Eccles the violent

Well, I've been suspended from Twitter/X before. Five years ago in fact, and I never did discover what I did wrong. The story of my previous excommunication can be found here.

This time I was at least told what my crime was.

I wonder who reported me. Someone unsaved, obviously.

I'd better explain the context. There are two England cricketers who I think should be dropped from the national team, although the selectors love them. One of them, Shoaib Bashir, has recently broken a finger, and thus will not be playing in the next few matches. So I suggested, as above, that we would have to wait for the other, Zak Crawley, to be similarly injured before he could be dropped. That's all.

Cricket, as painted by Rembrandt (or maybe ChatGPT)

Whether some maggot really reported this posting or whether it was automatically flagged by Grok (the AI program that Elon Musk thinks is so wonderful), I can't say. But I was allowed to appeal.

The verdict? Well, the decision of the mad moderators was this: Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision.

Oh well. I have no doubt committed other Twitter sins (but not violent ones) in my time and got away with them, so I will nobly accept my penance, which is a week's suspension. I return from the naughty step on Wednesday evening, and will resume the World Cup of Ugly Churches after a week's hiatus.

I should have realised that I was not universally loved when I saw the results of this poll:

Shock horror.

How to be a Catholic

Many readers have written to me, saying, "I'm just an ordinary sort of guy, who would quite like to be a priest/Pope/President of the USA/lion-tamer/serial killer/celebrity chef and I feel it would improve my career possibilities if I were a Catholic. Can you help me?"

How many Catholics can you count in this photo?

Now, it is surprisingly easy to be a cradle Catholic, as Fr James Martin points out. First, your parents must own a cradle, and put you in it. Next, you are taken along to a church, and baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You can sleep through the whole sacrament, if you wish to.

Also, even some non-Catholic baptisms are valid (e.g. the Anglican version): the important thing is to get the form of words right, so that, for example, the following are invalid:

• Welcome to the Calumny Chapel, brother Bosco! You is now saved.
• We baptise you in the name of the great Pachamama.
• I bap... oh dear I've dropped little Jorge in the river. Watch out for those piranha fish!

Anyway, if you want to be a Catholic, and not have to worry about it again, then it's best to get a Catholic baptism. Otherwise you have to convert later, and Austen Ivereigh will describe you as "neurotic".

See? That was easy.

But how do I stop being a Catholic?

This is not as easy as it sounds. You can do almost anything you like, and nobody will turn a hair. Yes, yes, there is excommunication latae sententiae, and that even includes apostates, heretics, and schismatics, but nobody important is going to speak out and say you are no longer a Catholic (except for special cases such as Queen Elizabeth I).

Other things you can do to be excommunicated l.s. include hitting the Pope (so that Chinese girl was wise not to retaliate when he slapped her), and procuring an abortion (on the other hand, facilitating thousands of abortions is permitted). Watch out, if you are a bishop, as ordaining someone without permission is also an offence. It's not clear whether laymen can ordain people without permission.

Slapping heretics is allowed.

But let's be realistic, if Fr James Martin LGBTSJ and the blessed Joseph Biden are in no danger of excommunication, you can be Catholic in any way you like. Strictly speaking, Catholics should do saved person stuff once in a while - prayers, Mass, Confession, reading this blog, ... but you'd be surprised how many Top Catholics simply don't bother!

Eccles is excommunicated

As a faithful worshipper at the Church of Twitter (founder: Pope Jack), I take part in its services several times a day, offering the sign of peace (or, more usually, engaging in pointless bickering) with fellow-worshippers. Thus I was very distressed on Saturday to be told "Thine account is suspended, and thou mayst no longer share in our worship."

Pope Jack.

Although I knew that I must be a great sinner, worse even than those who wish death on Coronavirus sufferers such as Boris Johnson, those who swear all the time, the promoters of abortion, or those with rainbow flags on their profile, I was not told which of the unwritten laws I had broken.

Yet, WE ARE ALL SINNERS. But is this not the age of mercy? After discernment and accompaniment, may I not be readmitted into full communion with Twitter? Isn't Cardinal Marx looking into my case?

Can Eccles be saved?

Still, it would be good to know exactly what I did. Here are those I have offended most recently:

Bishops who tell people to stop fasting, 
Christopher Lambkin, 
The Washington Post,
Popes who accuse others of idolatory, 
The Diocese of Middlesbrough, 
Greater Manchester Police,
The chair of the University of Warwick Labour Society, 
Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, 
The president of the Austrian Caritas, 
Bishop Mario Grinch, 
St Greta of Thunderbird...

Lots of good smiting there, but was any of this wrong?

Meanwhile, I am appealing (but you knew that). While waiting for judgement, I can still dip into the spiritual nourishment that is Twitter, and it must be a bit like turning up to one's own funeral (with the Dies Irae bit omitted). Thanks to those who put in some kind words.

As Hilaire Belloc nearly put it:

"When I am dead, I hope it may be said, 'His sins were scarlet, but his tweets were read.'"

Archbishop Fisichella excommunicates the Pope

Following his claim that critics of the Pope faced automatic excommunication - the sort of "merciful" statement that we expect to hear a lot of in the next few months - Archbishop Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization, today revealed that he had excommunicated Pope Francis himself. It is believed to be the first occasion since the middle ages on which an occupant of the Chair of St Peter has suffered this indignity.

"Maybe I hadn't really thought this out."

Apparently the Holy Father was overheard commenting that he had greatly sinned, in his thoughts and in his words, in what he had done and in what he had failed to do, through his fault, through his fault, through his most grievous fault. "Now, if any other Catholic had said this of the Pope," said Fisichella, "perhaps Bones or Mundabor, then they would have been in deep trouble. So it is only fair to punish Francis for this vicious attack on himself."

