Lifetime achievement award given to Cardinal Cupich

In a surprise move, Pope Leo XIV has taken the decision to give Blase Joseph Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal of the Catholic Church and indeed twice winner of the World Cup of Bad Cardinals, a Lifetime Achievement Award. Cupich is 76 and so past his sell-by date; he is therefore expected to be replaced by someone better quite soon (well, in fact any replacement is likely to be better).

Blase Cupich in one of his lesser-known roles.

Obviously the achievements of Cupich are too many to list completely, but we mention, for example.

• Honouring Senator Richard Durbin, a pro-abortion maniac. But, as Blase says, "Did not Jesus meet with sinners and give them Lifetime Achievement Awards?"

• Restricting the Latin Mass, in a rather loose interpretation of Traditiones Custodes, one of the last acts of violence by the now-forgotten Pope Francis.

BOO! Even after death, the late pope continues to drone on.

• Dealing with the McCarrick affair, which turned out to be a rabbit hole (it says here).

• Following Amoris Laetitia, communion for the divorced and remarried is just fine and dandy - but of course THEY MUST NOT KNEEL FOR COMMUNION (and nor should anyone else).

No comment.

• Ah yes, that reminds me, Cupich's support of LGBT agendas, climate change panic, etc. etc.

Let's stop there - I think it's clear that he has earned his reward. All that remains is to show what it is. Unfortunately all I could find was this, which doesn't look much like our hero, and besides the millstone is too small. Sorry.

A just reward.

The World Cup of Bad Cardinals - the runners

I don't know, I turn on the phone each morning to see what spiritual nourishment the world has to offer me, and every day there's another cardinal disgracing himself. If it isn't Dolan cosying up to Joe Biden, or Napier praising Occasional-Cortex, the pro-abortion dancer with the part-time brain cells, it's Rhino Marx bleating about a change in sexual morality.

The forgotten Marx brother.

So, after hitting my head against the wall seven times (Biblical), I decided that the only way for us saved laymen to express our disgust was to run a World Cup of Bad Cardinals.

Now, the World Cup of Bad Hymns was a great success, except that Marty Haugen still hasn't got in touch to thank me for his silver medal. We won't have 64 entrants this time, just a maximum of 32, so we should get through the tournament more quickly. Remember that 1 in 12 of the Disciples was unsaved, and my estimate is that we'll find a similar proportion of the 200+ cardinals in the same position.

Obviously, I'm excluding Pope Francis, out of respect for the office he bears, and let's leave McCarrick to rot in his beach house - he resigned from the College of Cardinals, anyway - but there are plenty more to choose from. Living ones only, though.

"I think we've got this one sewn up!"

Update: these are the 32 fine cardinals who will be competing. Some lesser-known villains were eliminated by lottery, but I think all the superstars are present.

Baldisseri, Becciu, Bertone, Braz de Aviz, Coccopalmerio, Cupich, Danneels, De Kesel, Dew, Dolan, Dziwisz, Errázuriz, Ezzati, Farrell, Gracias, Kasper, Ladaria, Mahony, Maradiaga, Marx, Napier, Nichols, Ouellet, Parolin, Ravasi, Schönborn, Sodano, Tagle, Ticona Porco, Tobin, Woelki, Wuerl.

Yes, yes, I know, this is a highly offensive ad hominem attack on the Princes of the Church, but, in the words of Terry-Thomas:

"You're an absolute shower!"

Oh, and thanks to @Rach_StBern, who "borrowed" it from Fountains Abbey, we even have a prize to hang round the neck of the winning cardinal.

May the worst man win!