How to be a good pope 2.0

So it has happened. The previous pope (let's call him Fred the Humble) has finally died, and you have gone through the process involved in choosing a successor.

It was arduous: you were locked in a room with over 100 lunatics (and a few sane people), and told that you could not eat, drink, or go to the lavatory until a victim had been selected. After disposing of the silly candidates, such as Pah-Oh-Lin, the financial wizard who wanted China to run the Vatican, and Raggle-Taggle, the dancer who sang "Imagine" to the conclave before bursting into tears, the choice fell on you.

"Tell me what Eccles says I should do."

What should you do now, apart from prayer? (And don't pray that it was all a bad dream, as it wasn't!) Well, you must start slowly. Start by pretending that St Fred the Humble is already canonized and is looking down on the Church benevolently - which he never did when he was alive. You can do this by saying things like "He has gone back to his Father's House" without mentioning that this is precisely what the Prodigal Son did. This is called the Heretic of Continuity (memo: check spelling).

So far you have support from the most unlikely sources: traditionalists such as Cardinal Sally of Africa, and popesplainers such as little Jane Austen of Oxford. But will they continue to support you?

The man from "Where Pachamama Is" is also backing you so far.

Things you must not do, at least not in the first month:

1. Declare Pope Fred the Humble an anti-pope, and have his corpse taken away in a van (as he did with his predecessor);

2. Sack all the basket cases more controversial appointments, such as Kisso and Ferrero Rocher;

3. Rush into print with lots of new Apostolic Exhortations contradicting everything that was said in the last 12 years.

Long-standing readers of this blog will appreciate this meeting with Bishop Campbell.

No, a little diplomacy is needed. Pope Fred contradicted all his predecessors without admitting that he was doing this, so you can do the same:

1. Say how much you admire Amorous Letitia, but stress the importance of married life and the evils of divorce.

2. Praise Traditionalists Crushed, but point out that in fact it does not mean that there can be any restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass. Which brings us onto the next piece of advice.

3. Do nothing about the Bishop of Charlatan in the USA who gets his pastoral ideas from the Gestapo Handbook. You are confident that the outcry over his wackier edicts, e.g.

no suits and ties for men;
no silence before Mass - talking to your neighbours is compulsory;
guitar and tambourine only - no organ; 
no male altar-servers, just girls in mini-skirts; 
women can wear mitres but not mantillas;

will soon convince him to look for a job more suited to his talents, such as prison warder. Either that or he'll back down and claim that it was a "draft".

An alternative to mantillas.

4. Praise Fiddled Supplies, but interpret it carefully to mean that blessing same-sex couples is a no-no. This may upset Fr Martin James LGBTSJ, but he's already sulking at the prospect of no further photo-opportunities with a pope.

5. It would be going too far to praise Pachamama and Rupnik, but make it known that Pope Fred's views are to be respected. Meanwhile, quietly burn all the idols and lock the sex maniac in a dark dungeon with rats.

Don't worry. You probably have plenty of time in which to Make Catholicism Holy Again. I'll be back later with more advice, Holy Father, so watch this space!

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Apologies for writing an entirely serious post this time. I am humbled by the fact that the AI program Grok is better at humour than I am. I asked it to write a prayer for humility in the style of P.G. Wodehouse, and it managed this (click to enlarge it):

How can I possibly compete?

Pope Francis becomes infallible again

After several months of bad press - some of it no doubt deserved - Pope Francis has surprised everyone by taking a completely infallible decision for once. He has appointed Cardinal Sarah from Guinea as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

One of these is called Sarah.

This is a Good Thing for several reasons.

(i) He is not Piero Marini, the mortal enemy of Pope Benedict, disciple of the infamous Annibale Bugnini, and chief architect of the so-called "hermeneutic of craziness". Of course, most people aren't Piero Marini (luckily).

Piero Marini and the notorious "custard-pie in the Pope's face" incident.

(ii) If one consults a map, and ignores New Guinea, Guyana and similar places, one is led to the conclusion that Cardinal Sarah is from AFRICA. Apparently, on hearing the news that an AFRICAN had been appointed to a position of responsibility, Cardinal Kasper fell down in a fit and started biting pieces out of the carpet. He was rushed to hospital, where he was visited by the benevolent Cardinal Napier. Now his condition is said to be "extremely critical".

