It's Sloth Pride!

Brother Eccles couldn't be bothered to write this post himself, so we arranged for someone else to put it together.

We are lazy, and we are proud of it! For too long the Catholic Church has persecuted those who share our orientation towards work (we turn our backs on it). However, we in the LBDN - Lazy Blighters Doing Nothing - Community are now ready to take action - although obviously we won't do very much.

Posters like this will soon be seen everywhere. Or maybe we won't bother.

Is it really right in this post-Vatican II era that Sloth should be a deadly sin? Why do the Catholics refuse to marry people who won't make the effort to go to church? Why should lazy people be prevented from taking communion, just because they stay in bed all day? For too long the Church has shown institutionalized Acediaphobia! Well, times are changing, and we slobs are coming out of the closet, although we'll probably be having a lie-down soon!

London's Sloth Pride March! Unfortunately, nobody turned up.

We have the support of many senior clergy. We got someone to write a letter to Vincent Nichols, asking if he would give us a special church in the Westminster Archdiocese, where Sloth Masses could be held (we could watch them on television, of course). Cardinal Nichols showed true Sloth Awareness by not bothering to answer us. Likewise, in America we approached Cardinal Dolan; he was on a "Gluttony Pride" march at the time, but he did make us feel welcome.

See! Sloth Masses are just like any other!

We even asked the Holy Father to dash off an encyclical for us, perhaps to be called Panem Otiosa. (I must look that up sometime, I'm told it's from Proverbs 31:27.) If he doesn't do it, we'll know he's supporting us by his actions! Indeed, Cardinal Grech has already told us that we have the full support of the Pope, and that the 2024 Synod on Synodality will welcome spokesmen for the lazy, the idle, the slothful and the work-shy. Not that any will be turning up.

Equal rights for the Lazy!

Sloth Pride!

This is an updated version of a piece originally published in 2015.

How to be a Good Pope 2

So in Part 1 of this self-help guide we saw your through to election as Pope (thanks to the efforts of the St Wormwood and Gall Mafia, which pushed out your predecessor), and gave some tips on what to wear, what to eat, and where to live. What do you do next?

"And don't forget to feed the papal rabbit!"

Well, you can go on visits to your faithful flock around the world - popes do a lot of that stuff - meeting exciting people such as Castro, Obama, and that communist idiot in Bolivia. Maybe even some Catholics - apparently there are quite a lot of them out there if you look hard enough. But if you go travelling, watch out for journalists! They will do their best to get on the same flight, and they will insist on asking you difficult questions to which you haven't prepared the answers. Make it clear that you are not speaking infallibly, and you will probably change your mind again tomorrow.

Wise popes avoid questions altogether, e.g. by reading the in-flight magazine (yes, I know, dire, isn't it?), pretending to sleep (difficult to maintain for more than about 12 hours), or simply asking the stewardess to move you to another seat. In the latter case you'll probably end up next to a screaming child, but if you can stop the brat from howling, then you'll get the reputation of being a Loving and Sensitive Pope - even if you did pour a whisky down its throat when nobody was looking.

"Ugh, the in-flight movie's rubbish."

Another things popes are expected to do is to write encyclicals. These are long documents that necessarily contain a lot of waffle but should also have a sting in the tail that is guaranteed to upset non-Catholics. WRITE YOURS IN LATIN. Remember that Latin is the language of the church - not Italian, not Chinese, not even English. If your Latin isn't up to it, get a friend to help, don't rely on Google translate. Pick a snappy Latin title to bring in the punters - Nemo Me Impune Lacessit ("you lookin' for trouble, Jimmy?") would be a good one in the context of war, peace, and "turning the other cheek". Or try Sona Si Latine Loqueris ("Honk if you speak Latin") for an encyclical on the use of Latin in the Mass.

