The Boat of Fools visits a Catholic school

This week our Mystery Worshipper visited a Catholic School in the south of England, where the chaplain was conducting a multi-faith service.

Our mystery worshipper passed undetected as a pupil of St Ali's Catholic School.

What was the name of the service?
Special ecumenical service.

Did anyone welcome you personally?
Yes, the chaplain shook me warmly by the neck before telling me how much he hated me.

How would you describe the pre-service atmosphere?
Very chatty. Becky, the Year 5 representative of A Call To Outright Rebellion (ACTOR) explained how Vatican II had explicitly demanded that the Catholic church should henceforth get away from old-fashioned ideas such as God and Jesus, becoming more open to other faiths, such as the tree-worshipping community.

What were the exact opening words of the service?
Welcome to our special ecumenical service. Today we have present a variety of alternative faiths, including representatives of ACTOR, those who bow down to tree-spirits, and worshippers of the gods Thor, Dawkins, and Sun Myung Moon.

The sun shall not burn thee by day: nor the moon by night. Psalm 120:6

What books did the congregation use during the service?
Books sacred to the faiths of those present, including Tina Beattie's Why did the Virgin Mary never have children?, Richard Dawkins's The Reality of Magic, and Prince Charles's classic I talk to the trees.

The defender of all faiths meets a representative of the arboreal community.

Was the worship stiff-upper-lip, happy clappy, or what?
More a sort of unhappy-clappy, as the worshippers were clearly very angry about something (the Catholic church, at a guess).

In a nutshell, what was the sermon about?
The chaplain explained that it was important to break with tradition. One example he gave (so good that he repeated it) was about sticking children up chimneys. I couldn't work out whether he was for or against that one.

If you want to be a chaplain like me, you need to be able to handle chimneys.

Which part of the service was like being in heaven?
When the chaplain led us in a hymn to Thor:

When Thor had a hammer,
He'd hammer in the morning,
He'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land...

Rubbish words, but a great tune.

I hit my finger with the hammer and now I'm a little Thor.

And which part was like being in... er... the other place?
Well, most of it really.

What happened when you hung around after the service looking lost?
The chaplain told me to scram. He's known for his inter-personal skills.

How would you feel about making this church your regular (where 10 = ecstatic, 0 = terminal)?
0. No, please, no!

Did the service make you feel glad to be a Christian?
Yes, but I felt terribly out of place.

These "Thor" services are fine, but I always take an umbrella in case of a storm.

Eccles is told off

De way of a saved pusson is hard, and I was told off today by a dame, wot didn't find my blogg spiritaully nuorishin.

Unapprecaitive dame.

Wot happened was dat I wrote a blost about de Boat of Fools visitin Croydon (where I has got a good freind wot is a deacon), and dis dame wot I never heard of was upset by it. Here is a controversail pitcher wot was in de story.

The defender of all faiths meets a representative of the arboreal community.

I has been asked three salient questoins by de dame, in fact she asked em twice:

Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind?

Is it true? Is it kind? Is it helpful?

Well we satirists always takes care never to exaggerate de facts, but inevitabbly errors may creep in. I was readin my Bibble today, and it's got a bit where Jesus says: Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Well we know dat Jesus would never dream of exaggeratin, so it must be dat camel-swallowin was a serious probblem in 1st Century Palestine.

Warning: do not attempt to swallow this camel.

In fact, Jesus also says: And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? Well, it must have been true, and not a metaphor or an exaggeratoin.

Warning, wear goggles when handling this, lest it go in thine eye.

Of course my blogg is always helpful, and we sometimes has to be creul to be kind. It seems dat Jesus had de same problems when He said: You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgement of Hell?

A serpent wot needs to think about fleeing.

Well, I hope I has explained my position here: always truthful, kind and helpful. I met Michael Vortex recently, wot has a luvvly video about always being nice.I think that besides being a saved pusson I is gonna be a nice pusson from now on, and not make jokes at people's expense.

Michael, if you're reading this, I think you left something behind.

Church of England casts the net wider

The CNC is apparently unable to reach a decision on who to recommend as the next Archbishop of Canterbury: all the obvious candidates are either too traditional, too liberal, too evangelical, in favour of women bishops, against women bishops, writers of dreadful blogs, known clowns from Thought for the Day, in favour of same-sex marriage, against same-sex marriage, too black, too white, Arsenal supporters, Manchester United supporters, in the habit of sniffing too much, adenoidal, too fat, too bearded, or otherwise ruled out. Or if not, their wives are.

