Dan Brown's new translation of the Mass

Following on from a pathetic pastiche called The Da Mian Cod and the rather more ambitious Don’t make fun of renowned Dan Brown, by a deacon in good standing, it has been announced that Dan Brown, in conjunction with the Bitter Pill, has produced a new translation of the Mass, which Catholics are urged to adopt forthwith.

Literary giant Dan Brown attends the launch of his new Missal at the Vatican.

For the first time, we are able to release some excerpts from the new Creed, as translated by Dan Brown.

I believe in one divine God,
the paternal Father, almighty and known for being very competent,
reputed for making things, indeed He
made the celestial Heaven and terrestrial earth,
and all things visible and invisible, including things you can see 
and things you can't see. Plus a few things that you can
sometimes see but not always, like the Moon.

The invisible man - never mentioned in official Vatican documents.

...I believe in one Lord, the highly-esteemed Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Celebrity Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages - which includes the
Ice Age, the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

The Ice Age: Robert Langdon discovered that this was a cold time.

... was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
Also he married Mary Magdalene and had children, but they
keep this secret from you.

Mary Magdalene, a woman with a secret.

...He ascended into heaven, which is
a bit like going up in an elevator, 
only without the whirring sound,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father, 
which He keeps at the end of His right arm.

A rough idea of how the Ascension works.

The next step will be to translate this back into Latin for use at EF Masses.

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Meanwhile, Lord Falconer is to present a bill to the House of Lords this week: it would introduce a system allowing doctors to provide a fatal dose of drugs to patients judged to have less than six months to live.

Overweight, probably a bad health risk. Will he last 6 months?

It's generally considered by Christians that euthanasia is a bad idea (as indeed is suicide), and, looking around, we see many people who might be in danger of being "pushed off the edge."

Enda Kenny - could that problem with his mouth be fatal?

Many Irish, worried about the horrible things Enda Kenny's mouth keeps producing, are hoping to club together to send him to a clinic in Switzerland... or England... or indeed anywhere except Ireland.

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Finally, as a bit of light relief from the serious items above, we attended a service at the Church of the Holy Bubbles, and were pleased to see the dignity and holiness with which the Mass was celebrated.

The Elevation. "Take thee much soap" (Jeremiah 2:22, KJV).

Don't worry, this is not Pope Francis.

Pope Francis, as a former chemist, is of course extremely capable of synthesising bubbles whenever he wishes, although he has the wisdom to recognise that the Mass is not the most appropriate occasion for this.

Pope Francis sends a giant bubble in pursuit of a heretic.

Renewing the Church's relationship with men

How can the Pope renew the Catholic Church's relationship with men?
by Catherine Lefftie. This is a shortened version of a New Statesman article.

Catherine Lefftie - the thinking man's old boiler.

What do you call a man who has become the leader of 600 million men?

Pope Francis.

The vast institution he now leads is the oldest in the western world; its relationship to men characterised by paradox. Go into any Catholic church and you will see far more women than men. Accordingly, Pope Francis urgently needs to take steps to make the Church more attractive to those who have XZ chromosomes (Ed., please check this, I'm not very good at science. CL.)

Men do the dull jobs in church, such as arranging the flowers...

... while women have fun stoking the boiler.

It was not always thus. Although the most important non-divine person in the Catholic church is the Virgin Mary, men have also played their part in its history. For example, the first person to see the Risen Christ was a man, Melvie Braggdalene, who went to the tomb to interview Him before the women got there.

Melvie Braggdalene poses at the site of Christ's tomb.

Of course, other men have not had such a good press. For example, arch-villain Judas Iscariot is widely accepted to have been male, and a very poor role-model for modern men.

Another poor role-model.

What Pope Francis needs to do, and I know he bases many of his decisions on New Statesman articles by bitter old lefties, is to make the Church more friendly to men. For example, the Church encourages the blessings of motherhood, and these tend to be enjoyed far more by women than men.

A woman enjoying her blessings.

Religious life is skewed in favour of women. For instance, men are expected to worry about what clothes they wear in church, and to make fashion statements, whereas women are allowed to dress simply and plainly.

The height of fashion.

Of course the priest plays a fairly important part in the life of the Church, but it is well known that every priest must listen to the voices of an army of women telling him what to do. It is no coincidence that the most influential person in British Catholic life is a woman, Catherine Pepinster.

A priest receives his holy orders.

I have devised a ten-point plan (which I have modestly called the "Ten New Commandments") by which Pope Francis can renew the Catholic church's relationship with men. My vision is a stirring one, but time will tell whether it will be realised under Pope Francis's pontificate.

Bad hymns 3

 Today's entry for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award is the Pentecost hymn Enemy of Apathy by John L. Bell and Graham Maule. As usual, we invited the authors to come along and explain themselves.

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E: Welcome, the two of you. Since your hymn isn't as well-known as some of the others we have been discussing, perhaps you could sing the first verse to us?

JLB and GM: She sits like a bird, brooding on the waters, 

Hovering on the chaos of the world's first day; 

She sighs and she sings, mothering creation, 

Waiting to give birth to all the Word will say.

E: Thank you. So who is "she" in this context? In the office we were betting that it was either Mary Magdalene or possibly an Old Testament figure such as Eve, Sarah or Ruth. Not the Blessed Virgin Mary, given that you are being so rude about her?

JLB: Rude?

E: "She sits like a bird." Now, birds sit in lots of different ways. Do you mean she sits like a chicken? A penguin? A duck?

Sitting like a duck.

GM: Well, "she" is the Holy Spirit, so I suppose we should have said "She sits like a dove."

E: The Holy Spirit? Well, if you want to say the Holy Spirit is female, then I suppose we can't stop you, even if there's no real Biblical authority for this idea.You're not Wiccans, are you? Mother Earth Goddess stuff? No?

JLB: No. Well, yes. But not really.

E: Now, we were wondering  about the next line. "Hovering on the chaos of the world's first day." Very fine, but how does a bird sit and hover at the same time?

GM: You're going to ask us next how a dove sighs and sings at the same time, too, aren't you?

E: Well, I was wondering. Actually, the song reminds me a little of Gilbert and Sullivan. Some of your clunkier phrases later on, such as "Nourishing potential hidden to our eyes" or "Enemy of apathy and heavenly dove" could be taken straight out of The Mikado, couldn't they?

JLB: No.

GM: Did you like "She dances in fire, startling her spectators"? I wrote that bit. That's real poetry, that is.

E: Of course, spectators would be startled to see anyone dancing in fire. Do birds dance though? I think you've got a bit of a metaphor overload problem there.

She dances in fire.

GM: He's not taking this seriously, is he, John?

JLB: No. (Exeunt.)

E: John L. Bell and Graham Maule, thank you for coming along to explain your song.