Tributes to Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI

As the Catholic world (and many others) mourns the death of the Emeritus Pope, we found a variety of alternative tributes.

Kevin McGhoul of the Daily Moron.

So that's got rid of Benedict then! Did you know that he was Hitler's right-hand man and founded the Hitler Youth? I can reveal that is true name wasn't Benedict, but Joseph Goebbels. After the war ended he changed his name to Ratzinger, then a bit later he hid himself away in Rome to avoid the Nazi-hunters. I know all about these things.

Who would have thought that this man would end up as Pope?

You know that Jimmy Saville was a Catholic? Well, doesn't that prove that Benedict covered up child abuse? Also he was transphobic, homophobic, claustrophobic, and [I'll think of some more phobias later]. Our ace correspondent Greta Thunberg tells me that his carbon footprint was enough to kill three polar bears every week!

Fr Tommy Rot SJ.

I forgive Benedict for his many faults - mainly sacking me from Amerika magazine because he realised that I was a useless toad. During his papacy and that of Pope John-Paul II - come to think of it, during all papacies except the present one - free debate was suppressed and only people who actually believed all that Catholic stuff were allowed to guide the Church.

Benedict described homosexuality as "intrinsically disordered" - an accusation which has set the Jesuit movement back many years. No, the big mistake the electors made in 2005 was in choosing someone who was wise and intelligent - they certainly avoided that error when it came to the 2013 conclave!

Instead of listening to other opinions, Benedict insisted on Catholic teaching! You wouldn't catch Pope Francis telling people what to do, or what to believe! He listens to everyone, from Pachamama downwards!

Professor Doctor Max Beans.

As you can read in the 25 articles I have written since I heard about Pope Benedict's demise yesterday morning (Boston Globule, Commonwart Magazine, Les Crocks, The Beano, Huffington Puffington, Gelato Weekly, ...) the reign of Pope Benedict was a disaster. He may have been the greatest theologian in the world (after myself, that is!) but he was responsible for a revival of traditional Latin Masses, the Ordinariate, and a legacy that Pope Francis is finding it hard to destroy. Hermeneutic of Continuity! I tell you, if Francis knew what it meant, he would be cancelling it!

Benedict made many Catholics feel orphaned, and not only those who were complete bastards already. If only he had been more progressive!

Will that do, Eccles? I have to write ten more hit pieces before lunchtime. The Babble-on Bean blog is getting impatient!

A good pope deals with China

Yes, it's another in that interminable series "How to be a good pope", intended as useful advice for those readers who will be ending up in the hot seat (Alitalia seat 1A, usually; sometimes, the Popemobile).

The story so far. You, Pope Fred I, are sitting at breakfast eating your ecumenical Quaker oats, when in comes the great Gonzo Aemilius, your personal secretary (typing speed only 3 words per minute, unfortunately) with some bad news.

"Holy Father, they've arrested one of your cardinals. Guess who?"

A tricky question: you think of Cardinals Betya, Maradona, Cocainepalm, ... which one is it? To your surprise it is Cardinal Tao of Hong Kong, an old friend whom you have been trying to avoid for the last 9 years.

"Fine, fine," you say, but you realise that some official reaction is required on your part. An official Vatican statement. Nothing too strong, as it might upset the deal you made which allows China to appoint its own priests from the ranks of the People's Secret Police. So no abusive words like "rigid" or "traditionalist", which in any case you save for members of your own flock.

"I know, let's have a synod," you propose. That solves most things. Will the Catholic Church declare itself "concerned" by these developments. Or will it get really tough and make a statement with words such as "anxious", "worried", "miffed", "upset" or even - almost a declaration of war - "ill at ease" or "fretful"?

We have designed the logo already!

No, there isn't time for a synod, and anyway, it would require a synod on synods to set it up. You get the press office to make the weakest statement possible. "We have heard that Cardinal Tao has been incarcerated in a rat-filled dungeon, awaiting torture by the Chinese Inquisition (proprietor, Xi-who-must-be-obeyed). If he is not released within the next 40 years, we shall be - if not actually disgruntled, far from being gruntled.*"

* Stolen from P.G. Wodehouse.

Your anger has no bounds. You cancel your lunchtime Chinese takeaway order of numbers 23 and 94 (sweet and sour bat, with Fauci noodles), and open a tin of Max Beans instead. That's telling them!

Sometimes a humble meal is the only answer.

AI takes over the Catholic blogosphere

Paying people to write spiritually nourishing content is so old-fashioned. I produce my stuff without being paid, and even the Jesuit America Magazine only pays peanuts - which is quite appropriate as its writers are an army of monkeys with typewriters.

We have stumbled across an AI program that will do the tedious writing bit for us. Its address is https://narrative-device.herokuapp.com/createstory in case you want to play with it. You give it a couple of themes, and it does the rest. Thus: "Pope Francis" and "Pachamama" gave me this:

Pope Francis was in a good mood as he walked into the Amazon rainforest. He had just finished a speech to the crowd of indigeneous people who lived there. "Pachamama," he called out to the goddess of the earth, "thank you for the generous gift of this land. I vow to protect it and to always be grateful for your blessings."

