Pope's PR Guru to Advise Richard Dawkins

In the wake of devastating news reports and even liberal media shock at Richard Dawkins's 'controversial' views on the unborn children with Downs Syndrome, Greg Burke has been called in by Richard Dawkins to foster a more positive image of the high priest of atheism.

In a new PR strategy designed to undo much of the damage caused by the apparent advocate of eugenic solutions to diseases and genetic conditions, Burke proposed to Dawkins a range of different photo-opportunities and selfies to be taken and then publicised around the world's press. It is hoped by Dawkins that the image consultant will be able to recover the reputation of the fundamentalist atheist in the world's media and win back some of the support he has gained over years among humanists.

So far, much of the public relations imagery publicised by Richard Dawkins's PR team has been lacklustre. It is thought by Burke that Dawkins's image "suffers because his role as a prophet of godlessness for the new age does not lend itself easily to humanitarian causes or to photo-opportunities that convey goodness, a spirit of caring, virtue or a message of love, peace and goodwill."

It is unfortunate for the renowned atheist scholar, Greg Burke noted, that "atheism does not naturally lead to a message that inspires others towards a counter-cultural way of life, but instead continually points to self." It can however, Burke maintained, be something that is "cultivated over time." Less imagery of the author in front of a clear blue sky with wispy clouds are said to be recommended by Burke and a more positive image of Dawkins attending a school for children with Downs Syndrome, a centre for children with learning disabilities or a soup run for the homeless, are perhaps in the pipeline for the celebrated atheist.

While charity shops quickly hide copies of the autobiographies of national treasures under media trial on accusations of pederasty, it is said that Dawkins too fears a 'public backlash' after his latest Twitter fiasco. The stalwart defender of rationalism and empiricism, it is said, looks on in envy at the unassailable position of Pope Francis as the humblest and most wonderful religious and secular figure in the history of the world TM.

It is rumoured that Burke, having achieved what the Catholic Church's senior image consultants said was 'impossible' in transforming the papacy from an institution marked by a recent occupant labelled as 'a leering old villain in a frock' to one inhabited by 'the People's Pope', has been offered a lucrative deal with Richard Dawkins and could part with the Catholic Church in a transfer fee rumoured to be in the region of £30 million.

A range of disfigured people, aged and infirm people, survivors of the Holocaust and "a veritable army of babies" are said to be soon making their way to Oxford so that they can be greeted, kissed and venerated by the "good doctor Dawkins" in a radical overhaul of his previous image as a self-seeking publicity addict. Dawkins himself was unavailable for comment, but a close friend intimated that the scholar has recently been feeling a 'bit down in the dumps' over his reputation in the liberal press and that now is the time for some clear 'blue-sky thinking' on the matter of at least giving the impression that atheism need not necessarily lead its adherents into a philosophical line of reasoning that dispenses with the innate value of human life, regardless of health or genetic 'quality'.

"Good without God" is a great slogan, said a close friend, "but it is clear that 'good' does have objective connotations. Most people do not automatically associate the targeting of children with Downs Syndrome in the womb for extermination as necessarily being 'good'. You know, because if anyone loves these people, it would be God, even if nobody else but a minority does. You can tell its only a minority because only 10% of these children are not aborted."

The Vatican is yet to confirm the rumour.