World cup of uncrowned saints - nominations please

As a distraction from all the bad news that's coming out at present, let's have another World Cup - this time one of people who should be saints but aren't yet.

Please only nominate dead people that we can easily locate on the Internet (not "my mother"), but you don't have to write a long essay explaining why they should be saints. The nominees don't have to be Catholics, but I expect that the vast majority will be. You can nominate either by replying to the Tweet advertising this, or by commenting below.

This is what a saint looks like.

When I think we have enough I will arrange the usual sequence of Twitter polls.

Here are a few to get us started (found after 5 minutes of diligent research). Some are already Blessed, but I don't think any of them are saints.

G.K. Chesterton
Karl of Austria
Leo XIII
Louis XVI of France
Marie Antoinette of France
Pius XI
Pius XII
Fulton Sheen

Over to you!

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Addendum: The 64 in the competition are:

Anna Maria Taigi
Anne Catherine Emmerich
Bartolo Longo
Benedict XVI
C.S. Lewis
Catherine Jarrige of Mauriac
Catherine of Aragon
Ceslaus of Poland
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi
Cristóbal de Morales
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dominic Barberi
Élisabeth Arrighi Leseur
Elizabetta Canori Mora
Franz Jagerstätter
Franz Joseph Haydn
Frederick William Faber
Frère Roger of Taizé
Fulton Sheen
G.K. Chesterton
George Neumayr
George Pell
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Girolamo Savonarola
Henry Edward Manning 
Hilaire Belloc
Isabella I of Castile
J.R.R. Tolkien
Jeremy Ponsonby Meredyth Davies
Juan de Padilla
Julian of Norwich
Karl Leisner
Karl of Austria
Leo XIII
Louis XVI of France
Marcel Lefebvre
Marco d'Aviano
Margaret Anne Sinclair
Mariana de Jesus Torres
Marie Antoinette of France
Mary Elias of the Blessed Sacrament
Mary of Jesus of Ágreda
Matt Talbot
Mother Angelica
Nelson Baker.
Nguyễn Văn Thuận
Nicholas II of Russia
Paul Comtois
Pius IX
Pius VII
Pius XI
Pius XII
Prosper Louis Pascal Guéranger
Rafael Merry del Val
Ronald Knox
Simon of Cyrene
Solanus Casey
Sophie Scholl
Thomas à Kempis
Tomás de Torquemada
Tomás Luis de Victoria
Urban II
Vincent Robert Capodanno Jr.
Willie Doyle

How to have a good Mass in Time of Plague

Whether or not he is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Plague, in the form of the Coronavirus, is making a severe nuisance of Himself, and it is important to know how we should take precautions against him when attending Mass.

"When's Climate Change turning up?"

Celebrate ad orientem. Celebrating versus populum obviously increases the risk that the priest may catch something from the coughing congregation, and should be suspended.

Use only Latin. Try saying something liturgical in Latin, and then try saying the same thing in Vernacular. You will see that when speaking Latin your mouth does not open so widely, and thus the risk of transmitting and receiving germs is reduced. Those traditionalists knew a thing or two!

99% of doctors say NO to holding hands for the "Our Father".

Avoid bad hymns. Scientific studies have shown that singing "Gather us in," "Lord of the Dance," "Kumbayah," or "Shine, Jesus, Shine" puts a strain on the vocal muscles, as well as the brain, and makes one more susceptible to viruses. Safest of all is Gregorian chant, which can mostly be sung with the mouth closed.

No more sign of peace. I was lucky this morning, in that the choir belted into the Agnus Dei very quickly, and only two people had a chance to share their germs with me (three more were left fuming, as I switched off my friendly expression and tried looking pious instead). In general, a simple handshake can transmit 100000000000000000000000 bugs, so be warned. Grinning distantly is safest, but kicking your opponent neighbour will also work if he insists on physical contact.

"Peace be with you."

Wear earmuffs. This will protect you against bad doctrine in the homily far better than handwash and a face mask would.

Remove all pests from the church. Traditionally, illnesses have been transmitted by pests. So clear your church of all rats, spiders, Jesuits, and anything else that may carry disease.

Ban dancing. Bad news for Tagle, the Dancing Cardinal, but it's obvious that prancing around like a teenager in a disco is going to spread germs widely. So stop!

Spot the ninny. (Hint: they are all ninnies.)

Stay at home and watch it on television. Yes but, as I have explained before, this will only allow you to watch Heaven on television, rather than attend in person. So don't do it for very long.

