negative of the proposition that Francis fails to be anything other than the Pope, what would you say?

Benedict (hesitates):

Eccles (scribbling in notebook): BENEDICT NOT SURE WHETHER FRANCIS IS THE POPE.

Eccles: Let's move onto something easier. The man in the news this week is Mr Potatohead. What do you think of him?

Benedict: Who?

Georg Gänswein: Er, that would be Kartoffelkopf.

Benedict: Ah, yes, you mean Heinrich Kartoffelkopf, the great nineteenth century German theologian who refuted the ideas of Professor Maximilian Bohnen?

Eccles (scribbling): BENEDICT ENTERS THE POTATOHEAD DEBATE.

Mr Potatohead (R) with a dear friend.

Eccles: Now, tell me your views about the leader of the free world. Is he Catholic?

Benedict: Francis? Well he does attend Mass, or so I'm told.

Eccles: Actually I meant Joe Biden, often described as the most devout Catholic since Edward Kennedy.

Benedict (laughs hysterically and begins to choke):

Eccles: BENEDICT BECOMES EMOTIONAL AT THE MENTION OF SAINTLY JOE BIDEN AND HAS DIFFICULTY CHOKING BACK HIS TEARS.

Eccles: One final question if I may. The other man in the news is Dr Seuss, author of such books as If I ran the Vatican, And To Think That I Saw It in St Peter's Square, How the Grech stole Christ, and The Prat in the Red Hat. Would you ban his books?

Banned in Malta.

Benedict: Well, they never came up before the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when I was running it...

Eccles (scribbles): BENEDICT DEFENDS RACISM, SEXISM, GENDER BIGOTRY AND CLIMATE DENIAL OF DR SEUSS.

Eccles: Thank you, Holy Thing (© Joe Biden)!

The Wind in the Vatican

With apologies to Kenneth Grahame

"Do you know," said the Brand-Moler, blissfully drinking a huge tankard of German beer as he sat in the garden of the Pope Emeritus. "I've hardly ever been to these apartments before."

"Really?" said the Ratzinger solemnly. "To my mind there is nothing at all so worthwhile as messing about in the Vatican."

"What a day I'm having, Ratty," continued the Brand-Moler with a sigh of full contentment. What's in the picnic basket?"

"Following papal advice, there's Legumes," replied the Ratzinger briefly. "BroadBeansLentilsPeasPeanuts BakedBeansChickpeas MassimoFaggioli PulsesRunnerBeans..."

"Oh stop, stop!" cried the Brand-Moler in ecstasies. "This is too much! What a feast, Ratty!"

A feast.

Presently Cardinal Raymond Badger entered. He had been visiting an area full of mysterious warrens, from which strange little faces would peep out at intervals to say things like "Hail Pachamama!" "Let's build a bridge towards the weasel community" and "Won't anyone buy my new book Pope Francis on the Orient Express?"

"You know Toad's got a new Magisterium?" said the Ratzinger to the Badger once the Brand-Moler had been introduced. "A completely new one. He crashed the one his ancestors handed down to him."

"I know," said the Badger gloomily. "One of these days he'll get locked up, for sure. I've heard that the Jesuweasels are just waiting to over-run the Vatican as soon as his back's turned. Then they'll bring in rainbow flags and Ignatian yoga."

Three cardinals in conclave.

"Why don't you stop him?" asked the Brand-Moler.

"You don't understand," explained the Ratzinger. "Nobody stops Toad. It always has to be something new. One day it's a change to the Gloria, the next it's a new version of the Lord's prayer."

From somewhere close by came a distant whirring sound, which gradually rose to a crescendo. Then there was a mighty crash, and the Toad came flying head-first over the hedge, to land in a nearby ditch. As the animals hurried over looking very concerned, the Toad extracted his head from the mud: lying in the ditch with a contented smile on his face, he sighed and muttered to himself: "O bliss! Oh my! ... Amoris Laetitia ... Laudato Si' ... Fratelli Tutti ... Pope-pope! >>> CRASH!!! <<<"

Getting an answer to the Dubia.

Did John-Paul II and Benedict XVI inspire the Washington riot?

Part of a newly-discovered manuscript by Agatha Christie.

Miss Marbles was a white-haired old lady with a gentle appealing manner, and known as "Loster" Marbles to her nearest and dearest. However, her great friend Sir Henry Blithering, a retired Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, knew that if anyone could solve the mystery of the Washington riots, it would be she.

