Like Liberal Theologians who plunder Church resources in order to attend conferences on doctrinal ‘development’ in sunnier climes, this blog is going on holiday.

Normal service will be resumed on or immediately after February 12.

 

To the surprise of many seasoned Vatican watchers, Cardinal Giuseppe Corleone has been named Prefect of the recently formed Sacred Congregation for Subservient Compliance.

Corleone, a native of Caltanissetta, and known in his home diocese as ‘L’enforcer’, had not previously gained a high profile in the media. He now occupies a commanding position in the Curia, with a brief to investigate all other dicasteries  and root out all those who are not identifiably ‘on message’.

Asked whether he thought that his role was anomalous at a time when the Church had just concluded a Jubilee of Mercy, Corleone replied: ‘Mercy was last year; this is the Year of Retribution. We need to cleanse the Vatican of all these rigid little coprophiliacs. This is Europe’s last surviving absolute monarchy; and we intend to keep it that way.’

His department has already been nick-named the ‘Get Burke Brigade’ by junior Vatican officials and journalists alike.

Cardinal Corleone is 78.

The Pandaemonium Club
666, Pall Mall
London, SW1Y 5EP

Wormwood,
In my haste to get out the New Year review letters I forgot to congratulate you on Francis’s hilarious interviews on aeroplanes. They were a cause of great mirth and much comfort here.
Your absent-minded old Uncle,
Screwtape.

My Dear Wormwood,

As you will be aware it is my practice to send a personal assessment of the past year to all my operatives.

I have to say that since taking up the Bergoglio assignment you have gone from strength to strength. 2016 was a triumph!

Your notion of a Year of Mercy has borne fruit in so many ways. Obviously our ultimate aim is  to eradicate the objectionable notion of ‘sin’ itself – a mere adjunct, as it is, of the Enemy’s over-bearing self-esteem. But if that is too steep a hill to climb, we can at least strive to mitigate the problem. And what better way than to smother it with cheap grace? All those people going through all those doors! And all those adulterers (not to mention, as we now must, the adulteresses) feeling vindicated by Papal authority. It was magnificent.

More satisfactory however was the effect on your patient himself. I sense that he has come to see that being Pope requires him to be ‘holier than thou’. And, moreover, requires him to be be thought to be holier than everyone.

Your unfailing diligence has rendered Francis eager to be seen as more pious, more merciful, more compassionate, than even his recently sainted predecessors. That can only be for the good. He is already showing distinct signs of a healthy self-righteousness – witness his recent outburst in his Christmas address to the Curia. You must keep up the good work.

As for the rest of your assignment – though trivial by comparison with the Bergoglio brief –  your ability to turn the tables on the forces of the Enemy (I mean the Four Cardinals) has been remarkable.  That they have come to be seen in many quarters as mean-spirited and vain, is your crowning achievement.

All in all, things could not have gone better.

It remains only for me, as a proud uncle, to wish you a very happy and fruitful New Year. You are a credit to the family.

You friend and mentor,

Screwtape.

 

Two feasts of Our Lady celebrate the protection she has given to the peoples of Europe against Islamic invasion: the Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary (October 7) and the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary (September 12). They commemorate respectively the victories of Lepanto (1571) and the raising of the second siege of Vienna (1683)

Those events brought to an end the first wave of relentless Islamic invasion,  which began when Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the straits of Gibraltar in 711.

The second wave is well underway – with minarets already rising on the shores of the Baltic, an achievement undreamed of by Kara Mustafa Pasha as he viewed the besieged city from the Kalenberg.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn was right to sound a warning of the religious and cultural effects of mass Islamic immigration. To Angela Merkel’s bold ‘Wir schaffen das’ he responded: ‘We have had to learn: This goes beyond our capacities and possibilities.’

The last time Schoenborn spoke on the matter (September 12) he was pressured into a swift and humiliating retraction (see Second Thoughts? below). Let us hope that this time he stands his ground.

May Our Lady of Victories pray for us!

 

In his traditional Christmas rant to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis developed the theme of the season by accusing his assistants of being resistant to change and modernisation. He added, by way of amplification,  that some of them were in league with the Devil.

He took as his text the aperçu of the well-known English theologian Kenneth Charles Williams (1926 – 1988) : ‘Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!’

For the benefit of deaf Cardinals (of whom there appear to be many) the Pontifical tirade was this year interpreted in sign language by the talented Msgr Pio Vito Pinto.

Those privileged to receive a Christmas card from Antonio Spadaro found enclosed the following seasonal letter.

Years ago my old grandmother used to say: ‘Antonio, become a banker, I want you to have money and influence.’ She was not best pleased when I decided to become a Jesuit. ‘Either teaching school or writing clever books which nobody reads’, was how she unkindly put it.

If only she could see me now. Yes, granny, I am still a Jesuit; but I think I can say that I have real influence. As the closest aide to Pope Francis I am up there with the most influential people in the world, with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. After all, Francis is the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit and I am the mouthpiece of Pope Francis!

It is a real comfort to me that grandmother sees all this from heaven – her little Antonio!

But the job is not easy. This year the task has been to minimize the impact of ‘Amoris’ and neutralise its critics. And that has not been a walk-over. The secret has been to mention it as little as possible: ‘it is crystal clear what it means’; ‘there are no “ambiguities”‘; ‘it is already infusing the Church with a new spirit of charity’; that sort of thing.

When the Pope is silent, who can speak? So we have put all our effort into discrediting the Four Cardinals –portraying them as old and out of touch. ‘They are the past; Francis is the future’, and all that.

Which works up to a point. But with an eighty-year old boss with some pretty old-fashioned ideas about some things, a spin doctor has to go carefully. Once or twice I have had to follow the old homiletic rule we learned in seminary: ‘Argument weak here; shout like hell’.

But I can’t complain. It’s a hard job; but it’s better than scuffing around in a parish taking Holy Communion to bedfast old ladies.

Happy Christmas.