Was he a tyrant or a devout Catholic?

This week saw a controversial Requiem Mass in Leicester, and the question on the lips of everyone who saw it was "Not a bad service, but was he a tyrant or a devout Catholic?" Certainly, the prevailing view among Catholics is that Vincent was a bullying dictator, who attempted to silence all opposition and brought shame on the Catholic Church with the wicked persecution of his enemies. But some people do hold other views.

Detested tyrant or devout Catholic? You decide.

The somewhat eccentric Society of Vincent holds a contrary opinion, portraying its hero as a humble and kind man, who owned his own Bible, which he kept in pristine condition by the expedient of never reading it. They say that Vincent was a timid person, who wanted nothing more than to become pope, world dictator and manager of Liverpool football club. His first step was to fight for a total modernization of Catholic teaching on marriage to remove its old-fashioned "Christian" emphasis and bring it more in line with secular values.

Vincent attempts to bully a meek young journalist (unidentified).

However, the judgement of history is predominantly against Vincent. There are claims that he launched a persecution of Catholic priests unparallelled since the era of Queen Elizabeth, forcing the more paranoid of them to install "priests' holes" in their presbyteries. in case his henchmen came knocking at the door. Although he was simply the ordinary of the Westminster Diocese, and not a primate except in the zoological sense, he did not hesitate to interfere with doings in other dioceses over which he had no formal authority.

Vincent himself liked nothing more than having his photo taken, or being interviewed on radio and television; thus, it was all the more shocking when he attempted to imprison 500 priests in the Tower because they had written a letter to the Catholic Herald.

Richard III - humiliated after his death by Vincent.

Said Richard III, a retired king and practising Catholic: "After my death I rested peacefully in a Catholic car-park for 500 years, before being dug up and moved to a Protestant cathedral in Leicester. They mocked me by giving me a funeral according to the rites of my evil great-nephew Henry. The Catholics, who should have known better, sent Vincent to say a Requiem Mass for me; he didn't even realise that Masses should be in Latin, but insisted on saying it in Vernacular (a Liverpudlian dialect). How did such an ignorant man ever become a bishop?"

"It doesn't fit too well, but your head seems to have swollen."

Sadly, Vincent's rule in Westminster was a long history of oppression. Worried that they were revealing too much about his activities, he denounced bloggers as "gossips", saying that they should have no place in the Church. He saw himself as a new St Augustine of Hippo, fighting the Donatists, when he issued a Reflection Document for Clergy on Marriage and Family Life that brought terror into the hearts of the faithful. History does not (yet) record his ultimate fate: did he die in a battle with the faithful and end up buried in a Catholic car-park? Or did he achieve his ambition of becoming Pope Francis II?

Vin the Ordinary, described as a bitter red.

Anonymous blogging

Some readers have questioned whether my name is really Eccles, and whether my brother is really called Bosco, or my great-aunt called Moly. Of course all this is perfectly true - why would I want to deceive you? However, I have been accused of cowardice for (allegedly) blogging and tweeting anonymously, especially as some of my posts have been misinterpreted as attacks on the vain, the proud, the self-important and the stupid - which are protected but scarcely endangered species.

Two anonymous bloggers discuss hermeneutics.

Still there is a long tradition of strivers for justice, honesty, truth, beauty, world peace, a sound digestion, good weather, ... where was I? Oh yes, a long tradition of doing such things anonymously. Sometimes it is enough to put on a pair of glasses and call yourself Clark Kent to become impenetrably disguised as a journalist. At the Catholic Herald they once tried something similar...

Mild-mannered Dr William Oddie, Damian Thompson and Ed West under cover.

What happens if you're not anonymous? Well, if you're a pro-life GP, be very afraid. Farewell to the Hippocratic oath, hello to Abortion. Your first words to a pregnant mother should be "Oh dear, I am so sorry. Shall I arrange a termination?" and not "Congratulations, you must be very pleased!" Be warned - we're coming for you, and your family, and your dog, and your cat, and your hamster, and... anyway, don't you dare fight abortion!

The Scarlet Pimpernel - another blogger with a secret identity.

Or you might be a professor in a politically-correct university (aren't they all?), who dares to oppose the Equality and Diversity party line - perhaps you think that, hey, homosexual sex is a bad thing...? Or that marriage is something to do with a man and a woman? Or that Islam is actually a false religion? Well, if you want to keep your job, or at least to avoid being mobbed by students with too much time on their hands, you'd better not say so!

The Lone Ranger, with patent Zuhlsdorf^TM heretic-smiter.

It was always thus. Saul of Tarsus, originally a big shot in the looking-after-coats-during-stonings business (and general smiting of Christians) was forced to blog under the pseudonym of Paul, especially when putting forward controversial notions about faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of them being love (or charity, if you prefer). He was still harassed by people who thought that the three virtues were diversity, political correctness and being green -- and the greatest of these is being green.

St Paul, arrested for not being green.

So be nice to our anonymous bloggers, and remember that some of the greatest people in history traded under a variety of aliases (or sockpuppets). One thinks of Our Lord, who managed to have numerous Oxbridge colleges named after Him, simply by using the aliases Christ, Corpus Christi, Emmanuel, Jesus, Trinity, ... and, if you believe Dan Brown, His wife's name Magdalen(e), too.

Brasenose (formerly Brazen Nose), not believed to be one of the names of God.

