How can I bow and scrape enough to express my delight in even whispering in your direction in the name of the Bishops in England and Wales and other Catholics here?
When you visit we
will be delirious in thanking you as hotly as we possibly can, for your years as the Holiest Man of Hoy and before that the Chief Knuckle Duster of our Church where you always received us so well or said you would have our fingers cut off.We simply cannot stop praying for you endlessly and walking around thanking you and it is such a feature of Catholic life to show you utter loyalty, except when you can't hear us.
The Encyclical Letters you have issued for the whole Church knock us backwards in their insight and depth. Your most recent, Carrot in Green Sauce, is a marvellous analysis of current economic matters no economist could produce and then the need to eat a good thrice course meal with the human person at the centre of the table.
Your utterances have never been controversial, and you have made such marvellous insights, for example between gay people and the ecology of the world going wrong, and British equality legislation being against the Natural Law as taught to us by that legal firm Harris and Tottle. Carrot in Green Sauce certainly taught us how we could live more simply so that others may simply live, and work more simply so that others can simply work. I bet the Jobcentres here don't understand that, like you do!
And thank you from the bottom of our hearts for saying that we need to do a good Mass. Whenever there is a sticky problem I say, "Let's have a good Mass," and they say, "Yes, let's do it just as Papa Ratzi would do it," and so we do, over and over again. The new Roman Missal misses nothing Roman, and we are liturgically up and down. We have no difficulties here with Latin either: it is all Greek to us. Plus at this time of shortage of priests, you have the most amazing of schemes to recover from the situations around the world where too many have been buggering up their positions and become a loss to the faith.
These events and Carrot in Green Sauce also reminds us of the delicacy of the situation of our relationship with Protestants, such as the Anglican ecclesiastical community. Your marvellous method will allow so many Anglicans of the kind many Catholics find surprising to come into full communion of the Catholic Church, bringing with them elements of the Anglican patrimony which fully accord with Catholic faith as you would like it to be.
Let me reassure you that these measures will have only positive relationship outcomes with the rest of the Anglican ecclesiastical community because they are so keen that these people restore their relationship with the Holy Catholic Church. The English and Welsh bishops might like to see other Anglicans join us, but, yes, this sort will be able to plug the gap in our lack of priests up and down this land, for which your Year of the Priest is a heart-warming response to the effect of what has been happening in Ireland, the United States and not forgetting England and Wales in the way that we too have shuffled priests around that didn't get prosecuted - but at least we can see them go to secular courts as more priests come from Anglican sources.
The Anglicanus Cohabitus Bus is thus well on the road to ensuring strong relationships as Anglican laymen who look like they have been doing ministers' jobs hop from their bus to ours and are ordained as priests. The cheers from inside the lay led ecclesiastical community are overwhelming.
But most of all, Thrice Holy Father, we are like nervous Catholic schoolgirls at the prospect of your visit here. Let me assure you that we will put petrol in your Popemobile, take out breakdown cover and find you a Travelodge room for about £50 we think somewhere about the M25. £45 is a bit optimistic, for a single room down south, as is the expected £20 million wasted on your security.
No doubt the British citizens with their long standing 'No Popery' will come out along the streets to wave at you. Please keep the windows up. But don't worry: we are not paying the security bill. MI5 suggests that you avoid Lewes when you go down to Arundel Castle as they night bring Bonfire Night forward.
Catholic life goes from strength to strength under your inspiration. We are necessarily challenged up and down the land as our churches empty again, now that so many Poles have gone home. But so many Britons now are open to faith, especially since the revered former Prime Minister converted to the true Church. We report to you the interest of the country in seeing him again at the Iraq Inquiry. And then, moving from the dead to the living, we will be praising the Beatification of the Venerable John Henry Newman, who spoke so eloquently to our English tradition and culture, which is we trust the highlight of your visit (though we don't know for sure) and we cannot find his bones at all. We suspect either a miracle or a gay plot against the Natural Law by supporters of Ambrose Saint John, the man the Venerable John Henry Newman loved, but who we think was a bit of a Rice Pudding. We agree with you of course that followers of Francis William Newman represent nothing but dissent and cannot make a contribution to any argument whatsoever anywhere.
Once again we cannot but express our massive wonderment at your ministry, an HP sauce of visible unity that receives our unwavering loyalty and prayers when we are visible. Please send us a blessing, even if wrapped anonymously in brown nose paper.
+Vince Hill
Archbishop of England and Wales
(The Real One)
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