That could be taken straight from Where Peter Is and nobody could tell the difference, especially if it went on to explain how Pope Francis was totally right.

As an homage to Damian Thompson, let's give it "Arthur Roche" and "ice-skating".

Arthur Roche was an accomplished ice-skater. He had won many awards and was a member of the best ice skaters in the country. One day, he decided to try out for the national team. He was nervous but hopeful. He skated his best, and even though he didn't make the team, he was proud of himself.

This looks like something from the old Telegraph blogs, or possible the Catholic Herald. Next, what can we say about "Dr Faggioli" and "beans"?

Dr. Faggioli was an odd man. He loved beans. He loved beans so much, in fact, that he would eat them every day, no matter what. Some people found his obsession strange, but Dr. Faggioli couldn't help it. He loved beans.

"Father James Martin" and "bridge" are the heroes of our next piece, which is simply a news item.

Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest, was on a bridge over a river when he saw a man who appeared to be drowning. He jumped into the water and pulled the man to safety.

It may even be true - who knows? Next, a horror story combining "Austen Ivereigh" and "pope".

In an age when the papacy was rocked by scandals and just as the Church was losing its grip on the hearts and minds of its followers, a new pope was elected. His name was Austen Ivereigh, and many people were excited to see what he would do to restore the Church's reputation.

Pope Francis dreams of his successor.

And we'll give "Pope Francis" and "Latin Mass" the final word. Somehow, I think our correspondent has got his wires crossed:

Pope Francis has called for the return of the Latin Mass, the traditional Catholic Mass which is celebrated in Latin. Many Catholics are excited about this change, believing that the Latin Mass will help them connect more with the Church's history.

Well? You heard it here first.

Four little journalists... and then there were two

Continuing on from this post on the World Cup of Bad Catholic Journalists, we have:

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.

New Austen Ivereigh book

Following the success of his first book, "Austen Ivereigh, the great reformed character," Pope Francis is pleased to announce that his new book on the World's Greatest Catholic Journalist is now about to appear.

The new book, oddly in "Dictator Pope" colours.

"Weird scribbler" tells the story of Austen Ivereigh over the last six years, starting with his creation of Catholic Voices, in which his spokesmen gave a completely orthodox Catholic take on events. Then, in a complete 180-degree turn, Ivereigh started writing more and more implausible articles of his own, throwing out his own eccentric ideas and getting in a heavy dose of score-settling.

Austen spits on hundreds of years of Catholic tradition.

The motive for Pope Francis's writing this new pot-boiler is not hard to find (apart from a general financial crisis in the Vatican). We shall soon see the World Cup of Bad Catholic Journalists, in which Ivereigh, Mickens, Lamb, Spadaro, Rosica, Martin,... will all take part, and it's clear that this is ultimately the Holy Father's preferred candidate.

Francis presents Austen with a copy of his earlier book.

Of course "journalist" is to be interpreted in the widest sense, and to include scribblers who have other jobs as well - whether it be priest, theologian or simply marketing their own brand of beans. We mention this latter example, as Prof. Massimo Faggioli is also to be taken seriously as a candidate.

The Pope Francis book of vegetables

Everyone should explore the Pope Francis Lexicon, in which a bunch of oddballs, alt-Catholics, freaks, heretics, Protestants, loonies and "insightful contributors" each write on one-word themes favoured by the Pope. Readers may expect articles on Alzheimer's, Coprophagy, and neo-Pelagianism (all terms favoured by the Holy Father), but instead they will find Curia, Dignity, and Gossip, to pick three at random.

I'm still cracking up over "Insightful contributors".

However there is now a new book out, which promises to be both bodily and spiritually nourishing. It's the Pope Francis book of vegetables, in which insightful contributors write about the vegetables that have influenced the Pope's thought.

We only have space for three excerpts.

ASPARAGUS, by Tina Beattie.

Asparagus to most of us is a phallic symbol, which typifies the misogynistic hegemony of the Vatican. The Mass is an act of homosexual intercourse, and who can eat asparagus without being reminded of this? Although Pope Francis has done a lot to modernize the Catholic Church, his gynophobia will be seen as a blot on his rule. "Tina, can you do the flower arranging next Sunday?" they say to me, when what they should be saying is "Tina, can you celebrate Mass for us, drop the bit about God, and explain to us why the whole point of Catholicism is women's rights?" Asparagus!! I hate it!!

Human nourishing, human flourishing, ... whatever.

BEANS, by Massimo Faggioli.

Although my main diet is "gelato", or ice-cream, eminent professors of theology cannot live by ice-cream alone, and so my incredibly large brain is often fuelled by a plate of beans. Runner beans, broad beans, baked beans, kidney beans... all these help me understand the way that the Catholic Church has been moving, ever since it was founded in 1965. You will observe that the right-wing fundamentalist extremists who disagree with me hardly ever eat platefuls of beans, and it may be this that explains their spiritual blindness. Pope Francis is a man who looks to the future, and realises that the past never happened. The future is beans, not has-beans (an intellectual's little joke there!)

