The Boat of Fools visits the Charismatics

After a recommendation from Sister Hilary White, we sent our "Mystery Worshipper" to the local charismatic church, for a bit of speaking in tongues.

Get thee behind me, Stan!

"Stan" here is presumably Professor Stanley Unwin, known for translooping the sacred liturgicobble into the vernaculums, which sounds a bit like peebles sparking in tongles, doesn't it? Deep joy.

What was the name of the service?

Missa Polylingua.

Achtung! Allegro con brio! My hovercraft is full of eels. Och aye the noo! Geen toegang!

What were the exact opening words of the service?

The priest's opening greeting was La plume de ma tante est dans le jardin, to which the congregation responded in a variety of languages, known and unknown, all the while jiggling around excitedly and waving their hands in the air so that their neighbours would realise that the Holy Spirit hadn't overlooked them. According to the service book, some acceptable responses would have been:

Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Hasta la vista, baby!
Caesar adsum jam forte. Brutus aderat. Caesar sic in omnibus. Brutus sic in at.
Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i'w gyfieithu.

However, we were encouraged to use our own imagination, and I said simply Bunga bunga!

"I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

On a scale of 1-10, how good was the preacher?

Approximately -10. He was clearly trying to explain to us that speaking gibberish was the best way to bring the Holy Spirit into our lives. I don't think he succeeded.

In a nutshell, what was the sermon about?

The most profound insights I got from him were Cave canem and Twój kocioł jest zapakowany w górę, giermka, the latter being Polish for "Your central heating boiler has packed up, squire."

Combien ça coûte, ce toutou dans la fenêtre?

How would you describe the after-service coffee?

It was specially-manufactured Mystic Maniac coffee, as drunk by lunatics.

Did the service make you feel glad to be a Christian?

Yes, I only dropped into this service as a service to readers of this blog. I won't be coming back.

Spiritual nourishment from Cardinal Dolan

This blog has occasionally been criticised for posting doctored photos of great spiritual giants of our time in unlikely situations (Vincent Nichols fighting the Weeping Angels, Fr John Zuhlsdorf in a mitre, Richard Dawkins made up as a clown, Fr Thomas Rosica praying), so it is with great pleasure that we present some completely genuine photos of one of our favourite cardinals, Timothy Dolan of New York. We do this since we feel that it is important for "bishop-bashers" to appreciate the onerous responsibilities that fall on our religious leaders.

A shepherd, smelling of the sheep (and camels).

Pope Francis wants his cardinals to be shepherds smelling of the sheep: he himself led the way by being photographed with a rather unhappy-looking lamb wrapped round his neck. Some leading churchmen have taken this further, and nowadays the presence of sheep and camels in religious services is becoming the norm.

Explaining Laudato Si' to a group of nuns.

In the Church of today, the important thing is dialogue, getting out to meet people where they are, and discussing new ideas for Catholic dogma with them. The nuns in the picture above are so worried about climate change that they have opted for much cooler habits. However, Cardinal Dolan shows himself to be a traditionalist in his choice of vestments.

Taking lessons in liturgical dancing.

In modern Masses, we have moved on from old-fashioned ideas such as Bible readings and hymns. The Spirit of Vatican II prefers us to worship Her by means of liturgical dance. But what is a cardinal to do if he is unable to do more than a liturgical waddle? Well, the answer is to lose weight, and take dancing lessons! Bravo to Cardinal Dolan for leading the way!

Renewal of vows

Here at the Church of St Daryl the Apostate, in conjunction with ACTA, the Tablet Newspaper and the Tina Beattie Foundation for Extreme Silliness, we recognise that Easter is a time to renew our vows, or more precisely to make some new, more modern, ones. Therefore, I ask:

Do you renounce all that happened in the Catholic Church prior to the 1960s?

We do.

Do you renounce all that stuff in the Bible written by bronze-age goat-herds, in particular the four Gospels, which obviously need updating for modern secular Catholicism?

We do.

A bronze-age goat-herd learns that he is simply not up-to-date.

Do you believe in the Spirit of Vatican II, who came upon us and told us to preach many new and exciting things which were beyond the wildest dreams of those who were actually present at the Second Vatican Council?

