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.

Catholic Doomsday clock set to "Magisterial"

The Catholic Doomsday clock was initiated in 2013, as a way of warning against the inevitable meltdown that would follow should Pope Francis attempt to say anything "infallibly".

Whereas previous popes have refused to "go nuclear" since infallibility was defined in the 19th century, there has been an increasing risk that Pope Francis would say something mindlessly stupid ex cathedra.

Is the Vatican about to go nuclear?

The Pope has so far used a variety of weapons in an attempt to impose a new version of Catholicism: probably the least aggressive are tweets (produced by a teenage intern), which are indistinguishable from the platitudes of the Dalai Lama; more striking are his "air attacks" consisting of new off-the-cuff doctrines expressed on aeroplane journeys, and usually "explained" and "interpreted" afterwards; he is also a dab hand at deploying sockpuppets (Spadaro, Ivereigh, Faggioli, Marx, Daneels, oh there's too many to name...) to say the unthinkable, usually with a healthy dose of abuse thrown in.

Then we come to Amoris Laetitia, ghost-written, not based on anything agreed at the synods it followed, not even properly read by the Pope. A ticking bombshell, which brave bomb-disposers have attempted to defuse with DUBIA^TM technology. Still it continues to tick, tick, tick...

We may ignore Laudato Si', an attempt at building a "green" bomb which would destroy minds but not doctrine. Well, everyone else does.

Now, however, the threat level has reached "Magisterial". All the changes due to Vatican II, even the ones which are nothing at all to do with Vatican II, have been declared "irreversible".

Like his Popemobile, Pope Francis has no brakes, and no reverse gear.

Yes, the Spirit of Vatican II has won, and the threat level is now Magisterial. Pope Francis can repeal decisions made by his predecessors, such as Benedict XVI, John-Paul II, Pius X, Pius V, Peter, ... and even Jesus. BUT NOBODY ELSE HAS THE NUCLEAR CODES.

So the threat level is definitely Magisterial, if not Hysterical, "What I say goes, and cannot be contradicted, even if it contradicts Catholic teaching."

Theologians warn that some heresy may soon be proclaimed Infallibly.

Excuse me while I head for my bunker.

The Eccles encyclical is leaked

Pope Eccles writes:

I am deeply shocked that the draft text of my new encyclical on the environment, Sanctus Fumus, has been leaked by a consortium of people including Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Sandro Magister. These people have of course been excommunicated, along with a few other dubious characters I've been waiting to deal with such as Enda Kenny, Timothy Radcliffe and Reinhard Marx.

Sanctus Fumus! I reveal that pollution is a BAD THING.

Of course one of the leading causes of global warming is the leaking of encyclicals into the environment, so I hope that the Reverend Magister and friends are deeply ashamed of themselves.

Well, now that I have seen the reaction to my encyclical (or blog post, as I prefer to call it), I have decided to revise it. However, the bit about how popes are always the right people to ask about scientific questions is to be left as it is, and I am definitely keeping the short 500-page discussion of how Pope Urban VIII dealt with "space deniers", such as Galileo, who refused to believe that the Earth orbited round the Moon.

I'm the Urban Spaceman - as my predecessor declared.

Strange name, Urban. It's like being Pope Municipal, or something. But I digress.

Anyway, do wait for the final version of the encyclical before commenting. Apart from the general waffle about climate change, which I've mostly copied-and-pasted from James Delingpole, er, I mean Geoffrey Lean, there's some cracking good stuff about how abortion kills babies, which probably won't be widely reported, as well as some new jokes about people changing low-energy lightbulbs, which Mgr Guido Marini tells me will make my encyclical appeal more to the "yoof" of today. Yo, dudes!

The planet is not saved, only I am saved.

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 12

Continued from Chapter 11

1. Thus it came to pass that Joseph Ratzinger, he whom they called Pope Benedict XVI, travelled to Britain.

2. For he said, "There are many pious and faithful Catholics on this island, who will be pleased to see me. Also many bishops, who would like to have their photographs taken with me."

3. But Richard had vowed to arrest Pope Benedict, and so he formed the Dawkins Constabulary.

The Dawkins Constabulary in action.

4. Led by Superintendent Dawkins and Inspector Hitchens, the team included the mighty Sergeant Grayling and two other men and women known for their forensic skills, namely, Constables Stephen Fry (an expert on credit-card fraud) and Johann Hari (an expert on plagiarism and cyber-bullying).

5. But the lawyers told Richard that he could not arrest the Pope, saying unto him, Nolle prosequi, which is the Latin for "Grow up, you silly little man."

6. But, just to be on the safe side, the Pope came to Britain in a mighty chariot, known as a Popemobile, which defended him from all ill.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his Popemobile, en route for Birmingham

8. And the Pope was protected by his mighty Swiss Guards; they were armed with state-of-the-art Swiss Army knives, which could remove a stone from a horse's hoof, open a packet of peanuts, or pierce the soul of a heretic.

9. But the Pope was merciful, and did not succumb to the temptation of going to Oxford to flatten the house of the author of The Blind Birdwatcher and all that God Confusion tripe.

10. Thus Richard, humiliated, slunk away, and turned his attention to attacking faith schools. For he had produced a hard-hitting television documentary, explaining how children were indoctrinated.

A fanatic attempts to brainwash children into his views on x, y and z

10. But many of the people who watched the documentary said, "Who is this nutter? He's just trying to indoctrinate us. Let us change the channel and watch Strictly Come Dancing, for this week we shall see Polly Toynbee dancing with Eric Pickles, a sight that no man has seen before."

11. And so, to Richard's great dismay, the Catholics continued to teach that 2+2=4, and other controversial doctrines.

And here's one to do at home when Mummy and Daddy have gone to bed

12. Thus, at end of the tenth year of the second millennium, Richard ceased not in his folly. And as he grew weaker, both bodily and mentally, the Lord God came unto him in a dream and said "Pack it in, you old fool."

13. But still he packed it not in.

Continued in Chapter 13.