(iii) Without checking their facts too carefully, various liberal commentators have concluded that Cardinal Sarah is a woman, possibly the lady in the blue dress shown above. This is seen as a great step forward for women in the Catholic Church, as the dawning of a new era in which it is virtually certain that the next pope will be female.

Sarah (R) tells Abraham he's getting a son for his 100th birthday, so he shouldn't think of retiring just yet.

(iv) Orthodox Catholics are delighted because Cardinal Sarah seems to be - well - a perfectly normal and orthodox Catholic without any particular hang-ups. There is some possibility that in the future most Divine Worship will be simply what is says on the tin - focused towards God rather than the priest (who is doing a tango), the deacon (who has put on a clown costume), or the musical director (who is vainly trying to play "Shine, Jesus, Shine" on the Balinese nose-flute). Result!

Unlikely to impress Cardinal Sarah.

Olé smoke!

Several priests have written to me, saying, "Eccles, how can I make a spectacle of myself in church, like José Planas Moreno, the flamenco-dancing priest, and thus bring the congregations flocking back to Mass? So far I have made the mistake of emphasising controversial notions such as God and Jesus, and it simply isn't getting the punters in."

The Credo, a key part of the Mass.

Well, Father F (or Z, or R, or whoever you are), there are various ways in which priests can focus the attention of the congregation onto themselves, and away from the Almighty (who, after all, gets quite a lot of attention already). For example, in 1937, Harold Davidson, the former Rector of Stiffkey, displayed himself in a cage with a lion called Freddie, which eventually killed him. So, dear Father P (or B), we don't recommend this strategy. Similarly, liturgical bullfighting, even in the Malaga area, is still at an experimental stage, and is not yet a standard part of modern worship.

Warning: lions are like bishops - they bite!

No, the future definitely lies in dancing. It started with liturgical can-cans, and continued with Kate Bottley, the dancing vicar, now hotly tipped to be the first female bishop in the church of England. Dancing has now been taken up by those Catholic priests who find the general idea of worshipping God a little too dull.

Sursum Genua (Let's have a knees-up!)

Let's conclude with another picture of the man they call Fr Pepe: note the quiet dignity which which he explains the hermeneutic of continuity in the context of Pope Benedict's 2005 speech to the Roman Curia, firmly rejecting the hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture that has upset so many orthodox Catholics.

Take your partners for the Agnus Dei!

We are not sure who the lady in yellow biting her nails is: probably just an altar server modelling the latest in hot-weather vestments.

Fr Finigan goes to Margate

The parish of Blogfen is today in deep mourning at the news that its priest, Fr Tim Finigan of the excellent Hermeneutic of Continuity blog is moving to Margate.

Fr Tim Finigan and Fr Sean Finnegan, priest-bloggers par excellence.

The most obvious theory to explain this move is that traditionalist priest-bloggers are like Martello towers, and need to be placed at strategic points round the coast to repel invaders: thus we have Fr Blake in Brighton, Fr Finnegan in Shoreham, and several other reliable people in similar places, such as Fr Marcus Holden in Ramsgate.

The Anglicans considered a similar strategy at Walmington-on-Sea.

Indeed, moving inland we do not seem to find a similar concentration of high-profile traditionally-minded priests - although one well-known blogging deacon has apparently been sent to Coventry by his bishop - so there we are. Q.E.D., as the Latin liturgy has it.

Look inside a Martello tower and you may find a priest.

What's Margate like?

Neither the Bible nor Shakespeare mention Margate, but it does feature in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land in the section called The Fire Sermon:

On Margate Sands.  
I can connect  
Nothing with nothing.  
The broken finger-nails of dirty hands.  
My people humble people who expect  
Nothing.

The Margate shelter where Eliot wrote The Waste Land (yes, really).

Buddha's original Fire Sermon was not preached at Margate, and it is said that he complained for many years that he had missed an opportunity of sampling the best of British fish and chips, not to mention cockles, mussels and whelks. Without a healthy diet of seafood how can you found a good religion? We know all about Galilee...

Anyway, it just remains to wish well to Fr Finigan, and of course to Blogfen too. Meanwhile, there are always day trips for those suffering from a hermeneutical deficiency...

