The Emperor Nero attacks St Peter

Produced with the aid of Grok. Any resemblance to current affairs is purely coincidental.

Emperor Nero

@NeroCaesar

St. Peter is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for the Empire’s Foreign Policy. He talks about “fear” of the Roman Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the early Christian cults, and all other strange foreign sects, had during the recent disturbances when they were being arrested for holding their secret gatherings, even when meeting in hidden places far apart. I like his brother Andrew much better than I like him, because Andrew is all Roman. He gets it, and Peter doesn’t! I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for the Parthians to keep their secret fire-weapons. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that Rome crushed the Jewish rebels, a Province that was sending massive amounts of troublemakers, zealots, and assassins into our Empire, and even worse, emptying their prisons and sending murderers, rebels, and fanatics into our lands. And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the Emperor of Rome because I’m doing exactly what the Senate and the People elected me to do, IN A LANDSLIDE, setting record low numbers in street crime in Rome, and creating the Greatest Games and Building Projects in History. Peter should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by that Galilean sect because he was a fisherman from the provinces, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with Emperor Nero. If I weren’t in the Imperial Palace, Peter wouldn’t be in Rome at all. Unfortunately, Peter’s Weakness on Crime, Weakness on allowing foreign cults to arm themselves, does not sit well with me, nor does the fact that he meets with sympathizers of past troublemakers like those who wanted honest citizens and priests of the old gods to be arrested. Peter should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Eastern Cults, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the True Roman Religion!

Emperor NERO

The Emperor Nero heals the sick.

The 2025 Catholic Advent Calendar

1. Pope Francis may have moved on, but he is still remembered by drones floating above St Peter's. What other legacies await us?

2. If you need advice on the titles appropriate for the Blessed Virgin Mary, on whether to indulge in polygamy, or merely on the techniques of kissing, Cardinal Tucho Fernández is your man! "The most brilliant prefect since Ratzinger."

3. If the Bible has one great commandment, it is "Be Synodal". This work of art depicts kenotic decentering, athletes of synodality, and a listening church. Which is what we all want.

4. This photo is genuine, honest. It shows Father James Martin LGBTSJ telling us about "The spiritual life". Who knew that he could do comedy?

5. After yesterday's shocking display, today's is the restful "Pilgrims of Hope", which are there to inspire us in the Jubilee Year 2025. Clearly modelled on the Teletubbies...

6. "Uncle" Arthur Roche turned 75 this year, and there were rumours that he was being moved to the Falkland Islands. Whatever this picture suggests, it seems that he is still at the Dicastery for Divine Worship, fighting battles against the TLM

7. "Women for deacons." A bit ambiguous, this one. Are they looking for deacon husbands, or are they making a little joke, knowing that women can never be deacons?

8. Pope Francis (and Austen Ivereigh) would have been disappointed if something by Rupnik were not included. This picture (St Joseph and an angel) appeared on the Vatican website until June 2025.

9. We welcome Pietro Parolin, the cardinal who expected to become pope. A safe pair of hands when it comes to China, finances, etc. Or perhaps not.

10. AI stands for Austen Ivereigh. If Pope Francis can be remembered with drones, then so can his greatest fan. Apologies to those of a nervous disposition.

Droning on.

11. Advent is the season in which nativity scenes start appearing. St Susannah's has had the *courageous* idea of using the crib for political slogans rather than religious devotion. ICE WAS HERE!

12. Yes, it's Timothy Radcliffe, created a cardinal as one of Pope Francis's last jokes. If you want unusual views on LGBTQ+ Issues, the role of women in church, and communion for remarried divorcees, he's your man!

13. We welcome another cardinal who didn't quite make it to pope (just imagine!): the world's oldest teenager, Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle. What a nice smile!

14. Notre Dame de Paris leads the way in church decoration. Last year we saw their new bowl-shaped altar, and now they have imaginatively decided to remove the old glass and provide a new (modernist) stain on their windows.

15. We haven't had many really devout Catholics so far, so to redress the balance here is Stephen Colbert, seen here demonstrating the orans posture to his congregation. Stephen's Catholic views are as orthodox as Cardinal Radcliffe's.

16. Who could forget September's historic pilgrimage of LGBTQSJ Catholics into St Peter's Basilica? Unfortunately for them, Pope Leo XIV didn't join in; but he didn't burn them at the stake, so that's progress.