Accordingly the CNC has cast its net a little wider, and now it finally has a list of two nominees who are not Anglicans in the traditional sense.

Abu Hamza (often mistaken for Richard Chartres)

Widely regarded as a safe pair of hands hooks, Abu Hamza is just the person to bring a breath of fresh air to the CofE. Likely to be welcomed by many in the Muslim community. Only snag: do the people of Lambeth and Canterbury want to be woken at dawn by a voice crying "Ayeeeeeeee... Death to the Infidel. Ayeeeeeeee..." (Previously they were woken by the bleat of an "Ayeeeeeeee... I do think it is most valuable for us to be able to have dialogue with Richard Dawkins. Ayeeeeeeee..." from Rowan Williams.)

Yoda of the Jedi, this is

Yoda is claimed by some malicious people to be merely a puppet and not a religious figure at all, but then the same accusation has been levelled at people such as Giles Fraser, so this is not supposed to be a disadvantage. He is said to have Prince Charles's ear - and indeed the church's future primate and supreme governor do both seem to have hearing apparatus in the "XXXL" size. One snag: seems to have unfashionable views on Good and Evil, which may upset the General Synod. Will his comment "When you look at the dark side, careful you must be ... for the dark side looks back" return to haunt him? Will it put paid to any hopes of a merger with the Church of Satan?

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Rational Observations

This blog has been accused of pushing a strong pro-Christian line, and so, to redress the balance, we have a guest blogger today, Mr Rational Observations.

Our guest blogger, sunbathing

The Bible is all fiction

I have studied the Bible for over 60 years, and all the evidence indicates that it is a complete work of fantasy, possibly composed by the Emperor Nero, the celebrity violinist who founded the Christian religion as we now know it.

To take an example at random: the character Moses is obviously fictional, and nothing but a corrupted form of the name Mo-hammed which, as I have discovered in my detailed researches, is a name known to Islamic scholars.

The Bible is full of historical errors; for example, we are asked to believe that Joseph was the son of Israel alias Jacob, and wore a coat of many colours; but when we next see him, betrothed to Mary, the coat is never mentioned, and several hundred years seem to have passed.

The husband of Mary?

Likewise, King Saul is supposed to be killed at Mount Gilboa, but guess what, he pops up again, alive, on the road to Damascus, and tries to fool us by changing his name to Paul. I have made a detailed study of Biblical names, and if Saul can be called Paul, then why isn't Solomon ever called Polomon? Even the Pope cannot answer that.

There is no historical evidence outside the Bible for the existence of any of the following in the 1st century AD: Jerusalem, the Emperor Caesar Augustus, sheep, or the Sea of Galilee. Well, I couldn't find any.

A mythical beast, as unreal as a unicorn or dragon

Christ's message of repression

Well, having disposed of the Bible, let's turn to the record of Christianity throughout the ages. Jesus Christ, who never existed by the way, had this message: I came not to send peace, but the sword (Matthew 10:34, in reality written by a bronze-age goatherd called Umbog the Deranged, but that's another story).

Over the years, Christians have seen their mission as one of death and slaughter. Hitler was a pious Catholic, who spent his summers in a monastery near Munich, reciting the Rosary. Stalin was a Russian Orthodox monk, sent out by his abbot to cause as much mayhem as possible - I have discovered that Stalin was not his real name, but the Vatican canonized him as St Alin, because he served their evil purposes so well. Mao was a Christian (his name is another version of "Moses"), who would have spent his life as a humble restaurant-manager, serving Set Meals for 4 with Fried Rice, if he had not been corrupted by fanatical missionaries.

The Baptism of Mao

The Death of Christianity

Luckily, the cult of Christianity is dying out. The churches are empty, and the Pope is reduced to employing actors to make the buildings seem used. Look at the picture below, alleged to show crowds in St Peter's Square, Rome.

A forged picture

But St Peter's Square isn't even in Rome, it's in Manchester, so no doubt the crowds were Manchester United supporters.