Meanwhile, you will find yourself being pestered by your cardinals. The German ones are the worst, but there are some pretty strange ones in the USA, UK, etc. as well. They will telephone you at 4 a.m. to tell you "I've just thought of this exciting new heresy we could try," hoping that you will be too tired to send them packing. Before you know where you are, you will have agreed to hold a synod just to keep them quiet. But it won't.

"That's agreed then - you phone him at 3.30 a.m. and I'll phone at 4 a.m."

Just hypothetically, suppose that you have agreed to hold a synod on Torture. There may be a lot of pressure for one - the American organization Catholics for Torture is very influential - and so it may be hard to say to them "You're a bunch of idiots. Get lost." Lots of bishops and cardinals would be happy to have a three-week holiday in Rome three weeks of deep and meaningful discussions, rather than having to sit in their boring dioceses serving their flock and protecting it from the wolves.

Some of the synod team will be convinced that Catholic Doctrine on Torture can be changed. If someone keeps his aunt locked up in a cellar, and goes down regularly to stretch her on the rack, should that be a bar to his taking Holy Communion? Or should he abstain from stretching on the day he goes to Mass? Obviously, we can't go so far as to ask him to release her. These are deep waters, and about 1/4 of your synodders will be pressing for complete liberalism here - they're the ones who don't believe in things like sin, redemption, confession, absolution, repentance, etc.

"I've got to go to Mass now, then write an article for the Tablet, but I'll be back later.

Writing these pieces have convinced me that being pope isn't easy - it's not just kissing people's feet and releasing birds into the air. More on this, later, your Holiness.

How do I write a good encyclical?

You may think it will never happen to you, but perhaps one day the world will knock on your door demanding an encyclical. This may be because you have been elected Pope, or possibly because the editor of the Telegraph would like a few hundred space-filling words from you on any subject that takes your fancy. So here is a guide to writing encyclicals.

"Once upon a time..."

1. Choose a good title. Maybe you should do this last, when you have seen what you have actually written, but usually two or three words in Latin, expressing some deep philosophical idea, will do. CAVE CANEM, perhaps, or ILLEGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM. Or you can use Italian, as Pope Francis did in his recent piece O SOLE MIO. (Memo: check the title.)

It has been noticed that James Bond movies are also a good source of encyclical titles: "You only live twice", "Tomorrow never dies", "The world is not enough", "Skyfall", etc. Given a good title, the encyclical virtually writes itself.

2. We'll assume that you're addressing this encyclical to faithful Catholics, with an eye to its being approved by liberals such as Hillary Clinton, Giles Fraser, etc. who will cherry-pick the bits they like. You can spice it up with lots of non-dogmatic stuff - e.g., your favourite recipe for rice pudding - knowing that this is not part of the Magisterium of Catholic teaching. There is no need to point out that those who wish to cook rice pudding in a different way are not automatically heretics. Although they probably are.

A non-heretical rice pudding.

3. When we come to the more dogmatic stuff, then Catholics are expected to take it seriously. So anything you say about sex will be regarded as important, because that's all that most people think of when you mention moral teaching. Reminding people of what previous writers have said - especially if it is obviously good sense - will earn you kudos too. So, point out that, in the words of Aquinas, "God sent the almond tree to flourish in the wilderness. However, extracting cyanide from it and using it to poison your neighbour is a neo-Pelagian habit, and should be rejected."

Warning! There's a neo-Pelagian about!

4. Be brief! You may have been spammed with 200 pages of pro-genocidal propaganda from an atheist friend called Schnellzug, but there is no need to copy and paste it into your encyclical (the same goes for viagra adverts and offers of untold wealth from the widows of Nigerian dictators). Stick to the point: "STOP SINNING," "READ THE BIBLE," "STAY SAVED," "BRUSH YOUR TEETH" - that sort of teaching is clear and orthodox. There is no need to mention carbon dioxide more than 12 times - in fact most popes managed to avoid mentioning it at all.

5. Don't be pretentious. "The people of the world are in pain, and the Earth itself cries out with a bad headache." Who do you think you are? Leonardo Boff? Similarly, Yoko Ono-style advice such as "When you go to bed tonight, take a hedgehog with you. You will not sleep, but the hedgehog will love you" is a waste of time, and very dubious theology.