We do.

Do you believe in those Saints of Modernism, Annibale Bugsbunni, Carlo Maria Spartini, and Basil the Lofty (who some say is not just an old bearded man in the sky, but alive and resting in a bothy somewhere in Sutherland).

We do.

"What's up, Doc?" asks Annibale Bugsbunni.

Do you believe in the blessed Hans Kong, he who has written 295 books telling the Catholic Church why they are not saved and only he is saved?

We do. O Worship the Kong.

At this point the congregation will light their Hans Kong candles.

Do you believe in the blessed Professor Tina Beastie, the world's leading expert on human flourishing and avant-garde post-modern neo-liberal Catholic doctrine?

We do. Wonderful woman.

Surely "from long-windedy Beatties"?

Do you praise the Tablet, the National Catholic Reporter and all other organs of liberal Catholicism?

We praise them. Of course we don't actually read them.

Do you renounce all the orthodox Catholic blogs, such as Protect the Deacon, What did the Pope really say?, The Hermit of Continuity, and Father Ray Bloke?

Verily, they are a thorn in our side.

Nasty traddies seeking to prevent dialogue in the Church.

We now come to some ACTA-specific vows. Do you live in fear?

We live in fear.

What do you want?

We want dialogue!

When do you want it?

Well, now would be a good time to have a chat with the bishop, although it seems that he's blessing the lesbian knitting circle this afternoon, and then he's got a joint service with the Freemasons, and we mustn't forget that he's conducting a circle-dancing class this evening...

Finally, some vows of modernism. Do you renounce Latin, a language spoken by Nero and Caligula (here he may name other famous nasties who spoke Latin)?

We do.

Do you swear always to worship God in English, except when we have joint services with the local Maharashtran community, when we may have a Mass conducted partly in the Marathi dialect, for convenience?

आम्ही करू.

पवित्र जिव्हाळ्याचा परिचय एक विलक्षण मंत्री (An extraordinary minister of Holy Communion).

Do you abjure Gregorian chant, hymns written by dead people such as Charles Wesley and John Henry Newman, and any hymns with more than one basic idea in each verse?

We do.

Do you adore the songs of Paul Inwood, the publications of Kevin Mayhew Ltd., and all hymns where you can go "clap clap", "ch-ch" or "fizz-pop" in the chorus?

Yes.

BONG! You said "Yes". That's the end of the game.

Why I Love Liberal Catholics

Following Fr Dwight Longenecker's piece Why I Love Trad Catholics, we have come across a companion piece that he decided not to write.

A liberal Mass. Note that the Cross is replaced by something Greener.

One of the riches of the Catholic Church is her unity and diversity. Within the Catholic big tent we have many who accept the Church's teaching - informed by scripture and tradition - but there are also many who want to make up their own rules, because they know better.

Do you really need to follow Christ to call yourself a Christian?

What liberal Catholics have concluded is that all this stuff about "eternal verities" is simply nonsense. It is the duty of the Church to adapt to the Spirit of the Age. We mustn't get left behind, trying to teach something different, must we? People might think of us as "different" from atheists, cranky, even. They might even stop inviting us to fashionable dinner parties!

St Paul - wrote nothing important.

Liberal Catholics understand that we have to rewrite our religion from scratch. Out goes all that old-fashioned stuff believed by Christ, the Apostles, the Saints and Martyrs, the Popes, and lots of other dead people. We have to find new religious teachers: Leonardo Boff, Hans Küng, Tina Beattie, David Cameron, Barack Obama, and Polly Toynbee! Only by taking a little wisdom from each of these sages can we move forward.

"Let us pray." Pol replaces Paul.

Now, if you want to understand modern liberal Catholicism, you need to watch the BBC, or read the Guardian. Remember even Jesus, in one of His more advanced moments, said, And you shall know the comments, and the comments shall make you free (John 8:32). He saw that one day His teachings would be superseded. The teachings of Alan Rusbridger are more modern, and their scriptural authority is undeniable, since the writers are all still alive, and can be located in your nearest nursing home.