Proof that St Peter's Square isn't in Rome

"Saint" Peter was another of these shifty Biblical characters who changed their names. As a long-time scholar of the Bible I can reveal that his real name was Simon. But then lots of people in the Bible are called Simon - it's a corruption of "Someone," meaning that the writer doesn't have any concrete evidence for the existence of the person in question.

Thank goodness that the Queen herself is a committed atheist, who reads the works of Polly Toynbee in the bath (I have photographic evidence of this, but I choose not to publish it, as it would embarrass Her Majesty). But she is forced to pay lip-service to Christianity if she doesn't want to be executed like so many of her ancestors.

Her Majesty the Queen, a confirmed atheist

Prince Charles, describing himself as "Defender of all faiths," is waiting for the Queen's demise so that he can declare himself to be a rationalist, secularist and humanist. Prince William? Well he is a young man, and we can safely assume that he too is an atheist. Nowadays religious delusion is confined to the over-80s, most of whom are suffering from senile decay. Indeed, statistics show that over 98% in the under-40 age group have missed Mass on at least one Sunday in the last 10 years. Which proves my case.

I would like to express my thanks to Eccles for allowing me to put the record straight. May Polly bless you. R.O.

Pentecost readings

Burning copies of "The Fix"

As the hype over The Fix reaches a climax, and the team of relay runners escorting it round the UK says with one voice "We've had enough of that flaming book," the CBCEW has agreed to adopt new readings for this Pentecost Sunday, from the book of St Damian.

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Vincent Nichols confesses to an addiction

As St Luke records in The Fix of the Apostles, when the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, the disciples were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house. Then there appeared tongues as of fire, which came to rest on them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues.

Now we see here several examples of addiction, and I have observed many such incidents in my researches for this book. Some people are addicted to strong winds; for example St Peter is recorded as once having taken his boat out onto the Sea of Galilee in a storm, evidently to feed his addiction to wind, which the other Apostles vainly tried to cover up. If he had not had this problem, he would probably have stayed indoors, become a journalist, and maybe written a blog. Some say that Prince Charles, who recently moonlighted as a weatherman on television, is also addicted to extreme meteorological phenomena.

Tongues of fire are another addiction I have seen on my travels. Sometimes this is merely a variation on cigarette-smoking, where the addict lights the wrong end of the cigarette in his confusion (my friend Cristina Odone often makes this mistake). Another way of setting one's tongue on fire is by fire-eating, which nobody would do unless they were seriously disturbed.

Unholy smoke from Cristina Odone

Could it have been the case that St Peter was addicted to fire-eating, as well as heavy winds? St Luke is strangely silent on the question.

Then again we come to another addiction mentioned in this passage, the speaking in different tongues. In modern society people with this problem can find useful employment as interpreters and translators, but sometimes we find charismatic sects whose members simply sound off with random garbage like "Molybdenite Holy Smoke ROFL Damian Fix Judy Bogan Pottymouth LOL," as a way of obtaining relief. No doubt St Peter was a sufferer from this condition as well.

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A  fairy cake cupcake, as seen at Our Lady of the Assumption & St. Gregory, Soho

As St Paul, notorious for plugging his own Epistles, once pointed out, the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, a good haircut, a clean shirt, and a real Ph.D. degree, whereas the works of the flesh are obvious: trolling on blogs, addiction to cupcakes, drinking my supplies of gin and hair-restorer, reading the Guardian and the Huffington post, and trying to ordain women as priests.

Alas, on my own blog, where many of the contributors are intelligent traditional Catholics with good haircuts and clean shirts, I have seen several more sordid people, with various addictions. Often they come from primitive places such as Australia and South America, pretending to have a scientific background, but really just invading my blog in order to feed their sordid compulsions (which are too disgusting to name in a sacred document such as this one).

In spite of the weaknesses of St Peter that I mentioned earlier, the reason that Christ gave him the keys of Heaven must surely be that he didn't eat cupcakes, only drank hair-restorer on special occasions, and would never have turned up smelling of llama.

A guest blogg from Prince Chalres

Good evening, some of you will have seen me on television recently, reading the weather forecast: indeed, I told the nation that the Queen was facing a lot of "heir pressure" right now, but she had said she was still "long to rain over us." Being a great fan of the Goons, one is delighted to help out Mr Eccles Cake while he is suffering from a writer's block thingie, although one realises that he is only a pale imitation of the intellectual giant created by the late Spike Milligan.