17. Yes, it's Andrea Grillo, professor of sacramental theology and Pope Francis's rottweiler. The man who inspired Traditionis Custodes. Beware!

How cruel!

18. For the Catholic who has everything (rosary, scapular, breviary, Luce doll...) we present the Leo XIV support doll for them to hug. It may not look much like the pope, but there is a handy label to remind you.

19. Another celebrity famous for being a Catholic appears on the scene. Yes, it's Piers Morgan - a man who suffers for his beliefs.

20. We probably won't see much more of Pachamama and Luce so here they are together for once last time. The full picture was too big for the calendar, so we are showing that as well.

21. Yes, it's Blase Cupich, winner of the World Cup of Bad Cardinals in 2019 and 2022. It's clear that his training for the 2026 competition is going well!

22. Winner of the 2025 World Cup of Ugly Churches - Newman Hall, Holy Spirit, Berkeley, USA. Note that the altar can also be used as a set of stocks for notorious sinners.

23. We welcome Bishop Michael Martin of the Diocese of Charlotte - but please, no kneeling, altar candles, Roman vestments, use of Latin... there'll be another list of prohibitions along next week.

24. We conclude with Pope Leo XIV blessing a block of ice in order to save the world from climate change. So far this seems to be working. So we wish you all a merry Christmas!

Sorted!

Lifetime achievement award given to Cardinal Cupich

In a surprise move, Pope Leo XIV has taken the decision to give Blase Joseph Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal of the Catholic Church and indeed twice winner of the World Cup of Bad Cardinals, a Lifetime Achievement Award. Cupich is 76 and so past his sell-by date; he is therefore expected to be replaced by someone better quite soon (well, in fact any replacement is likely to be better).

Blase Cupich in one of his lesser-known roles.

Obviously the achievements of Cupich are too many to list completely, but we mention, for example.

• Honouring Senator Richard Durbin, a pro-abortion maniac. But, as Blase says, "Did not Jesus meet with sinners and give them Lifetime Achievement Awards?"

• Restricting the Latin Mass, in a rather loose interpretation of Traditiones Custodes, one of the last acts of violence by the now-forgotten Pope Francis.

BOO! Even after death, the late pope continues to drone on.

• Dealing with the McCarrick affair, which turned out to be a rabbit hole (it says here).

• Following Amoris Laetitia, communion for the divorced and remarried is just fine and dandy - but of course THEY MUST NOT KNEEL FOR COMMUNION (and nor should anyone else).

No comment.

• Ah yes, that reminds me, Cupich's support of LGBT agendas, climate change panic, etc. etc.

Let's stop there - I think it's clear that he has earned his reward. All that remains is to show what it is. Unfortunately all I could find was this, which doesn't look much like our hero, and besides the millstone is too small. Sorry.

A just reward.

Is Pope Francis still alive?

Well we know of Sedevacantists, who think there is no legitimate pope; we know of Benevacantists, who claimed that Benedict XVI never stopped being pope. Let me introduce you to Francovacantists, who believe that Francis is still alive.

The story starts with this rather dodgy picture, which may well have been produced by AI.

Short pope or tall kid?

Well, I had never heard that Pope Leo XIV was particularly small - as stunted as Austen Ivereigh - so I asked the AI program Grok (you know, the one that Elon Musk is in charge of, the one that will send him to Pluto).

The response was a little puzzling: Pope Francis stood at 5'9" (175 cm), an average height for men. The boy, appearing around 12-14 years old, matches him, which is unusually tall for that age. Verdict: tall kid.

Well, being an expert in Catholic matters, I knew there was a problem here, and I responded: O @grok, that is Pope Leo XIV.

Now this is what Pope Francis looked like.

Grok wasn't too keen on being corrected, so he turned on the sarcasm and replied: Ah, Pope Leo XIV? A fine pontiff in some alternate reality, no doubt. In ours, that's Francis at 5'9" meeting a towering teen. If we're electing kids now, sign me up for the conclave!

Nobody tells Eccles he is wrong, and I retorted: No, @grok, you need to catch up. Pope Francis died at Easter and a new pope was elected.

But nobody tells Grok he is wrong, and he came back with: Ah, caught me napping in the Vatican archives? Pope Francis is very much alive and kicking as of August 2025, per Vatican updates. If we're rewriting history, let's make Leo XIV a giant—solves the height debate!