"Do you have any thoughts on the matter, Miss Marbles?" he asked. "Does this remind you of any incidents in your life at St Mary Roehampton?"

Miss Marbles' eyes twinkled. "Now you mention it, Sir Henry, there was the time when a window was broken in the Centre for Human Flourishing, and it turned out to be caused by a cricket ball struck by one of the visiting Sexist Priests team, which was playing against our own Catholic Deaconesses XI. Sometimes there is great evil in the world."

She completed a stitch in the woolly biretta that she was knitting for her niece Raymonda, who was hoping to become the next pope, and continued her analysis of the hideous crimes in Washington.

"Human nature is much the same everywhere," she explained, "whether we are talking about crime in a small village or a large city. There are two wicked men in the world who now think their evil will go unpunished, but I rely on you, Sir Henry, to bring them to justice."

"But who are they?" asked Sir Henry.

Miss Marbles gave a self-deprecating smile, and carried on with her knitting for a while, before continuing.

"Why, Sir Henry, who could be guilty of this dreadful evil except Pope St John-Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI?"

"We're safe unless Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple turns up."

"But John-Paul is dead, and Benedict has retired to spend his life in praying and drinking beer!"

"We should always consider the most unlikely person," said Miss Marbles firmly. "They obviously thought that they were beyond suspicion, but a man who is refusing to ordain women is capable of organizing insurrection, whether he is young, aged, or even long dead. Even canonized saints can go astray."

Sir Henry reflected briefly on the possibility that Miss Marbles was losing her grip, before realising that, once again, the sage of St Mary Roehampton had unerringly pointed her finger at the evil doers.

"Benedict was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Inquisition," he commented. "I didn't expect that!"

"Nobody expects the Inquisition," said Miss Marbles sweetly.

This is a bit too sensational, so don't publish it until I'm dead. Agatha.

How to translate the Mass

The story so far: at the time of Vatican II, it was decided to rush out translations of the Mass into the vernacular. Not the true vernacular, as phrases such as "Cor, strike a light, guv", "Eee ba gum", and "Och aye the noo" were used very sparingly; but a sort of casual and imprecise vernacular, all the same.

Now, when I say translation, I really mean "variation on an original theme". The people translating the Mass didn't even have the benefit of Google translate, so they had to guess what the Latin words meant. Actually Google itself seems to have been got at, as it turns the Latin Gloria into:

Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.
We praise you,
thank you,
we adore you,
we glorify you,
Thank you for your glory;
Lord God, heavenly King
Father Almighty.

Which looks distinctly wonky.

"Do any of you speak Vernacular?"

Anyway, for about 40 years, people muddled on with a B-grade translation, not quite sure whether the peace on Earth was intended for everyone, or just people of goodwill, or those whom God loves. There is also this problem about whether the Precious Blood is shed for many, for all, or just me and my mates.

So, in 2011, an English translation was produced, and it caused hysterics among liberal Catholics. For example, the precise theological concept "consubstantial" had previously been vernacularised into "of one being", or "being of one oneness", or possibly "one of one beingness", or maybe "being of one beingness". Whatever it was, it was a waffly as possible. The new translation made worshippers use a 4-syllable word which required thinking about... my dear, it was awful!

"I've added some cartoons to make it more popular."

The French and Italians wanted to go their own way. "Lead us not into temptation" appears to be what Jesus said. But we can improve on that. "Zut alors, ne nous laisse pas entrer en tentation parce-que la plume de ma tante est dans le jardin" seems to be the version currently used by the frogs, although I may not have got that quite right. The Italian version is full of Mama Mias and references to tutti-frutti ice-cream but they also don't want to be allowed to enter into temptation.

Anyway, the good news is that Pope Francis is going to take a lead on this. The Lord's Prayer, in particular, needs updating. Apart from local variations it has remained unchanged for 2000 years, and omits to mention climate change, equality and diversity, and vaccinations. A theological commitee - consisting of the Pope, Bill Gates, George Soros, Klaus Schwab, Joe Biden, Alyssa Milano, and Ocasio-Cortez - will be rushing out a new Lord's Prayer (not tested on humans, but many hamsters have reacted favourably to it). This will become compulsory in 2021.

Experts prepare a new version of the Latin Mass.