I have seen that those Meddling Catholics, hot on the heels of their popular You Tube hit 'World Over' (it isn't yet, but I sometimes get the feeling Francis is taking us there) interview with Pope Francis, have produced a very amusing version of 'White Christmas' with Raymond Arroyo and Francis performing a duet of the popular festive tune.
Today was the Curia's 'dressing down' day, a day not to be mistaken with Crib figures flinging their clothes off to lay down naked near the scene of the birth of our Salvation, it is that day when the Curia are debriefed and their hidden faults are laid bare, as they bathe in the glorious light that radiates from our 'Dictator Pope', still retailing at just £7.12 on Amazon Kindle.
I had forgotten that I had a while ago recorded a version of Sir Cliff's 'Mistletoe and Wine', a mini-musical monument, a little sing-a-long obelisk to the annual verbal massacre that is the Pope's Christmas address to the Curia, a festivity immortalised when he informed the Curia of their 'fifteen diseases' in, I believe it was, 2014.
This year the Pope has not disappointed those people who were looking for some really nasty insulting words towards his staff. There aren't many of those people and surely very few in the Curia. Here are some of those choice words...
This year the Pope again delivered some stern criticisms of his staff, and appeared to make reference to recent public controversies.
The Pope denounced an “unbalanced and debased mindset of plots and small cliques that in fact represent – for all their self-justification and good intentions – a cancer leading to a self-centredness”.
He also referred to former officials who left after being “corrupted by ambition or vainglory. Then, when they are quietly sidelined, they wrongly declare themselves martyrs of the system, of a “Pope kept in the dark”, of the “old guard”…, rather than reciting a mea culpa.”
Hmm...who could he be talking about? The St Gall Mafia? The clique of militant homosexuals once hiding in the woodwork and now marauding around Rome and elsewhere? The still powerful and bemusingly appointable Jesuits? Cardinal Maradiaga? Or Cardinal Muller and the CDF and CDW talent dismissed for no specific reason who might just feel a little aggrieved?
Again, 'mystery' surrounds the intended audience for the latest stinging rebuke. Presumably, should his words be believed, the Pope is well-informed and does not deem himself to be kept 'in the dark' by anyone about anything, which is a shame really, because Pod-casting men of goodwill in this season of goodwill are still cutting Pope Francis some serious slack despite his poorly camouflaged intention to nullify the Word of God by means of Jesuitical sorcery.
These generous souls remain determined to present a hypothesis that the Pope is being played like a naive schoolboy at the mercy of the 'wrong crowd' who just happen to all be his friends and with whom he agrees. Surely, he is not one of them! Surely not! It has reached a stage where I fear that such dewy-eyed hopefulness is the final stage in what they call in the psychological field 'denial' and that it serves those who still present the hypothesis for the duration of this papacy because they know the people of God are defenceless in the face of a monster Pope. I don't blame these people. We all need coping mechanisms! Personally, I find singing cathartic.
Francis decried the “betrayers of trust, or those who profit from the maternity of the Church,” meaning, he said, people who “don’t understand the lofty nature of their responsibility.” He also said the process of reform requires “patience, dedication and delicacy.”
Perhaps after 'The Dictator Pope' has been well and truly digested by the Church and Francis has gone to his eternal rewards only and been canonized anyway just because that's what happens to Popes, His Holiness's Feast Day could be somewhere around 21st December, that day on which he really says what he thinks to people he doesn't feel are entitled to respect, because, you know, forthright honesty and fraternal correction is a mark of sanctity, right? You feeling that FrancisMercy? No? Well at least Christmas is near!
If you missed 'Misanthropic Swine', my rendition of the festive song at which many an Englishman says, 'I think I'll go and put the kettle on', I post it for your enjoyment below. I know there have been quite a few songs recently, but today is 'Curia Address Day', a day in which the Vatican annually quakes and tremors are felt beyond the walls of the City. It simply cannot be allowed to go unmarked.
If I don't blog beforehand, may all readers of this blog have a very happy, blessed, holy and joyful Christmas. Let no man destroy your joy in Christmastide! The Lord has foretold and warned us in advance of those days when it will appear that the wicked are triumphant. Remain in the Truth of Christ, stay faithful, evil is not triumphant in the Church of God and never can be, despite what you see.
The Lord wins, the Lord will win in the end. What joy and what celebration there shall be for those who trust in Him and take Him for their refuge now. May you and I be numbered among those for whom purest and sweetest joy shall come! In the twinkling of an eye, the Lord's enemies will cringe at His feet! What a dressing down tha shall be! Still, come, Lord Jesus!
6 comments:
Nice "button" on the song with the gunfire.
I wish it wasn't quite so accurate. But there you go. Merry and happy Christmas to all!
As you say, singing is indeed cathartic; many an agnostic has come to faith by joining a church choir.
God-haunted atheists such as Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins attend carol services on Christmas week; they mock the eternal Christian truths, but are drawn to the mystery of the Incarnation.
The hymns of Charles Wesley are not just the work of a poet with an infallible ear for English metrics; they are works of sound Biblical theology; follow the words of 'O For a Thousand Tongues' on YouTube.
Two years ago I visited the beautiful old Baptist chapel in Tewkesbury where John Wesley preached; the caretaker who lived in a cottage next door let me in with her key.
The best book I read in 2017 is 'Through the Year with John Wesley - 365 Readings' (Monarch Books) edited by Stephen J Poxon.
There is a blog called The Orthodox Roman Catholic; a recent post 'Francis, the Underground Church and Apostasy' is worth reading.
The above comment is mine, I did not mean to sign myself Anonymous.
In the last year or so I have admired this blog for its readiness to proclaim the Gospel.
See the blog Catholic Stand - Athanasius Contra Mundum.
Athanasius of Alexandria stood against the world in proclaiming the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ - a point I make to Jehovah Witnesses.
Never was a man more alone and more anointed by the Holy Spirit than Athanasius.
In the 18th Century, England was sunk in spiritual darkness and debauchery.
A friend of John Wesley stopped a poor broken woman from throwing herself into the Thames, and did so by the POWER of the Gospel.
'From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'
John 6:66-68.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all, especially to Mr. Bones.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Journey of the Magi, TS Eliot
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