Of course liberal Catholics do not reject all moral teaching: adultery, murder, and false witness may no longer be sinful, but we must still condemn all bigoted attempts to impose ideas of sexual morality, any attempts to obstruct Choice, and the denial of climate change.

Forgive us our carbon dioxide, and deliver us from climate change.

I realize that traditionalists may not appreciate my take on the matter, but like it or not, the second Vatican Council has taken place. And although nobody ever talks about what it decided, God (if you don't mind my using an old-fashioned term) has sent His Spirit of Vatican II to tell us what it should have decided, and liberal Catholics are in the vanguard of inventing new things that could have been decided.

The vernacular Mass is now accepted as the Ordinary Form, and modern liberal Catholics see this as an opportunity for further development of the rite. Since most of them don't attend Mass very often, anyway, they cannot get used to the new translation, and so they have invited Kevin Mishmash, the publisher of Walk in the Light, Follow Me, and so much more, to produce a version without any of the hard words.

Do your hymns make people ill? If so, Kevin Mishmash may want to publish them.

Out goes: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

In comes:

We believe, We believe, We believe, 
That the Father's been making things!
Earth and Heaven, Heaven and Earth, 
The Father's been making things!
Things that we see, things that we don't.
The Father's been making things! Yeah!

© 2014 Kevin Mishmash.

I, for one, am glad that the liberals are there to interpret Catholicism as it was never interpreted before. They are a gift to the whole church.

The Tablet Hallowe'en Party

October 31st was a big day for the Tablet, a teenage comic that unconvincingly claims to be "Catholic". First, there was the annual Tablet lecture, given by its Rome correspondent Robert Mickens, on the subject "We hates all popes, especially Benedict".

We hope to report more fully on the talk later, but so far we simply have a few soundbites, in which Mickens gives an in-depth analysis of previous popes, such as "John-Paul I - what silly glasses he wore!", "John-Paul II - couldn't even think of an original name!" and "Pope Benedict ate my hamster."

A Tablet CD.

Mickens did however look to the future as well, with "Now, Francis - here are your orders. Listen very carefully - I shall say this only seventy times."

After the lecture, it was time for the Tablet Hallowe'en Party - an event billed as "Come as you are!"

Tina Beattie enjoys an evening of "human flourishing".

All the great and good were there, sharing the true Vatican II Spirit which has made the Catholic church such a happy united institution, where Christian doctrine remains unchallenged, and the secular liberalism of the modern world is put in its place (Catherine Pepinster's office).

Chris Patten takes "come as you are" a little too literally.

Of course, some of the Tablet trustees did decide to dress up a little, but it was not always possible to identify them.

Eamon Duffy recreates the Spirit of Vatican II.

All-in-all, a good time was had by everyone, and at the end it was agreed to "trick or treat" some prominent Catholic priests in the neighbourhood - unless they agreed to revive the Tablet by placing copies in their churches, it would be custard-pie-in-the-face time. (The Anglicans have a similar tradition, known as "vicars and tarts".)

"Suddenly, a custard pie in the face doesn't seem like a bad alternative."

Who advises the Pope?

Marco Tosatti has written an interesting piece for Vatican Insider, giving the names of those people to whom Pope Francis talks and listens. However, the article is implausible from beginning to end - nobody with any sense ever listened to Piero Marini - and we are happy to provide a corrected list.

Tony Flannery.

Tony Flannery has long known that he was right all along, and the rest of the Catholic church in grievous error. The author of many books, such as Why I excommunicated Pope Benedict, Enda Kenny - man or God? and Come back to Me: my invitation to the Catholic Church. As a Redemptorist, Flannery is subject to the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience (no, really). By bringing him back into the inner circle, can Pope Francis be signalling a change of direction?

Damian Thompson of the Telegraph.

One of the first questions a pope asks himself is, "Where can I get good custard?" and fortunately Pope Francis can now draw on the expertise of the Telegraph's custard-crazed ferret. Since Damian is also able to advise on cupcakes, Bach, addiction, and the best way to stop Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor hanging around making a nuisance of himself, he is rapidly becoming indispensable.

The Spirit of Vatican II.