A grateful hedgehog.

Well I hope that was helpful. Get encycling, guys!

The Eccles encyclical is leaked

Pope Eccles writes:

I am deeply shocked that the draft text of my new encyclical on the environment, Sanctus Fumus, has been leaked by a consortium of people including Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Sandro Magister. These people have of course been excommunicated, along with a few other dubious characters I've been waiting to deal with such as Enda Kenny, Timothy Radcliffe and Reinhard Marx.

Sanctus Fumus! I reveal that pollution is a BAD THING.

Of course one of the leading causes of global warming is the leaking of encyclicals into the environment, so I hope that the Reverend Magister and friends are deeply ashamed of themselves.

Well, now that I have seen the reaction to my encyclical (or blog post, as I prefer to call it), I have decided to revise it. However, the bit about how popes are always the right people to ask about scientific questions is to be left as it is, and I am definitely keeping the short 500-page discussion of how Pope Urban VIII dealt with "space deniers", such as Galileo, who refused to believe that the Earth orbited round the Moon.

I'm the Urban Spaceman - as my predecessor declared.

Strange name, Urban. It's like being Pope Municipal, or something. But I digress.

Anyway, do wait for the final version of the encyclical before commenting. Apart from the general waffle about climate change, which I've mostly copied-and-pasted from James Delingpole, er, I mean Geoffrey Lean, there's some cracking good stuff about how abortion kills babies, which probably won't be widely reported, as well as some new jokes about people changing low-energy lightbulbs, which Mgr Guido Marini tells me will make my encyclical appeal more to the "yoof" of today. Yo, dudes!

The planet is not saved, only I am saved.

New Encyclical eagerly awaited

Corinth, 55 A.D.

Next week sees the publication of a new encyclical, provisionally entitled 1 Corinthians; since the Holy Father (Peter) is rather busy with audiences, travels, and photo-opportunities at the moment, it is believed that the encyclical has been mostly drafted by a very senior colleague, probably Cardinal Paul.

Cardinal Paul, with the draft encyclical.

So what shall we see in the new encyclical? Will it refer to climate change on the Sea of Galilee, to the man who sowed a crop of wheat only to find that his enemy sowed biofuels among it, or to wind farms near Jerusalem? No, of course not, this is the Catholic Church, and the purpose of the encyclical is to save souls, not to argue about energy policies.

We have learned that Cardinal Paul is not too keen on Christians taking other Christians to law, even if they are accused of heresy in each other's blogs (e.g. making schoolboy blunders such as saying that the Holy Spirit is a girl). We may also expect that the encyclical will be very strict on immorality, probably with a strongly hostile reference to the recent same-sex marriage referendum in Corinth.

Catherine Pepinster, Elena Curti, Tina Beattie, and Timothy Radcliffe.

Readers of the Tablet will also be dismayed to learn that women are encouraged to cover their heads in church and to SHUT UP. That means you, Catherine. And you, Tina.

Cardinal Paul will also entertain us with little snippets of news from his past life: for example, did you know that when he was a child, he spoke as a child, he understood as a child, and he thought as a child? But that when he became a man, he put away childish things? In fact he gave most of them to Cardinal Kasper.

Eccles doll, now in the possession of Cardinal Kasper.

We are expecting to see a final ruling on the big question of our times: Is Faith, Hope, or Charity the best of the virtues? We have been unable to get a peek at the encyclical, but our religious affairs correspondent, St Damian the spectator, has heard from sources close to Cardinal Paul that the answer will be "Hope".

Whatever happened to the Faith Commission and Hope Commission?

So what is the purpose of this encyclical, apart from the usual one of allowing senior clergy to pretend that people actually care what they think? Cardinal Paul says that the document is not meant to make people feel ashamed but to "admonish" them as beloved children. Well, not me of course, but you might want to change your ways a little...