Happy Birthday, Cardinal

Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium turned 80 this week, on Tuesday, June 4th, and we are happy to celebrate his life and achievements here. H/T to Protect the Pope for some relevant information for our little tribute.

Danneels, in the lions' den, addresses a gay pride.

Godfried Danneels has shown sympathy with the "equal marriage" campaign, and firmly rejects Jesus's views that marriage is something involving a man and a woman of opposite sexes. "How can a man not identify with his orientation?" he says. Cardinal, do you really need basic Christianity explained to you?

Which orientation shall we go for today? Hetero- Homo- Bi- Trans- A- or Pan-?

Danneels also says that the French should stop protesting about "gay marriage," and thinks that "The Church has never objected to the fact that there is a sort of 'marriage' between homosexuals." It is not clear what church he is referring to, but clearly it is not the Catholic Church.

Stop protesting? Mais nous sommes français! C'est notre sport national!

Anyway, the Catholic Church in Belgium is truly grateful to you, Cardinal, for all you have done over the years. It now feels more "God-freed" than ever before, as church attendance and pastoral vocation have almost entirely fallen away.

Brussels sprouts - nearly as unpopular as Brussels priests.

Wallsingham

Well, we cuoldn't stay in Great Snoring for too long, as we wanted to go to Wallsingham to see my big bruvver Bosco. But both Anti Moly and Dan Hannan, our chuaffeur, received kind invitations from de good poeple of Great Snoring, so we stayed an extra day.

Anti Moly was invited to stay awhile, drink lotsa gin, and take some well-earned rest, as dey said that a Great Snoring Woman would be a tuorist attractoin. Anti Moly was very pleased to be de centre of attentoin, so we put her to sleep, and sold lotsa tickets.

We heard later dat de poeple of Little Snoring had all taken dere washing indoors, finking dat thunder was on de way.

A sleepy village

Also, someone had heard dat Dan Hannan is a part-time polliticain, and dey invited him to make a speech to de Snoring Conservatives Associatoin. "But I ain't used to speakin in front of crowds," he said. "When I wants to make a speech in Brussels, dey all shows great consideratoin and leaves de room."

Well, in de end he gave an impassioned speech about "De unpleasant pussonal habits of Herman Van Rompuy" to de faithful "Mangel-Wurzel Mafia," as dey is known.

Finally, we got to Wallsingham, and it didn't take long to find Bosco, as he had set up a shrine by de side of de road, and was sellin souvenirs of Wallsingham.

Bosco's sacred souvenirs from Wallsingham

Bosco explaned dat dese are not iddles, even dough dere was a steady stream of piglrims buyin dem and kissin dem.

A rival shrine, after Bosco visited it

Apart from settin up a Calumny Chappel shrine, and givvin public letchers on "Why Mary hadn't a clue who Jessus was" - a point of thoelogy dat is new to many poeple - Bosco has been doin his part in bein ecumennical by trashin uvver poeple's shrines and iddle shops.

Dan Hannan in Wallsingham iddle shop

Bosco has asked me to point out dat pussons wot kiss dis polliceman aint saved.

Dat's enuff bloggs

Hands off Pippa!
By Cristina Noode








Leave Her Royal Hotness alone! She's just a 28-year-old girl doing what all teenagers do at her age - going to wild parties in Paris, getting drunk, and shooting the odd gendarme! Only confirmed anti-monarchists could possibly see anything wrong with that! Which amongst us has not been a little wild in their younger days?

In my days editing the Catholic Herald it was normal to see Damian "six gun" Thompson striding in after a hard night's drinking and poker with "Wild Bill" Oddie. One day he explained that they had just shot a policeman, having mistaken him for "Doc" Chartres, and they were terrified that the lawman might have been a Catholic.  We glamorous young girls all wanted to be Damian's "moll" and shoot up the Magic Circle bishops with him, but he rejected all our advances. Later, we all became boringly respectable housewives of course.

So leave Pippa alone! She may be a wild teenager now, but one day she may be a respected Catholic blogger for the Telegraph!

Excusez-moi, officer, je suis en retard pour la Messe à Notre Dame.
 

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Cameron the Eurosceptic
By Daniel Nannah






The time has come for UKIP supporters to lay down their arms and admit that David Cameron's Conservatives are the only party likely to take us out of the EU within the next five years.

Already Dave is making rebellious rumblings against EU tyranny. Indeed this week he decided to go head-to-head with the Prime Minister of mighty Varicella. By threatening to oppose an EU Directive on subsidies for hamster-farmers, Dave has shown that he is not afraid to hit the Varicellan hamster-fur industry where it hurts.

Our Eurosceptic policies are being noticed. Whenever I stand up in the European parliament and suggest that we expel all foreigners from the EU, I am listened to avidly. Indeed, most of the foreigners take my advice and leave the chamber immediately. Last week, however, my speech met with unexpected results, for a man came into the chamber, carrying a bag of tools. Somehow I must have received a blow on the head, for when I woke up I was sitting on a pile of rotten cabbage in the Brussels Municipal Dump, but - and this is the important thing - I was still giving my controversial speech on Van Rompuy - why does he smell like a dead weasel? 

Dave is in town, and he's in a mean mood. So Brussels, beware!

David Cameron, getting to grips with Johnny Foreigner.
 

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Parishioners! Arentchasickofem?
By Peter Numell









In my days as a Parish Priest in the Yorkshire village of Ebor-Gum, the one thing I dreaded was my parishioners. Nowadays, as Anglican Chaplain to the Guild of Usurers, Money-lenders and Blackmailers, I mix with a different class of person, and they are not usually interested in religious matters. But even in my days as Honorary Canon to the White Slave Industry life was peaceful compared with the horrors that awaited me in Yorkshire.

In Ebor-Gum I had proposed some simple changes in our form of Sunday worship - I just wanted it to start each week with a ceremonial burning of homosexuals on the village green - and the parishioners treated me as if I had wanted to do something outrageous, such as introducing the happy-clappy doggerel of Graham Kendrick. Well, I withdrew my plans in the face of their implacable opposition, and reduced the burnings to an occasional event in my own back garden.

Then again, I thought it would be helpful if we were to show our ecumenical side by storming the local mosque, decapitating the Imam, and putting his head on a pole with a label "LOSER". You wouldn't believe the fuss my plan caused. Now I display Father Abdallah's head in a glass case in my sitting-room, where it is much admired by visitors, but we Christians should not be forced to hide our lights under bushels in this way.

Shall we go down to the pub, vicar?