Why I joined the Cult of Jim

"Phil", our guest Catholic, writes a special post for us.

I was very sad to read that one Felix Thompson had abandoned the cult of Jim, by which he means that he no longer regards Father James Martin SJ as the fount of all wisdom. Felix has thrown away his collection of "Jim" relics, including the rainbow socks, the autographed copy of "Mary Magdalene - the first Pope", and of course his reliquary containing hair and toenail clippings from the great man.

I can tell you what these secret signs mean, but then I'd have to kill you.

I, on the other hand, have moved in the opposite direction. I started off as an "ordinary" Catholic who just believes the obvious stuff that we get in church, then became successively a "cafeteria" Catholic, a "gelato" Catholic, a "Bologna Cathedral nosh-house" Catholic, and finally a "quite a lovely little New York bistro where they do Jesuit cupcakes" Catholic.

"No, we won't say grace!" Pope Francis and (?) Zinedine Zidane tuck in!

It was so refreshing to discover Fr Jim (as he lets me call him). Rigid Catholicism is hard to take seriously: what do you do if there is some obscure bit of doctrine you can't accept, like, for example, the sinfulness of adultery? Well, a rigid Catholic would probably leave the Church, but a modern Kasperite Catholic simply ignores such inconvenient teaching - and is probably rewarded by being made a cardinal, or at least a bishop!

Now, don't get me wrong. Although I'm a Jimmist, I'm not gay. I have tried to be, but I just couldn't summon up any interest. Fr Jim was very understanding, though. "I don't condemn you, just because you like girls," he said. ""Let me build a bridge towards you." What a hero! Of course I realise that being a "hetero" has made me an outcast in most circles, but Fr Jim is no bigot, and he is prepared to welcome me!

Fr Jim explained to me many things about Christianity that I had previously not understood. How Jesus originally didn't have a clue about why he was on Earth. How He met a wise Canaanite woman who taught Him everything He knew. Along with Mary Magdalene, the first Pope, she wrote the Sermon on the Mount for Him to preach.

"And now the person you've really come to hear - Mary Magdalene!"

I met the renowned novelist Dan Brown at one of the Cult of Jim meetings. "Pleased to meet you," he said. "Renowned balding 56-year-old Jesuit James Martin has been an inspiration for many of my novels that I wrote, as well as inspiring me when I was writing them. His theoretical theories on 2011-year-old superstar Mary Magdalene have provided the inspiring theories leading me to become a 53-year-old author who writes lots of books that sell well. And my renowned hero Robert Langdon is based on Jim's 47-year-old Italian-American-Australian-Martian friend Massimo Faggioli, who is a friend of the best-selling Jesuit priest." We all owe a lot to Fr Jim!

Another wonderful person that I met was the great comedian Stephen Colbert, who told me one of his trademark jokes about Donald Trump. "He's got funny hair, and shouts too much," he quipped, before explaining the details of some sexual torture that he wished to inflict on the President. What a brilliant sense of humour! Colbert is also a Catholic in the Cult of Jim, and in his latest sketch he calls Trump homophobic, rigid, literally Hitler, cancer, and (a new idea from Jim's friend Stephen Walford) Satanic! How we laughed.

Fr Jim introduced me to many top Catholics (although Fr Rosica headbutted me).

Hail Holy Jim Martin! He's the future of Catholicism, and Pope Francis thinks he's wonderful!

Living with Telegraph blogs: my week with a cult

Mark Templer writes:

Mark Templer, former head of the London Church of Christ.

I was recently invited to spend a week at Thompson Towers, the secret London headquarters of Telegraph blogs, a group so authoritarian that it has been accused of being a bullying cult.

The director of the cult, Damian Thompson, presides over a team of sinister people whose job it is to produce propaganda in order to win converts. I met some of these during my visit, but some operate from outside Headquarters: for example Mik "Bluebottle" Wright lives in a Dublin pub, where he bites passers-by in the ankle.

"Tis I, Brokenbottleboy. Waits for audience applause. Not a sausage."

Thompson himself writes propaganda, but, as he was at pains to admit, his intention was not to convert me, simply to bring Blog into my life. "Sometimes I write about Catholic issues: indeed, I have a contact in the Vatican who keeps me fed with the latest gossip - Pope Emeritus Benedict at death's door, Archbishop Mennini poisoned with polonium, Piero Marini to be named Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Arthur Roche to become Archbishop of Westminster, Jimmy Savile to be canonized - and I pass it on. Admittedly, most of what he says is false, but there's no holy smoke without fire, is there?"

Damian Thompson: "Mostly, however, I write about custard."

Some of the Telegraph bloggers are even weirder than Thompson. For example, I met a man they called simply "Delingpole", who spent all his time kicking kittens round the office, and his deadly enemy, an old fat man called "Lean" (evidently an alias), who told me that climate change would cause the polar ice-caps to catch fire and kill us all by 2015 unless we taxed cows, banned foreign holidays, and made it illegal to go to the toilet on Thursdays.

Every time you make a cup of tea a polar bear drowns.

It's been said that the Telegraph bloggers are predominantly Catholic, and that their propaganda is designed to brainwash readers into knocking on Vincent Nichols's door at 3 a.m. demanding to be saved. Far from it! Admittedly, there is Tim Stanley who sometimes writes on Catholic issues, and Cristina Odone who puts forward a variety of irregular opinions, pretending that they are Catholic, but that's about it. After all, there is also Tom Chivers, the token liberal atheist Guardian-reader, who has held a succession of meaningless job-titles, starting with "Assistant Brainwasher", then "Strategic Brainwashing Coordinator", and finally "Vice-Ferret and Brainwashing Executive".

Damian Thompson again, looking distinctly brainwashed.

So for a week I stayed in Thompson Towers, while the Telegraph staff watched old episodes of Are You Being Served? on a giant screen, occasionally taking time off to send each other funny cat pictures on Twitter, or even to churn out another 300 words to confuse their readers. In the end I left, still puzzled, but definitely unbrainwashed and with my sanity intact needle nardle noo f'tang ying-tong iddle I po. I need a lie down.

Rear: James Delingpole, Janet Daley, Toby Young.
Front: Damian Thompson, Jenny McCartney, Benedict Brogan.