Enda gets a knock.

Over now to Knock in Ireland, the site of the National Marian Shrine: and we have a most unusual pilgrim at the airport.

Knock, knock! Who's there? Enda. Enda who? Enda Life.

Eccles: We are indeed fortunate today to have a visit from that most pious of Catholics, Enda Life, the Teashop of Ireland. Especially at a village known for its shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a woman who carried Jesus in her womb and spent 9 months complaining about it. Good morning, Enda. What are your thoughts on arriving at this sacred place?

Enda: Well, I was thinking that the way to solve Ireland's problems is to bring in liberal abortion laws. As a faithful Catholic, I know that this was something very dear to the heart of Mary.

Mary, a figure who has greatly influenced Enda Kenny.

Eccles: Have you discussed this with a priest? If you ask Cardinal Brady politely, he may just be prepared to grant you an interview. I gather that his views are somewhat different.

Enda: Look, am I or am I not allowed to decide for myself what Mary would have wanted? Isn't the Massacre of the Innocents a great Catholic feast?

Eccles: Well, not exactly. You may have got that slightly wrong.

Enda: The great thing about abortion is that it can be used to cure all sorts of unrelated illnesses. Got an infection? Have an abortion. Got a boil on your backside? Have an abortion. Got an ingrowing toenail? Have an abortion. Feeling depressed by the most recent episode of Downton Abbey? Have an abortion.

The Witch of Enda urges Saul to bring in abortion legislation.

Eccles: What if I'm not pregnant?

Enda: Oh just kill a random baby. It doesn't much matter whose. We call it "the protection of life."

Hillary Mental not for respectable people

Our literary editor (who is not a saved pusson) writes:

Catholic leaders today claimed that the Booker prize-winning novelist Hillary Mental was "not for respectable people." Although given every advantage in life, including a Catholic upbringing, she had turned to the dark side, and was a deeply sinister person.

In 2010, Mrs Mental said that girls were ready to have babies at 14. "Having sex and having babies is what young women are about, and their instincts are suppressed in the interests of society's timetable," she said (yes, really). Catholic leaders have seized on this as being the sort of scandalous comment which leads to child abuse.

Asked if he would call for Hillary Mental on his deathbed, Archbishop Vincent Nichols said, "Certainly not. What a stupid idea."

Sister Muriel, one of the nuns who ran the Catholic school at which Mrs Mental was educated, said, "She was always a troublesome child, scribbling rude words on bits of paper when she should have been listening to her teachers. No wonder she's turned out badly."

Hillary Mental is the author of Wolf Hall, of which Susan Bassnett in the Times Higher Education Supplement said:  "I have yet to meet anyone outside the Booker panel who managed to get to the end of this tedious tome," placing her work on a par with the immortal The Da Vinci Code.

Cardinal Sean Brady has offered protection to Mrs Mental, in case she feels threatened by outraged Catholics, although, he said, "She really is not a respectable person."

Brady refuses to resign

A bad-taste special from the Daily Telegraph
 

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Damian Thompson, the celebrated blood-crazed ferret and television critic, today repeated his call for the resignation of the man known to millions as "that bloody swine Brady". There have been repeated allegations that Brady bears the direct responsibility for destroying the lives of a large number of children.

Oh dear. We apologise for incorrectly publishing the above picture of a saintly costume holy man, widely tipped to be the next Pope. Shall we try again? Probably, this is the chap we were talking about.

From his prison cell, the disgraced Cardinal Archbishop of Saddleworth repeated that he had no intention of resigning. "I don't care how much damage my incompetence, wickedness and general power-crazed ambition does to the reputation of the Catholic Church," he said. "After all, I am the Messiah."

Meanwhile, the "Atheist Messiah," Richard Dawkins, issued a statement from his padded cell in Oxford. "All Catholics are perverts, criminals, and nutcases. Why don't they join MY church? All they have to do is to bow down and worship me, and I will give them the kingdoms of the world."