12 September 2019

Alliteration and Assonance

Can truly it be that I recently described a Bishop in full communion with the See of Rome as a Consecrated Crackpot? I had toyed with Preposterous Prelate and Notable Nutcase, but Consecrated Crackpot seemed to say more, as well as being a neat Ciceronian trispondaicus. Sometimes one tires of all these plani. Don't you find that?

Perhaps readers might have their own suggested alternatives ... go on ...

As long as you cram in alliteration and assonance and steer clear of blasphemy, libel, and obscenity, and anything that I personally dislike, the Thread is yours. Don't bother too much about scansion.

Am I being childish? Very childish? Very very childish? I suppose so.

But when, recently, PF, with that graceful Argentine courtesy of his, described Cardinal Mueller as Childish, his Eminence responded most aptly by reminding PF what it was that the Incarnate Word Himself taught about being childlike. (It never fails to surprise me how little of Holy Scripture PF appears to have read. Poor chap. Some of it really is quite good.)

When we were in the C of E, we had a lovely magazine called New Directions. It was replete with satire and news about the risible goings-on of the Anglican Great and Good. We were sometimes told that it was not our theological views that caused offence, but our tone.

The Great and the Good simply cannot abide being laughed at. 

They can tolerate being hated, but being treated as ludicrous, as being a joke, is beyond their capabilities. This is probably because it is so difficult for them to respond to laughter with their favourite weapon, the Pompous Put-down. The Rt Revd Mgr R Knox, Protonotary Apostolic, of the Anglican Patrimony, explained all this better than I can in his Preface to his own collected Essays in Satire. He argued that the Satirist is the little boy who is the only one in the crowd to perceive that the Emperor is, in fact, stark naked.


If you are ever told by one of the Mighty that your tone is objectionable, at least the initial assumption must be that you are getting things right. Good On Yer, Cobber.

And if you are told, as Cardinal Mueller has been by PF, that you are childish, perhaps the most suitable answer is a Biblical one: Nai; emou gar estin he basileia ton ouranon.

17 comments:

Sue Sims said...

He might be a Boneheaded Bishop, a Daffy Diocesan or a Sanctified Simpleton. If of slightly lower rank, an Asinine Auxiliary; if higher, perhaps a Moronic Metropolitan or an Absurd Archbishop. Or a Potty Pontiff. The whole lot of 'em are Cockamamy Clerics, if I may be pardoned for using a Yiddishism.

frjustin said...

A highly hilarious Hunwicke, with a Chestertonian propensity for paradox.

The Librarian of Little Note said...

Obsequious Ordinary?

frjustin said...

A little ditty from the...er...gay 'Nineties, provides a ducky duet between James Martinet, SJ, and Papally pagan, SJ:

There are Jesuits left and Jesuits right,
A pro and a con for 'most any fight.
So wherever you stand, you stand not alone:
Every little Jebbie has a movement all his own.

Pelerin said...

Batty Bishop

SilverDog said...

And, from LifeStiteNews,

..."In the context of Pope Francis' September 4 flight to Mozambique, the news websites of the German and Austrian Bishops' Conferences, Katholisch.de and Kathpress.at, both report that Pope Francis was also asked about Cardinal Müller and his recurrent interventions that now seem to have a “critical view of the current pontificate.”

Pope Francis is reported to have answered: “He has good intentions, he is a good man. The Pope likes him. But he is like a child.”...

The Pope likes him????????????

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/pope-francis-criticizes-former-doctrinal-head-muller-he-has-good-intentions-but-is-like-a-child

Tamsin said...

We are in the midst of a very Puerilous Papacy.

Lady Jane Perdue said...

The Empoperor’s New Doctrines

Once upon a time there was an Empoperor who was exceedingly fond of new doctrines,
the more disordered, the better. He spent all his time and money assembling a team of disordered personnel to assist with fashioning a synthetic faith out of whole cloth.
One day the Empoperor (Emp) summoned a favored sycophant to his chamber.