Laurie Penny and the Pope's views

We are deeply honoured to have as our guest columnist the lovely Laurie Penny of the New Statesman.

An oil painting of the lovely Laurie Penny.

Urgh! Wasn't Pope Benedict ugly! With his squinty evil grin and his red shoes he looked just like a Sith Lord!! Except that Sith Lords don't wear red shoes, do they? Well never mind. Anyway, it proves he wasn't worth listening to!!

If Pope Benedict had looked like this, we'd have had to take him seriously.

Pope Francis is different. He doesn't wear red shoes. He doesn't look creepy. He doesn't eat babies or kick beggars in the street. You won't find him pulling the wings off butterflies - well, only on special occasions, I expect. Rumour hath it that Francis is keen on charitable actions. He radiates love to all mankind, almost at the level of a typical New Statesman columnist.

Pope Francis - handsome and saintly, but he will insist on talking.

But then Pope Francis spoilt it all by talking about his religious views - a mistake made by popes throughout the ages. He spoke of "children, victims of abortion" being "discarded as 'unnecessary'". WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS, THE EDITOR OF THE NEW STATESMAN OR SOMEONE?

A butterfly, spared (for the moment) by Pope Francis.

Shut up, Francis, you right-wing extremist. They might hear you in Spain, the United States, even Ireland, where there are still people who call themselves Catholic. What about abortion rights, eh? Have you ever been a baby in the womb? I doubt it very much! I have, so there! We all want the world to be better, and allowing women full access to abortion is the way to make it so!

Trust me, I'm a mother. Oh, in fact I'm not (I just checked my CV); but I could be. Well, you never hear people speak of "The Holy Grandmother", and this proves that Pope Francis never even had a mother. Anyway, you don't see female Catholics supporting "pro-life" issues, do you?

This is what Catholics do to women.

I'm running out of steam, drat it. Oh yes... institutional sexism... medieval moral code (Christ was medieval, wasn't He? Could someone check?)... the right to control what happens to our bodies... placating conservative Catholics... how many more words do you need, Editor? Could you copy and paste some more clichés, please?

We love clichés.

Even in the 21st century there are still women giving birth to children. IS THAT RIGHT? IS IT? IS IT? Until Pope Francis dies, he has no right to talk about matters of life and death. And maybe not even then. Phew. Can I go, now?

Is Pope Francis really weird?

One thing that both traditionalists and modernists seem to agree on is that Pope Francis is a very unusual pope. Is he the new broom that will sweep away traditional Catholic doctrine for good, institute same-sex marriages, stop everyone from "obsessing" about abortion, and free the oppressed and fearful - such as the aged folk of ACTA, who eagerly await the second coming of the Spirit of Vatican II? Or is he basically a mildly eccentric old uncle, who means well, but occasionally seems a bit dotty?

Pope Francis turns down the offer of a nose-piercing.

The explanation for Pope Francis's behaviour is very simple: he is not European, and therefore not what some people expected. Let us explain this with reference to three types of pope: a hypothetical English pope, a German, and an Argentine.

An English pope.

An English pope drinks dry martinis, wears evening dress under his fanon, thinks Lourdes is a cricket ground, spends the evening watching Strictly Come Liturgical Dancing, and Downton Abbey, and gets his theology from the works of G.K. Chesterton. The style of liturgical dancing he prefers is Morris dancing, or the Alleluia Cha-Cha of Paul Inwood. All educated Englishmen are like that.

A German pope.

A German pope wears Lederhosen, drinks beer, eats lots of sausages, gets his theology from the heavy guys like Hieronymus von Kartoffelsalat, and reads Kant in the bath. He may prefer the sort of liturgical dance where everyone slaps each other in the face and ends up under the altar.

An Argentine pope strives to please one of his flock.

However, Argentine popes are rather different. They are often brought up on a diet of corned beef, and addicted to watching the sort of football match where fouling is tolerated (so be careful the pope doesn't trip you up when God isn't looking). The greatest theologian he has read is Diego Maradona. The tango is the natural liturgical dance for an Argentine pope, although he may not take part himself. It is not known whether such popes are likely to have scorpions tattooed on their shoulders.

An Argentine handball player and theologian.

Jewish popes are the most eccentric, perhaps. Although they don't wear red noses, as far as we know, they often have a fascination with fish, and dress even more simply than Pope Francis. Very strange.

Congratulations! You've been elected Pope!