Well, as Defender of All Faiths, one is of course anxious to encourage all faiths, and besides achieving Karma and earning the 72 virgins that one is promised in Paradise, one does indeed wish to be a saved person like Mr Eccles. So, er, "One has been saved, yeah."

Crikey, how did that picture of Mater get there? Eccles, could you remove it, please? Oh, it's your Auntie Moly, is it? What a startling resemblance she bears to the old Monarch, eh?

Of course, there is a limit to this "Defender of all Faiths" business, and it would not do to be seen endorsing the Catholic faith - not if one is looking for a spot of promotion in a few years time, perhaps to a job with a crown of one's own as part of the benefits package.

Damian Thompson, the UK's leading Catholic, is a close friend of mine, and he shares many of my passionate interests. When I attended his party in Castle Thompson last week, we had a lively discussion about the prayer book, the use of organic bread and wine at Mass, and of course, the weather.

Thompson was also telling me about the "Gay Mafia" which is so influential in Catholic circles these days. Alas, we don't really have any "gay" members of the Royal Family apart from my cousin Prince Hemd-Heber of Lustigstadt, so one cannot really advise him there.

Well, one was rather hoping to get some sort of message across in this blog - after all, one's subjects do rather expect a few words of wisdom - so let's tackle a subject dear to the heart of Damian Thompson: the correct naming of people. Obviously, it is a solecism to refer to "Lord Peter Mandelson" when his real title is "The Dark Lord of Gehenna," but not many people know that Damian's blog should really be published under his formal title "His Grace The Honourable Doctor Damian Thompson of that ilk." Standards are indeed slipping.

Damian has asked me to mention his new book, "The Fix," which is the tragic story of the decline and fall of a Catholic journalist into secularism and mediocrity. Will that do?

Where has all de Cathlics gone?

Dat's a photto of Prince Chalres. Anti Moly is very excitted cos he and Camila is comin to Austriala as part of de celebratoins of de Jubillee. "I was hoppin for Prince Phillip, as I fink he's a charmin yuong man," she said, "but Chalres will do instead. Dis is a very thuoghtful man, and maybe he can do somefink about dem possums dat is tormentin me. Dey is keepin me awake all night, jumpin up and down on de roof, so I can't sleep, and I is obligged to stay up bloggin till dawn."

What's more she is frustratted as she cant find any more Cathlics to insullt. Dey has all gone off to an unknown destinnatoin. "Dey're hidin somewhere, I knows it!" she shouts. "Eccles, just check under de bed in case dere is a fannatical traddy clique hidin dere, will you?"

She was very cross wiv me, cos I buoght some banananas from a man in de street. For some reasons she didn't like dem.



"Eccles, hasnt you reallised dat dem's traddy banananas, grown on de Pop's pussonal slave plantatoins, where wommen is explioted, while de missogynist men sits aruond playin cards?" she asked me. I mannaged to run out of de room before she cuold tell me it was woful.

We has had to return little Markus de boy scuot to de orphannage, so dat Anti and me can make an expeditoin to Sidney, but he is feelin very pleased wiv hisself, cos Uncle Dakwins has given him some more badges.

"Dis one is for mentoinin Spinozza on a blogg. I fuoght he was a sort of washin-machine, but Uncle Richard says he is a ratoinalist, like me, which means he is much clevverer dan dem bronze age people wot believed in sky farries," he said. "Next week I is gonna get annuvver badge if I can read a page of Bertram Russell wivvout fallin asleep."



Dat's a pitcher of Spinozza bein ratoinal, he's finkin hard and havvin a meltdown like Anti Moly.

Finally I has got some news of my dere bruvver Bosco. Since he posted on dis blogg sayin dat he was gonna train as a 90th degree freemasson warrlock, his studdies has been goin very well. He tells me dat he is alreddy at de 5th degree, and will soon be reddy to drink de blud of babbies, scarifice vergins, and pioson little old laddies. He has got a schollarship from de Obamma fuondatoin for his studdies - apparently Pressident Obamma is very keen on fings like dat, cos dey annoys de Cathlics.



Dat's Bosco's homework project, dey has to use up some spare parts and make somefink wiv dem. I fink it cuold be a new luv interrest for Anti Moly - frankly, I fink he's more her type dan Cradinal Pell is.