LATE NEWS: Pope Francis has been forgiven.

Meanwhile, in Rome...

Yesterday, the start of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, was also the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Vatican chose to mark this by using St Peter's Basilica as a projection screen, showing a range of Pope Francis's favourite wildlife.

St Quasimodo of Notre Dame.

However, Disney, threatened by the possibility that the Vatican could soon be showing Tom and Jerry cartoons on St Peter's, has responded with a display of scenes from the Jungle Book.

Shere Khan the tiger.

Gosh, this year of Mercy is going to be interesting.

Catholics told to laugh more

Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh has produced his own ten commandments for Catholics online, of which the basic message is "be funny".

Archbishop Martin and his mother give us a smile.

Of course, @pontifex has long appreciated the virtue of humour - for example, he made Vincent Nichols a cardinal - and his Twitter contributions are regularly sprinkled with signs such as :-) LOL and even ROFLMAO. Admittedly, some say that a pontifical tweet such as "I had Rice Krispies for breakfast - SNAP CRACKLE AND POPE! :-)" is theologically less profound than what Benedict XVI might have written about the hermeneutic of breakfast cereals.

Looking like Eric Morecambe does give one an advantage in the humour game.

In particular, the Pope's recent excommunication of Gert and Martha Holzer of the "We Are Church" movement was performed in a characteristically comic way, as Bishop Manfred Scheuer was sent round to their house to deliver a "excommunicate-o-gram". They are now said to be changing the name of their outfit to "We Aren't Church Any More".

... and I heard that ACTA will be next!

The New Testament itself is not without humour: the "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel" comment of Our Lord is a clever Aramaic pun on gamal and gamla, which got an appreciative ROFL from the 1st century audience, but loses a little in translation; moreover, the thing about motes and beams is distinctly surreal. So the archbishop is on solid ground there.

All right, Cardinal, it wasn't that funny.

Now is the time to confess that we don't really do jokes on this blog. A pun did slip in last July, and long-term readers may remember something ironic from 2012. So we will try and follow the archbishop's advice and lighten up.

Of course, not all Catholics are very good with social media, and some would find it difficult to smile without undergoing some preliminary surgery. It would be rude and naughty to single out anybody here.

... and I don't want to see any of my deacons smiling.

How to keep the Pope busy

A leaked Vatican memorandum has come our way.

To: Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
From: Alfred Xuereb, first private secretary of Pope Francis.

Could you sign the excommunication order for Enda Kenny, Holy Father?

Your Eminence,

Thank you for your memorandum expressing concern that the Holy Father may have too much time on his hands, which is why he has got into the habit of phoning up random Catholics for a chat. Following your advice, we are proposing a full programme of activities to keep him busier. Here are some ideas:

1. Canonizations. The recent ceremony was very popular, and succeeded in winding-up the non-Catholics as well as the Tablet paper. We propose some more high-profile canonizations, possibly including Pope Pius XII, Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada, Pope Alexander VI, and Pontius Pilate. The resulting controversy should keep the Pope fully occupied.

Nobody expects Cardinal St Ximénes de Cisneros!

2. Excommunications. We have received petitions for the excommunication of Hans Küng, Tina Beattie, Tony Flannery, Enda "Enda Life" Kenny and Bishop Michael Campbell (this last one may be a misunderstanding, but we will appoint a "God's Advocate" to look into the question, all the same).

Oh yes, I'm a pious Catholic, Holy Father!

3. Travel. Pope Francis is not such a good traveller as Pope St John-Paul II was, but we should be able to pack him off to a few exciting places.

Pope Francis has expressed an interest in riding on a tram in Croydon.

4. If all else fails, we will suggest to the Pope that he release some more symbols of peace. We haven't had much luck with doves, but he could try sending out creatures such as wild boar, alligators and tigers into the streets of Rome: they can probably take care of themselves.

Pope Benedict releases a "lion of peace".

Anyway, all further suggestions will be gratefully received. At present Pope Francis spends a lot of time in front of the television, gloomily watching re-runs of The Two Marinis, and it can't be good for him.

It's "Ite, missa est" from me - and it's "Ite, missa est" from him!

Australian priest excommunicated

The Tablet and National Catholic Reporter are outraged by the news that a dissident Australian priest, Father Bill E. Bong, has been excommunicated.

Fr Bong refused to use a standard liturgy for the Mass.

In general the Catholic Church is pretty tolerant of dissidents - for example, if you are a politician and you wish to campaign for abortion, euthanasia or same-sex marriage, then it is recognised that the Party is a higher loyalty than God, and you must be permitted to sacrifice your ultimate salvation for your earthly career. However, a slightly higher level of loyalty is expected from deacons, priests, monsignors, bishops, etc.

Fr Bong's threat to "clobber the Pope with a goolagong" was taken seriously.

Said a Vatican spokesman "You wouldn't expect a Catholic priest to associate with ACTA or say things directly in contradiction to Humanae Vitae, although we might turn a blind eye to that sort of behaviour on the old 'wheat and tares' principle. But when Fr Bong said that Satan was the Lord of the Universe, and he was definitely rooting for the old buzzard in the forthcoming battle of Armageddon, then even the CDF felt it had to take notice."

Fr Bong admires Richard Dawkins (seen here drooling over a pot of jam).

So what now for Fr Bong? Perhaps a lucrative contract with the Tablet, where his modern views may be just the thing they're looking for? Or will Roehampton University want him to lecture on "Human Flourishing"? Will Father "Jack" Flannery welcome him to Ireland? Well, perhaps we should leave the last word with the good father himself.

Paul VI made it quite clear that you should follow your conscience. Hic!