Pope Francis does of course have a hotline to Heaven, but his first point of contact is Loftus, the Spirit of Vatican II. This angelic being explains to him all the things that were not actually written down in the Vatican II documents, or even agreed, but which were "in the spirit". Pinocchio Masses, replacing Gregorian chant by Estelle White's Moses I Know You're The Man and liturgical dancing - all these were what almost-Saint Pope John XXIII had in mind as urgent priorities when he called the Council.

Boris Johnson.

The Pope has a number of secular advisers, whose job it is to help him with public relations, to avoid gaffes, and to speak his words carefully, bearing in mind that they will be repeated and interpreted by people of all shades of opinion. These advisers include Boris Johnson, Prince Philip and Gordon Brown. As a result, we are unlikely to see the Pope stuck on a zipwire, asking Archbishop Philip Tartaglia "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to go to Mass?" or referring to bigoted women.

Catherine Pepinster.

Marginalised under Pope Benedict XVI, Catherine Pepinster of the Tablet now plays a valuable role in telling Pope Francis what he actually said. An off-the-cuff remark that perhaps now is not the time for the Church to begin burning homosexuals becomes, after a little interpretation, a firm pledge that the pope will soon be welcoming "gay" bishops and their partners. Similarly, the Pope's comment that he was kept awake by a crying baby when he slept in his humble apartment at the Hotel Casa Santa Marta (5 stars) becomes a promise that the Catholic Church will soon change its mind on abortion.

Owen Jones.

Owen Jones of the Working Classes (seen above with a bottle of working-class champagne) is there to help the Pope avoid the extravagance and pomp of his predecessors. With his deprived background (Oxford University and the Independent), Jones is the ideal person to help Pope Francis with his "humility" campaign. "The party's over," he says, "or at least we're running low on champagne!"

Eccles.

Eccles, seen here with a liturgically-correct (he claims) green biretta, is the ideal person to consult if one wants to be saved. Pope Francis was already a regular reader of his blog, and met him in Rome at the time of the last conclave, disguised as a cardinal. Eccles's instructions are clear: Tell me what saved popes do, and he is already formulating an action plan.

Damian Thompson: pulling strings?

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor writes:

Where it all began to go wrong - Mennini tells me I'm past it.

Nobody could have more respect for Damian Thompson than I do. Like him, I come from beautiful Reading, and dabble occasionally in religious matters. Moreover, I share his passion for custard. But tonight an unusually good source told me that he had read on the Telegraph website that Damian was trying to exert his influence in forthcoming ecclesiastical appointments.

You may think that the life of a retired cardinal is one of idleness - watching Countdown on television, going to church every few weeks, that sort of thing - but in fact I also keep a close watch on activities in Rome, and am very anxious to give this new chap Pope Franklin (memo: check name) the benefit of my experiences.

Why doesn't Damian stick to things he knows about?

I am very dismayed by some of the recent appointments of Catholic bishops in England and Wales. We have seen people like Philip Egan, Mark Davies and Alan Hopes promoted - all nasty traditionalist types who want to bring Christianity back into the Catholic Church. Sometimes I think they prefer the Holy Spirit to the Spirit of Vatican II!

The nuncio, Archbishop Mennini, is to blame here, and I am afraid that Damian Thompson is almost certainly the éminence grise controlling him. (I use the phrase figuratively - Damian is very proud that he has not a single grey hair on his head, and he has won the Telegraph's "best hair" competition five years running.)

The place where Damian Thompson schemes and plots.

Well, the era of Damian's influence is surely coming to an end soon. I've a feeling that many of the top people in Rome - Paolo Gabriele, Battista Ricca, people like that - feel the same way as I do, so I'll be revenged on that nuncio after all!

In my day, they'd even appoint a footballer if I said so!

Bad Hymns 4

Today's entry for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award is "Walk in the Light," which is apparently © Kevin Mayhew Limited, the artist formerly known as Damian Lundy. We invited Mr Limited to come along and discuss his hymn.

Walking in the light

E: Thanks for coming along, Mr Limited. Did you have a good walk here this evening? Streets not too dark?