The 57 varieties, replacing the 10 commandments.

POTATOES, by James Martin.

The word "potato" is often used as a homophobic slur against the LGBT movement, because all words are. Still, many modern theologians tell me that Jesus was very fond of potatoes, and that the "bread" of the Last Supper is a mistranslation for "fries". But back to more important things, namely, the need for all of us to embrace homosexuals, especially in church. Pope Francis has appointed me as his special adviser on potatoes, gay issues, and building bridges - and I have been asked to keep an eye open for new interpretations we can put on the Bible - and it will not be long before we have a gay pope!

Three potatoes of the same sex in a loving relationship.

For more in-depth articles, including Cupich on Spinach, Radcliffe on Radishes, and Ivereigh on Turnips, see the book.

2+2=4: is it a matter of faith?

Although it seems to provide the answer to many questions of life, and although many holy witnesses have testified to its truth, we have to admit that in the end the assertion "2+2=4" is simply a matter of faith. There is a powerful counter-argument, used by atheists, which goes something like: "There are innumerable answers to the question 'What is 2+2?', including '4', '42', and 'a banana'. Why should I believe any of them? I'm only disbelieving in one more answer than you do! Ain't I clever?"

In fact many atheists do believe that 2+2=4 and are very angry with this, pointing out that it does not provide an easy solution to all the evils of the world (war, disease, famine, John Bercow, etc.)

An atheist, angry with the number 4.

On the other hand, Christian leaders have been accused of silence over the question. Although the pope's encyclical Laudato Si' does quote Christ's words "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?" it says little about the obvious corollary "Are not ten sparrows sold for four pennies?" which has been a fundamental tenet of Catholic teaching right from the start.

Worse than this is the general "Don't care" attitude of such as Cardinals Dolan ("Just give me 24 blackbirds baked in a pie") and Nichols ("Are they gay sparrows? If not, then I don't care how many there are.")

Certainly "2+2=4" is a matter of faith. Whitehead and Russell wrote a big book with no jokes in, called Principia Mathematica, in which they proved that 1+1=2, but for them the fundamental question of 2+2 was something unknowable.

Of course, this could just be one big joke.

The Sola Scriptura types tend to believe that 2+2=4, on the basis of holy writ alone. They point to the King James Shakespeare, with its dogmatic assertion "Two of both kinds make up four" in A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, this is post-reformation writing, and not universally accepted as holy writ.

Still, Dawkins does have a point about there being other possible answers, some of which are absurd. For example, the Muslims have their own answer to 2+2, which generally involves fighting anyone who disagrees with them. Moreover, they regard the number 4 as "unclean".

"2+2=DRINK" says Imam Jaq.

Then again, climatologists tell us that 2+2=4, but predict that it will rise to 4.5 within a few years, dooming us all to destruction. In fact, this theory is not all that different from the Christian viewpoint that Jesus will come again in glory to tell us the answers to all our sums. Once again science and religion come to broadly similar conclusions....

Another theological question that stumps atheists: how many beans make five?

Pope says 2+2=4

The Catholic Church finally entered the modern world today, when Pope Francis upset two thousand years' Catholic teaching by admitting that two plus two equalled four.

Pope Francis used to give the traditional Catholic answer "5".

Said Nick Silly of the Telegraph: "For years the Catholic church has rejected science, and its believers have been told to take on trust the belief that 2+2=5. Remember Galileo, who had his arms and legs cut off by Pope Paul IV-or-V, for saying 'But it is 4'. After that, of course, he could never be sure what the answer was, as he no longer had any fingers or toes to count on."

Galileo: suffered for his scientific beliefs.

Adam Witless of the Independent concurs: "This is the biggest scoop we have had since we revealed that Pope Benedict XVI believed that genes 'probably do exist'." This certainly upsets traditional Catholic doctrine, all the more so because this topic was never discussed at the recent synod. Indeed, Pope Francis's ex cathedra statement on the big question of 2+2 seems to have been made without even a 2/3 majority vote to support it."

Finally, Hannah Rubbish of the Daily Mail also carries the story of the Catholic Church's capitulation to scientific progress, together with in-depth interviews with Kim Kardashian, Lauren Pope, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and other women for whom counting up to four is an intellectual feat beyond their imagination.

One of those scientific women in the Daily Mail.

But what of the scientific elite? How will Richard Dawkins, Brian Cox, and Stephen Hawking react to Pope Francis's attempts to claim such major scientific discoveries for the Catholic Church? And why are Stephen Fry and Russell Brand choosing to remain silent? Are they ill? I think we should be told.

Four or five? At this stage of the evening I've lost count!

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church's 2015 Synod is expected to consider other deep scientific issues, such as "How many beans make five?" "Why does a red cow give white milk when it always eats green grass?" and "Is the Moon made of green cheese?" Cardinal Kasper is said to be already working on a set of controversial responses to these questions.

The basis of a new Catholic theory of beans.