Special trains on Sunday mornings?

Pope Francis not a Zygon

Having watched the Dr Who 50th anniversary episode (and we promise not to blog on Dr Who again for... ooh... at least a week), we have finally found the explanation for the sudden change in Pope Francis.

This is not the Pope.

Pope Francis has been having a lot of bad publicity lately, thanks to various statements that he is supposed to have made - or which were made up for him by Eugenio Scalfari and various liberal journalists.

Indeed, his reputation amongst traditionalists was mud, with the great Mundabor writing "Francis is clearly a sodomite pinko liberal commie pervert - although as a pious Catholic I do respect the authority of the Holy Father." Then Rorate Caeli chimed in with "We're not really sedevacantists but how can we possibly accept Francis, when he's an ex-KGB member in league with the Prince of Darkness? What's more, his Latin is terrible." Even Father Z commented: "Let's read Francis as if he'd said what Benedict said."

Scalfari - his new book is called: Believe me - Pope Francis told me he was an atheist.

Only the Bitter Pill and the National Anti-Catholic Fishwrap dared to defend the words of Pope Francis, when he said - at least according to these distinguished publications - "Stop worrying about abortion, birth control, same-sex marriage, murder, theft and adultery. Just chill out, man," and - on another occasion - "Who am I to judge between Good and Evil - they're equally good lifestyle choices!"

But all this is at an end. It turns out that for several months we did not have a pope at all, but a shape-changing Zygon. Within the last week, this alien creature has been sent packing, and a lucrative column on the Guardian awaits it, as a colleague of Chris Huhne.

Another strange being employed by the Guardian.

Now that the real pope is back on the throne of St Peter, we are seeing all the traditional statements that we expect from a pope. For example, on Twitter: "HI! I'M A CATHOLIC. RETWEET IF YOU ARE TOO! LOL." (Sadly, he has not yet matched the intellectual gravitas of Pope Benedict.) Then again, "This Hermeneutic of Continuity idea sounds jolly fine. Perhaps I'll drop into Blackfen next week and find out more about it." And finally, "Spirit of Vatican II ??!!?? Arentchasickofit ??!!??" This last is regarded as a bid for a regular column in the Catholic Herald, perhaps entitled Frank Speaking.

And you're fired too!

The Pilgrim's Ogress 3 - Poirot investigates

Continued from Part 2

The story so far: Eccles is trapped in the Tablet fortress in Hammersmith, having been locked in a cell by the fearsome Professor Tina Beattie, who is driving him insane with excerpts from her infamous stage show (banned in Clifton and San Diego). Meanwhile, his Aunt Moly is waiting for him in a nearby pub. Agatha Christie continues the story.

When I've found Eccles, I must discover who stole my moustaches.

Poirot scrutinised the old lady who had demanded his help. Meticulous as always, he straightened the six gin bottles on the table in front of her, and bade her speak. "So, Madame, you say that your nephew has disappeared? Tell me the exact circumstances."

"He left me here, and went out..."

"Eh bien, did he say where he was going?"

"He mentioned tablets. And some rubbish about unsaved persons. Woeful."

To emphasise her point, Auntie Moly picked up an empty gin bottle and threw it through the open window in the general direction of a passing archbishop, who had been furtively heading towards the Tablet offices across the road. The bottle struck the prelate a glancing blow on the head. Exclaiming to himself "My God, there really is a curse on the Tablet!", he came into the pub to recover from the shock.

From now on it's tea only, Moly!

"Alors, Hastings, the solution to the mystery lies in that prison across the road!"

"You mean..."

"Yes, Eccles may be locked in one of their little grey cells."

The two men left the pub, and knocked on the door of the Tablet offices. In his career Poirot had confronted many villains in their lairs, and he was reminded briefly of the notorious Hans Kong, who frightened young women to death with a hideous statue of himself. Then he thought of the fateful day that he had finally caught up with Annibale Bugsbunni, the alleged freemason who had been exploding liturgical time bombs.

Worshippers from the cult of Bugsbunni.

"Sacré Pepinster! They do not answer, Hastings. Let us search the premises."

Eccles was still a captive, and he was looking for a ventilation shaft, having read somewhere that this was the standard means of escaping from imprisonment. However, there was none, and the sulphurous fumes wafting round the building were causing him to choke.

