John Allen Jr Tony Annett Tina Beattie Liz Bruenig Dean Dettloff Massimo Faggioli Víctor Manuel Fernández Dawn Eden Goldstein Daniel Horan Austen Ivereigh Christopher Lamb Mike Lewis James Martin Robert Mickens Mike O'Loughlin Catherine Pepinster Thomas Reese Thomas Rosica Mark Shea Antonio Spadaro Stephen Walford Michael Sean WintersOver to you!
1. The clash of the Jesuits.
Antonio Spadaro. Vatican muscle-man. "Theology is not #Mathematics. 2+2 in #Theology can make 5."
Fr James Martin LGBTSJ. New York actor, model, and writer. "Between the time she met the risen Christ and announced the Good News to the disciples, Mary Magdalene was the Church on Earth."
2. The clash of the trolls intellectuals.
Prof. Massimo Faggioli. Author of 57 books, all wrong. "Some cardinals, like Sarah, have a problem with pope Francis because they have a problem with Vatican II."
Dr Austen Ivereigh. Founder of "Catholic Vices" and regular scribbler. "Bishop Curry was saying 'the balm of Gilead'. I heard 'the bomb of Gilead' and assumed this was a reference to a Biblical act of terrorism."
Matches begin on September 30th and October 1st and last 5 days.
RESULTS:
Spadaro 24, Martin 76
Possibly helped by a comic audience with Pope Francis, New York's favourite LGBT campaigner easily crushed Tony the Spider.
Faggioli 39, Ivereigh 61
A clear victory for the British boy here, who spent most of the week trolling the faithful, while Beans was too busy pretending to be clever.
So we move on to the 3rd place playoff and the FINAL.
THIRD PLACE: Spadaro 34, Faggioli 66.
An easy win for Massimo, who kept up a barrage of non-stop trolling. Spadaro just couldn't be bothered.
FINAL: Ivereigh 38, Martin 62.
Both players tried hard to make an impact - Martin told us all that St John Henry Newman might have been a homosexualist, while Ivereigh showed a devotion to Pachamama, whom he mistook for the Virgin Mary. In the end Jimbo takes the trophy quite easily.
Remember the World Cup of Bad Cardinals? Cupich; Marx; Kasper.
| Journaliste Extraordinaire | Round 1 | Round 2 |
| John Allen Jr | 3 | - |
| Tina Beattie | 3 | 2 |
| Liz Bruenig | 6 | 4 |
| Elena Curti | 1 | - |
| Dean Dettloff | 8 | 3 |
| Massimo Faggioli | 5 | 3 |
| Simcha Fisher | 3 | - |
| David Gibson | 1 | - |
| Dawn Eden Goldstein | 2 | 1 |
| Daniel Horan | 4 | 1 |
| Austen Ivereigh | 8 | 4 |
| Christopher Lamb | 7 | 4 |
| Basil Loftus | 8 | - |
| Matt Malone | 5 | - |
| James Martin | 4 | 2 |
| Joshua McElwee | 4 | - |
| Robert Mickens | 7 | 3 |
| Jeff Mirius | 7 | - |
| Jonathan Morris | 4 | - |
| Mike O'Loughlin | 5 | - |
| Catherine Pepinster | 1 | 2 |
| Philip Pullella | 2 | - |
| Thomas Reese | 8 | - |
| Ronald Rolheiser | 6 | - |
| Thomas Rosica | 6 | 3 |
| Alexander Santora | 7 | - |
| Mark Shea | 1 | 1 |
| Antonio Spadaro | 3 | 1 |
| Dario Viganò | 2 | - |
| Stephen Walford | 5 | 4 |
| Michael Sean Winters | 2 | 2 |
| Phyllis Zagano | 6 | - |
And the Bad Hymns? Lord of the Dance; Gather us in; Shine, Jesus, Shine.
Whoever wins is guaranteed the approval of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Tablet and the National Catholic Reporter. Oh, and Father John Zuhlsdorf*.
*I made that bit up.
Of course "bad" can mean whatever you like it to mean - anything from "irritating" through to "wrong on almost every issue". Some - but not all - of the above nominees are really quite pleasant people.
John Allen Jr Tina Beattie Massimo Faggioli Austen Ivereigh Christopher Lamb James Martin Robert Mickens Thomas Reese Thomas Rosica Antonio Spadaro Michael Sean Winters(I'm sure I've missed someone obvious...)
As will be seen, "journalist" can be interpreted rather loosely. Apart from scribbling, most of the people above turn an honest penny by other means as well: boring lectures, trashy biographies, LGBT campaigning, plagiarism, or even - in some cases - moonlighting as Catholic priests!
Here are several qualities you might want to consider when casting your vote:
Good taste...
Familiarity with the Bible...
Knowing all the right people...
Devotion to the Pope...
The ability to decide which bits of Catholicism are in fashion this week...
Top marks in logic!
Some ground rules: the nominees don't need to be English-speaking, but some of their contributions must be accessible to the English-speaking world. There are no doubt numerous bad Catholic journalists writing in obscure Amazon dialects, but they must remain in obscurity for the purposes of this World Cup - they will get their moment of glory when the Amazonis Laetitia synod starts. The nominees must at least claim to be Catholic, whatever your private opinion of them ("Who am I to judge?") Bishops and above will not count as journalists, even if they send out monthly letters explaining how wonderful they are.
Nominations can be made by adding a comment to this blog, or by replying to my advert on Twitter.
In all things the infallible decision of the umpire (me) is final.