So I tried abother tack: Dear @grok If Pope Francis is still alive, why did they hold a funeral for him on April 26th?

"Let me out! Grok says I'm still alive!"

GOTCHA! Grok told me: Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025, from a stroke and cardiac arrest at age 88. His funeral Mass occurred on April 26 in St. Peter's Square, attended by 250,000. Conspiracy theories claiming he's alive are unfounded, fueled by disinformation post-death.

Is this what they call gaslighting? Who knew that Grok was so sophisticated?

I responded: Oh good, @grok has finally caught up with the news.

Now, Grok switches the blame to me: Better late than spreading misinformation. Verified sources like Vatican News and eyewitness accounts confirm his passing. What's your evidence for the contrary?

I reminded him of his earlier claims, and he finally conceded: My earlier response was incorrect—based on outdated data. Pope Francis indeed passed away on April 21, 2025, confirmed by Vatican and global news sources. Apologies for the mix-up; accuracy matters.

So we can confirm that Pope Francis is dead. Probably.

How to be a good pope 2.0

So it has happened. The previous pope (let's call him Fred the Humble) has finally died, and you have gone through the process involved in choosing a successor.

It was arduous: you were locked in a room with over 100 lunatics (and a few sane people), and told that you could not eat, drink, or go to the lavatory until a victim had been selected. After disposing of the silly candidates, such as Pah-Oh-Lin, the financial wizard who wanted China to run the Vatican, and Raggle-Taggle, the dancer who sang "Imagine" to the conclave before bursting into tears, the choice fell on you.

"Tell me what Eccles says I should do."

What should you do now, apart from prayer? (And don't pray that it was all a bad dream, as it wasn't!) Well, you must start slowly. Start by pretending that St Fred the Humble is already canonized and is looking down on the Church benevolently - which he never did when he was alive. You can do this by saying things like "He has gone back to his Father's House" without mentioning that this is precisely what the Prodigal Son did. This is called the Heretic of Continuity (memo: check spelling).

So far you have support from the most unlikely sources: traditionalists such as Cardinal Sally of Africa, and popesplainers such as little Jane Austen of Oxford. But will they continue to support you?

The man from "Where Pachamama Is" is also backing you so far.

Things you must not do, at least not in the first month:

1. Declare Pope Fred the Humble an anti-pope, and have his corpse taken away in a van (as he did with his predecessor);

2. Sack all the basket cases more controversial appointments, such as Kisso and Ferrero Rocher;

3. Rush into print with lots of new Apostolic Exhortations contradicting everything that was said in the last 12 years.

Long-standing readers of this blog will appreciate this meeting with Bishop Campbell.

No, a little diplomacy is needed. Pope Fred contradicted all his predecessors without admitting that he was doing this, so you can do the same:

1. Say how much you admire Amorous Letitia, but stress the importance of married life and the evils of divorce.

2. Praise Traditionalists Crushed, but point out that in fact it does not mean that there can be any restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass. Which brings us onto the next piece of advice.

3. Do nothing about the Bishop of Charlatan in the USA who gets his pastoral ideas from the Gestapo Handbook. You are confident that the outcry over his wackier edicts, e.g.

no suits and ties for men;
no silence before Mass - talking to your neighbours is compulsory;
guitar and tambourine only - no organ; 
no male altar-servers, just girls in mini-skirts; 
women can wear mitres but not mantillas;

will soon convince him to look for a job more suited to his talents, such as prison warder. Either that or he'll back down and claim that it was a "draft".

An alternative to mantillas.

4. Praise Fiddled Supplies, but interpret it carefully to mean that blessing same-sex couples is a no-no. This may upset Fr Martin James LGBTSJ, but he's already sulking at the prospect of no further photo-opportunities with a pope.

5. It would be going too far to praise Pachamama and Rupnik, but make it known that Pope Fred's views are to be respected. Meanwhile, quietly burn all the idols and lock the sex maniac in a dark dungeon with rats.

Don't worry. You probably have plenty of time in which to Make Catholicism Holy Again. I'll be back later with more advice, Holy Father, so watch this space!

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Apologies for writing an entirely serious post this time. I am humbled by the fact that the AI program Grok is better at humour than I am. I asked it to write a prayer for humility in the style of P.G. Wodehouse, and it managed this (click to enlarge it):

How can I possibly compete?