Elsewhere, Poirot and Hasting came across a group of Tablet staff, attempting to calm Elena Curti, who was screaming as if in great pain.

Elena Curti reacts to some shocking news.

"Good grief! Is she all right, Poirot?" asked Hastings, seeing the star journalist writhing in agony.

"I think so, mon ami," replied his friend. "She is possessed by the Spirit of Vatican II, but she has just learned of Pope Francis's condemnation of the hermeneutic of rupture. It is causing a terrible reaction."

Leaving the Tablet staff to do their best for the poor lady, Poirot and Hastings moved on to the cell where Eccles was imprisoned, and released our hero.

"That wasn't much of an adventure, Poirot," complained Hastings. "I was expecting the Tablet staff to provide you with some clues to Eccles's whereabouts."

"That is right, Hastings," said Poirot, as the three of them left the building, "but in the end they all turned out to be totally clueless."

"Boom! Boom!" says Basil Loftus.

To be continued by another author.

Why we hated Pope Benedict

From the desk of the Editor of the Tablet, a formerly Catholic newspaper that's fallen on spiritual hard times.

The staff of the Tablet, welcoming Pope Benedict to Britain.

Isn't it great that we've got rid of Pope Benedict? Now the Catholic Church can be welcoming to other Churches and faiths - even Tabletism itself! You never saw Pope Benedict talking to people of other faiths, did you? But Francis has taken a special interest in us, indeed, he keeps offering to send a team of his finest exorcists to visit us! Lovely man!

Pope Benedict (hiss!) shows his hatred of Muslims.

No, Pope Benedict's own priorities were different. When he'd finished sticking pins into wax images of Rowan Williams, he started talking to the Vatican II-denying Society of St Pius X, which he regarded as his lost sheep. But as we all know, when the Good Shepherd loses a sheep, He doesn't waste time looking for it: what He does is to get another one!

Also... would you believe it... the man re-authorised the celebration of the Tridentine rite! How many people speak Tridentine these days? I certainly don't! Then he imposed an English translation which, although it was more accurate, was severely inadequate. I don't need to explain why, do I? In fact, I'm not sure that I can. Clifford? Hans? Tina? Anyone got any ideas here?

Would anyone seriously look for a lost sheep?

Pope Francis, who now celebrates his first 100 days in office, has had ecumenical discussions with religious leaders worldwide, such as the Chief Moonie, Tom Cruise of the Scientologists, Richard Dawkins, and even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. He hates the ordinariate, because he knows that it attracts the wrong sort of Catholic - ones loyal to Rome, with orthodox beliefs, who clean their teeth and brush their hair, who don't read the Tablet except to find out what their enemies are up to. The ordinariate is now DOOMED... at least if we can do anything about it!

The Ordinariate - there's a face on that shield, mocking me!

Benedict went out of his way to bully Muslims. Remember the Regensburg rallies he organized in 2006 in order to mock the Prophet? And as a result we saw 9/11, didn't we?

One of the first acts of Pope Francis was to wash the feet of a Muslim woman on Maundy Thursday. And then he gave her a sausage roll. Lovely man! Why he even sent some soap round to the Tablet offices so that I could wash MY feet!

A gift from Pope Francis to Catherine Pepinster.

The hermeneutic of continuity still links the two papacies, but not for much longer! Catholicism is looking to the future again, not to the past (Jesus? Mary? Peter? Don't make me laugh!) This could energise a lot of people whose faith has grown stale.

God energises a Tablet journalist.

For a longer version of this article, see here.

The Boat of Fools visits Blogfen

You stupid cat, you left the iPad at home.

This week our "Mystery Worshipper" attended the church of Blogfen, in which every parishioner is a distinguished blogger.

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What was the name of the service? Mass v. 1962.

Did anyone welcome you personally? Yes, when I arrived, they said: "We haven't seen you here before. What blog do you write? What's it about? I explained that I wrote the spiritually nourishing Eccles blog, and they let me enter.

Who conducted the service? Fr Tim Finigan, one of the famous "Finigan and Finnegan" team of priestly bloggers.

Fr Finigan discusses a question of hermeneutics with Fr Finnegan.