Vincent Nichols bashes the blogs

Archbishop Vincent Nicholas has delivered a homily in which he sends a hard-hitting message to the Catholic blogosphere: Stop complaining!

Ouch! This mitre's too tight, and my feet are killing me. Mustn't grumble, though.

Archbishop Nichols has picked up Pope Francis's comments that one should not gossip about one's neighbours, nor complain about one's own personal circumstances. Now he has run with them in a totally different direction.

You've been blogging again, haven't you? And not just about custard.

Certainly, as ++Vin knows very well, Catholic bloggers should not comment when they see wrong-doing in the church. In the immortal words of Our Lord: "Doth not the holy man, when he seeth evil, take a brush, and sweep it under the carpet?" Non-Revelations, Chapter 16.

Westminster Cathedral obtains a carpet to sweep things under.

Of course, the Catholic church in England is in a state of perfection at present. There are no liturgical abuses, no masses designed to promote homosexual acts, no heretical professors giving "Catholic" lectures, no "Catholic" newspapers publishing attacks on orthodox teaching, and no complaints about the governance of Catholic schools. All the bishops are highly-revered persons, who have a track record of promoting church teaching without perverting it in any way. Oh I'm so happy.

Dear Cormac! If I can't rely on the CBCEW's loyalty, on whom can I rely?

So we bloggers need to pull our socks up, and stop complaining. Just as the BBC, our national news broadcaster, is pulling its socks up and refusing to mention the mass murders with which Pennsylvania's answer to Dr Harold Shipman - Dr. Kermit Gosnell - is being charged. No, that would be mere gossip, and the news must never get out.

I'm warning you... if any of this appears in a blog...

1000 priests write to the Telegraph

Cuculus cameronus.

SIR,

As we were walking down Whitehall today, we distinctly heard the sound of the cuckoo. It was croaking its characteristic cry of Gayma-Ridge Gayma-Ridge. Was this the first cuckoo of spring?

Rt Rev Philip Egan
Bishop of Portsmouth

Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon
Bishop of Nottingham

Not Kieran Conry - couldn't find a pen.

Rt Rev Paul Priest
Bishop of Corby (Could I add a few paragraphs here about logical paradigms? No?)

Lots of priests called Finigan, Finnegan etc
Representing the "Finnegans Wake" blogging consortium

Rev Ray Blake-Seven (with "Zuhlsdorf" liturgical handgun), a rival blogger

Rev Sir Charles Dilke Bt Cong Orat
Mission to the aristocracy

Mitred Archpriest Alexander Nadson
Man with the fanciest headgear

What the well-dressed mitred archpriest is wearing this season.

Mgr Andrew Summersgill
Magic Circle

Rt Rev Mgr Keith Newton
Ordinary, Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, mission to Soho

Rev G.K. Ale, Abbot of Bury St Edmund's

Mgr Uncle Tom Cobleigh and All
Widecombe

... and more.

---

SIR,

David Cameron

The least-read Catholic blogs

It's that time of year when people give each other awards, such as Best Catholic blog involving donkeys, or perhaps Most influential political blog written by a failed politician, or indeed Religious blog written by the man with the best hair. So in the interests of fairness, it is time to recognise the little man (or woman) and name some of the least-read blogs.

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Fr Armand, a Trappist monk.

Father Armand has taken a ten-year vow of silence; nonetheless his hard-hitting but voiceless blogging is starting to make an impact. His comment "!!" on the Government's same-sex "marriage" proposals is widely regarded as the last word on the subject. Similarly, his carefully-reasoned opinion "????" on the sanity of Richard Dawkins has been widely quoted in psychiatric circles.

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Fr Hans Klunk, from the Foundation for Global Excess.

After being beaten at Scrabble by a young Josef Ratzinger in 1938, Fr Klunk has held a life-long hatred for our present Pope. Although ordained a priest, he is not allowed to talk about theology in his sermons, so he usually talks about subjects similar to those of his blog posts. Most recently: Ratzinger cheats at Scrabble, you know, What the Pope could learn from me about humility and How many divisions has the Pope caused?

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Beans on toast - as eaten by Father Xylophone.

Some of the best blogs spawn tribute blogs, and Fr Xylophone ("Fr X"), a devoted admirer of the great Fr Zuhlsdorf ("Fr Z"), has attempted to provide a blog that likewise will be read throughout the English-speaking world; however, he has failed lamentably. His most recent posts The day I spilled the beans on the floor, Quaeritur - will I go to Hell if my chasuble is the wrong color? and Can you give me some ideas for my next sermon? have won him an average weekly readership of 3.

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Margaret O'Tharg - interviewer extraordinaire.

Margaret O'Tharg (age 6) is the new voice in traditional Catholic journalism. A compulsive interviewer, she has decided to make her name by speaking to prominent Catholics, getting them to explain how their faith led them to support the Church's teaching on marriage, abortion, and sexual morals. She began with Tina Beattie, Enda Kenny, Fr Joe Ryan, and Patrick McLoughlin, but has not yet collected enough material for a blog post.

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A holey cheese.

Fr Cheddar, of the Diocese of Portsmouth, has long been convinced that many hymns could be improved by replacing all the nouns by names of cheeses. So far the seasonal efforts published on his blog include Silent Brie, Holy Brie and Hark! The Double Gloucesters sing. Many people have condemned him as a very silly man, but he is actually the one success among today's list of bloggers, since Paul Inwood's prestigious publishing company Magnificat Music has just agreed to publish some of his work under the title More cheesy hymns for today.