Emp: Spew-dara, how do these new Allah & Amazonian doctrines on look on me? Do you think they make my ego and heresy metrics look too big?

Spew-dara: It swells them both magnificently!

Emp Send for the Kaspar.

Kaspar: Is this important? I was busy tweeting more insults to Cardinal Mueller.

Empoperator: My “Spirit of Vat-II Ama-Zynod is trending, and I must wear something boffo to impress the pagans...er, bishops. Maybe something in a chromatic schismatic color scheme?

Kaspar: Let’s set a new liturgical style!

Emp: Good idea. That’s when I approve ordination of So. American non-celibates as a wedge shoe in the door. People think what happens in the Amazon stays in the Amazon.

Kaspar: That should pave the way for endorsement of our non-celibate, trans-sexting, transitional-women-deacon-priests.
Like all trans-doctrine, the 7 Sacraments don’t change, they magically morph into your merciful magisterial musings, as in: All couplings contain grace of a sacramental marriage.

Emp: Say, Jimi Martian, SJW could help me model the new doctrinal attire. Oh, Jimi…?

Jimi: Here I am! Let’s try this Translucent rainbow chasuble on for size. (Drapes it lovingly over Emp’s head and stands back in admiration) Charming!

Emp: Let’s see how the pilgrims like it.
The three take a stroll through St. Peter’s Square while passing pilgrims pause and stare.

Passing Pilgrims: Umm, isn’t he...amazing? So avant garde?

Child Pilgrim: But...he hasn’t got any Catholic doctrines at all!

Passing Pilgrims: Out of the mouths of babes! It’s true!

Emp & company scurry back to safety behind the Vatican Wall.

Emp: Whew, that was a close one. Hope the FakeNuz teams were not there to witness it.

Spew-dara: Too late, Empoperor. I see the Catholic blogosphere is already exposing the naked truth!

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Father. The paltering popinjay prelate.

You are right. The wicked hate being laughed at.

Bop said...

A host of sodding sycophants

It rhymes with lying through one’s pants
In surly homiletic rants.

frjustin said...

A Synod of cynical sycophants, contrived by the queerest of clerics

frjustin said...

Adapted from "The Pope and I", by Rogered and Hammerder

Toadies! Toadies! All of your people are toadies!
'Yes, your Holiness, No, your Holiness,
Tell us how low to go, your Holiness!
Make some more decrees, your Holiness!
Don't let us up off our knees, your Holiness!
Give us a kick if it please, your Holiness!
Give us a kick if you would, your Holiness....

OOF!!

Oh.that.was.good. your Holiness!'

cyrus83 said...

You might do best modifying a phrase seen on another priestly blog and go with the ordinary Ordinary. Aside from being laughed at, nothing infuriates the great and the good more than someone refusing to acknowledge their greatness and goodness.

The crooked crozier, mitered misanthrope, vapid vicar, and zany zucchetto are also good.

neilmac said...

Sanctified Syncretist

Bernonensis said...

From the aberrant abbot; the insufferable suffragan; il pastore pazzo; the dizzy dean; the loose canon; the abysmal abbe; the precious, primping, preening primate; the monastic mooncalf; the local disordinary; the mitred archimandwrong, the vile vicar; the sacerdotal Sadducee; from these and all beasties and limbs of Putrifex Maximus, deliver us, O Lord.

Bernonensis said...

Aberrant abbot. Sodomitic sacerdotal Sadducee. Insufferable suffragan. Precious, preening, primping primate. Abysmal abbe. Il pastore pazzo. His wholly-nuts Holiness.

JBB said...

My wife offers a paraphrase of what one hopes is an obscure piece of American Saturday-morning animation:

George, George, George of the Jungle,
Wrong as he can be --
George, George, George of the Jungle:
Watch out for that See!

(Inspired by the leopard-print vestments, natch.)