How would you describe the pre-service atmosphere? People were piously consulting their iPads. Looking at my neighbour, I could see that she was drafting a post for her blog eccentric.visitors.blogfen.com, although she hid the screen when I tried to read it.

What books did the congregation use during the service? No books! They all had iPads, smartphones, or laptops. One more traditionalist worshipper insisted on using an older computer.

A traditionalist worshipper, refusing to use a post-Vatican II computer.

In a nutshell, what was the sermon about? Fr F. explained the Hermeneutic of Rupture, which meant that, although worship was best conducted in line with traditional methods, it was necessary to reject some old-fashioned technology (here he glared at the blogger pictured above, who was now feeding a paper tape into his IBM mainframe).

The women all wore traditional mantillas at Mass.

Did anything distract you? Yes, there were some children present. They were mostly blogging away piously throughout the service, but occasionally they hit each other with their iPads.

A young blogger learns about bytes.

How would you describe the after-service coffee? In fact, full details were being written up for coffee.blogfen.com even as I drank it. We were served Musket Monk coffee, which had been sent as a present from a blogging priest in the USA whose name I didn't catch.

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Coming soon - we visit a totally different kind of service.

The worst Church buzzwords

In response to Fr Lucie-Smith's Catholic Herald article listing ten words and phrases that should be banned from religious life (e.g. "elephant in the room," "outreach" and "guideline"), we have asked a more liberal "Doctor of Immoral Theology" to provide a list of buzzwords that annoy him.

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A traddy priest aggressively wearing a biretta

biretta: in the modern church there is no place for old-fashioned vestments (terms like "chasuble" and "maniple" are equally verboten). It is best if a priest shows that he is no different from other people, so saying Mass in jeans and tee-shirt is recommended. Perhaps a discreet clip-on dog-collar if you want to show you're "staff."

hermeneutic: anyone using this obscure piece of jargon (and that includes Popes who should know better!) marks himself out as someone who is not fully committed to the ideals of Vatican II. If the church is to proceed to ordain women as priests, to endorse abortion and euthanasia, and to allow gays to marry in church - all explicitly recommended by Vatican II - then we need to crush rebels who stand in our way.

kneeling: a most unhealthy custom, leading to arthritis and lumbago. Churches should withdraw all kneeling facilities, and allow the customers to sit down throughout the Mass (perhaps standing for hymns, to allow self-expression by waving arms and doing the occasional jig).

The Last Supper. Only one traddy apostle is kneeling!

Latin: Do we need to say more? The language of Satan. Banned by Vatican II. Who wants to hear a Mass in which abominations such as de gustibus non est disputandum or caveat emptor can be found? Or even veni, vidi, vici?

novena: not a decent English word, is it? All to do with praying on nine consecutive days - if that's not a sign of obsessiveness, we don't know what is!

Gregorian chant: Largely done away with, and replaced by the pioneering work of the blessed Paul Inwood, but it still survives in some pockets of resistance. Ugh. Moreover, Graham Kendrick tells us that he feels insulted that people are attempting to introduce Fulge, Jesu, Fulge as a Gregorian chant.

Pope Gregory I - you can see that he's up to no good

consubstantial: A word re-introduced into the new English translation of the liturgy. Not a word you'll hear in the street! "I hear you're feeling a little consubstantial, Mrs Peppermint! Aren't the tablets working?" What nonsense!

fasting: These days we don't fast, or eat fish on Fridays, or regard Lent as a special period of abstinence. It smacks of an eating disorder if you don't tuck into a healthy Jumbo Offalburger on Fridays (unless, of course, you are a vegetarian, in which case we truly respect your sincere beliefs, but do make sure you get enough calories). Lent's a period for stuffing ourselves with Easter eggs - why do you suppose they are in the shops at that time?

Pope: A chauvinist old fogey in Rome too full of his own distasteful ideas. Don't mention him in polite circles! The word "Vatican" is equally taboo, unless followed by "II."

God: Too controversial a figure in the modern Catholic church. If we are to be able to dialogue with atheists and Anglicans, we must not insist on this. If we must refer to a possibly nonexistent supernatural creator, then the term "sky-fairy" is recommended. We don't want Diarmaid McCulloch or Stephen Fry to laugh at us!

Not a necessary part of modern Catholic theology