KML: No, the streets were very well lit, thank you, Eccles. Just the way I like them.

E: Splendid. Now this hymn of yours: would I be right in thinking that its central message is "Walk in the Light?"

KML: Got it in one! There's no pulling the wool over your eyes, is there?

E: Well, the fact that the phrase occurs 30 times in the song, six times in each verse, gave me a clue. I hope that your message is not too subtle for other worshippers, however.

KML: It's a risk we have to take, Eccles.

E: If one removes all the "Walk in the Light" bits, what is left?

KML: Nothing controversial, I hope, Eccles.

E: Well, no, it is on the whole excessively banal. "To save the lost like you and me," for example. Are we supposed to point at particular people when we say "like you," or is it a general description?

KML: Well, I always gesture at the priest at that point to show him I know where the bodies are buried.

Pointing at a lost soul

E: Now, the clunkiest line of the song must surely be "He gave his Spirit to be our friend." Not only does it not scan, unless you say Sp'rit like an American cowboy, but it is theologically incorrect.

KML: Well, I needed a word that rhymed with "end," and somehow "He gave his spirit for the operations of grace and the sanctification of souls, and in particular spiritual gifts and fruits" seemed a bit too complicated an idea.

E: You have an answer to everything, Mr Limited. Mind how you go now, and only walk when the light is green.

Walking in the light

Pentecost readings

Burning copies of "The Fix"

As the hype over The Fix reaches a climax, and the team of relay runners escorting it round the UK says with one voice "We've had enough of that flaming book," the CBCEW has agreed to adopt new readings for this Pentecost Sunday, from the book of St Damian.

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Vincent Nichols confesses to an addiction

As St Luke records in The Fix of the Apostles, when the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, the disciples were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house. Then there appeared tongues as of fire, which came to rest on them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues.

Now we see here several examples of addiction, and I have observed many such incidents in my researches for this book. Some people are addicted to strong winds; for example St Peter is recorded as once having taken his boat out onto the Sea of Galilee in a storm, evidently to feed his addiction to wind, which the other Apostles vainly tried to cover up. If he had not had this problem, he would probably have stayed indoors, become a journalist, and maybe written a blog. Some say that Prince Charles, who recently moonlighted as a weatherman on television, is also addicted to extreme meteorological phenomena.

Tongues of fire are another addiction I have seen on my travels. Sometimes this is merely a variation on cigarette-smoking, where the addict lights the wrong end of the cigarette in his confusion (my friend Cristina Odone often makes this mistake). Another way of setting one's tongue on fire is by fire-eating, which nobody would do unless they were seriously disturbed.

Unholy smoke from Cristina Odone

Could it have been the case that St Peter was addicted to fire-eating, as well as heavy winds? St Luke is strangely silent on the question.

Then again we come to another addiction mentioned in this passage, the speaking in different tongues. In modern society people with this problem can find useful employment as interpreters and translators, but sometimes we find charismatic sects whose members simply sound off with random garbage like "Molybdenite Holy Smoke ROFL Damian Fix Judy Bogan Pottymouth LOL," as a way of obtaining relief. No doubt St Peter was a sufferer from this condition as well.

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A  fairy cake cupcake, as seen at Our Lady of the Assumption & St. Gregory, Soho

As St Paul, notorious for plugging his own Epistles, once pointed out, the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, a good haircut, a clean shirt, and a real Ph.D. degree, whereas the works of the flesh are obvious: trolling on blogs, addiction to cupcakes, drinking my supplies of gin and hair-restorer, reading the Guardian and the Huffington post, and trying to ordain women as priests.

Alas, on my own blog, where many of the contributors are intelligent traditional Catholics with good haircuts and clean shirts, I have seen several more sordid people, with various addictions. Often they come from primitive places such as Australia and South America, pretending to have a scientific background, but really just invading my blog in order to feed their sordid compulsions (which are too disgusting to name in a sacred document such as this one).

In spite of the weaknesses of St Peter that I mentioned earlier, the reason that Christ gave him the keys of Heaven must surely be that he didn't eat cupcakes, only drank hair-restorer on special occasions, and would never have turned up smelling of llama.