pic 1 alternative“This year’s first meeting is ending today,
So what do you think all the bishops will say?”
“Hunh? Why do you wait for the prelates to speak—
Reporters predicted it fully last week!”
“They’ll skip the formality, blessings and fuss
And marry their cats to their dogs—or to us!
Or they’ll marry each other, then surely of course,
Hence cometh the weekend and quickie divorce!” 

“Yes! Scrapping obedience, kneeling and bother,
They’ll change personnel when they fire God the Father,
Next, then the Holy Ghost surely must go;
And finally, just before Christmas or so,
They’re predicted to climb from their doctrinal rut
When that brash upstart Jesus gets told what is what!”
“Yes! Then comes pure Reason, the wise rule of Men,
For the facts were predicted on live CNN!”

“Then I heard that the College of Cardinals will be
An anarchic sitcom on BBC-3!”
“And American broadcasters’ new Sacred Arts,
Will feature nuns singing and dancing like tarts!
Moreover we’ll know if the programmes are working,
When choirs sing rap and the pontiff starts twerking!”
“I heard that the bread and the wine they will scuttle
‘Til liturgy’s all just one great buggers’ muddle
And Mass will become what it long should have been;
Pass the peanuts to him and to me Vaseline!”

roller vatican“They say each Confession from each VIP
Will be bugged, taped and aired on MSNBC!”
“In the previous, uppermost, holy High Masses,
The poshest of choirs from the Chattering Classes
Will gossip while priestesses trade in the Host
For Obamacare, or what may please them the most;
The wars and entitlements, government messes,
The legalised dope and the men who wear dresses,
Plus every month’s trendy Progressive new fad –
Like those women insisting we call them all ‘Dad.’”

“The newest of smart-phones, most stylishly Nokia’ll,
Swiftly replace every grade-school parochial;
Each ideology, every new ‘ism,’
Will change week by week in the New Catechism;
Until the kids learn that the New Church is ‘hip!’
And soon after, secular state censorship
Will help to promote our inflexible Will,
As each Catholic schoolgirl must swallow her pill;
While every clinic is thoroughly stocked up,
Providing abortions in case she gets knocked-up.”

“They say that the Synod’s most heartfelt position
Is clearly to shred the last scraps of Tradition
To save us from Darkness and banish the mists!”
“As the New York Times loudly and daily insists,
Sin hurts us less than a few pounds of fat,
And what trendy cleric can argue with that!”
“We plunder the earth, and irreparably so,
Thus the font and all that holy water must go!”
“The pews and the kneelers, all made up of trees,
Deplete the earth’s resources! Get rid of these!
“And the misuse of wheat that the wafer incurs,
Could make buns for McDonalds as each child prefers!”

“What else could bishops say to us instead?
‘Who am I to judge?’ Mister Francis has said.
And they ask how the pontiff could opt for obedience
Over a popular act of expedience!
How could he choose to remain so devout
As opposed to him letting it ‘all just hang out?’”
“Quite. Just how backward and deeply paternal
Is trading the fashionable for the Eternal?”
“By not saying sorry and making amends
He’ll miss all our soirees and new Facebook Friends!”
“He’d be far more cool and far less obsolete
If he dropped that old boring and dull Paraclete!”

“The objectors are prudes and the only ones shocked,
Or so says a wise theologian (defrocked),
But teeming with insights both clever and able,
Now most every night you can watch him on cable.”
“An expert concurs and her scholarly screed,
Relentlessly radioed, ever teeveed,
Warns the deaf Church of impending disasters
(Based on her Media Relevance Masters);
It threatens the Church’s entire Magisterium
To keep on ignoring one teacher’s hysterium.”

pic 1 roaches“But what if this Jesuit, all so unschooled,
Bought into this hokum, what if he were fooled
By conservative notions and moralist taints?
By two thousand years of the scholars and saints?
By Christ’s own admissions! But surely he wouldn’t,
And Gallup’s respondents insist that he shouldn’t!”
“Well, we’d all denounce him and call him a dud!
He’d be dropped by elites like a blazing hot spud!”
“With naught left but Prayer and Redemption for sure,
And leading his flock while he’s feeding the poor,
He’d teach them more prayers to redeem mortal men,
And just as his Lord did…he’d do it again.”

“Yeah? So what!” they answered, repeating “So what!”
“Then he’ll never ‘get with it,’ emerge from his rut!”
Overheard in the parlour were guesses from Rome,
And back under the ‘fridge all the roaches crept home.

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