Pope accepts THE HAPPY CHURCH invite to visit UK
The Vatican has recently confirmed that the Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI (formerly known as Cardinal Adolf Von Ratzinger) will be conducting the first official visit to the UK by a Pope for many years, beginning on September 16th for 3 days. Whilst the Vatican has been keen to stress to the national press that the purpose of his visit is to tour the country and see the many Catholics living in the UK, THE HAPPY CHURCH, never one to bend the truth, is pleased to announce the real reason behind Pope Benny’s (to his mates) visit to the UK.
SECRET TALKS
Due to ongoing criticism of the Catholic church, the Vatican has become desperate to regain popularity with the general public. THE HAPPY CHURCH is now able to announce that it has been contacted by the Vatican, and that for 2 of the 3 days that the Pope will be in the UK, he shall be attending meetings with THE HAPPY CHURCH staff in order to learn how to keep his own church a safer, family-friendly place.
One of the flock of specially trained 'Assault Doves' unleashed on the previous Pope by the Counter-Heresy Division.
PAST DIFFERENCES
Of course there are many differences between the Catholic Church and THE HAPPY CHURCH, with the Vatican tending to put an emphasis on Mary, Papal infallibility, and swinging balls of incense about. However THE HAPPY CHURCH – as an Anglican conservative liberal evangelical neo-Girls Aloud cessationist orthodox Church – places its emphasis on Jesus Christ, The need for the forgiveness of sins, and merking to our duppy-man sound system in the church hall.
Whilst this would obviously appear at first glance to be a major stumbling block between inter-church co-operation…..it is. In the past, THE HAPPY CHURCH Counter-Heresy Division has been forced to conduct numerous operations against the Vatican, at one point even unleashing a specially trained squadron of Assault Doves (512 Assault Dove Squadron, motto: “A bird crapping on you isn’t lucky if there are over 100 of us”) to disrupt one of the previous Pontiff’s speeches to prevent further heresies from being spread.
RECONCILED IN CHRIST
The Pope talks with THE HAPPY CHURCH Rector
But despite these initial differences in doctrine (and in places gospel), our Rector, Rev. David Beadle travelled to the Vatican, along with other THE HAPPY CHURCH staff, on the way back from one of his recent visits to Kabul, to respond to a desperate request from the Vatican to reconcile our differences.
The meeting proved useful, but eventually had to be called to a halt after it came to light that someone had replaced the incense with a sweet-smelling herb that gave all the attending cardinals the munchies, as well as the fact that after just minutes together, Pope Benedict and the Curate had coined the campaign slogan of
EIN VOLK! EIN REICH! ZWEI WAYS TO LIVE!
Ultimately however, THE HAPPY CHURCH contingent agreed to offer the Vatican its support providing that the Vatican make some reforms such as starting to preach the gospel more frequently, to conduct a review of its theology of Mary, to include the singing of ‘In Christ Alone’ at mass and to allow THE HAPPY CHURCH to install a HAPPY DIPLOMAT in a HAPPY EMBASSY within Vatican city to ensure that these terms are met. Potential candidates include the Curate and that epitome of masculinity; high pitched evangelist Mark Driscoll.
At last some humour for my audience! It’s strange though that people always pick up on Marian doctrine as a quirk of Catholicism when there are much bigger and more controversial differences with evangelicals out there- I guess its not as easy to slot in jokes about the excesses of the sacramental economy or an inclusive soteriology. But yeah, formally the Anglican Communion has the same Marian doctrine as the Roman Communion (I guess she’s just the spiritual mother of a different church). This looks fairly interesting to people who are interested in learning more, but I didn’t get time to read it myself yet as its too early: http://www.faith.org.uk/Ideas/Fr%20Holloway/SacramentsHolloway.htm
Peter Hardy
September 16, 2010 at 9:57 am
Hmmm… http://www.facebook.com/nharte1#!/pages/Mary/42792778119
Peter Hardy
September 17, 2010 at 2:46 am
How do I delete that, it didn’t work?
Peter Hardy
September 17, 2010 at 2:47 am
Well, it works if you delete the ‘nharte1#!’ bit. You can delete all this right Happy Church Team?
Peter Hardy
September 17, 2010 at 2:49 am
Somewhere in John 17 mentions about Christians being ‘one.’ I like the idea that the Happy Church are enhancing inter-denominational relations.
The Vatican hasn’t exactly been going the right way about ‘making friends’ but it’s good that the Happy Church are (literally) standing by them.
I think the article exposes the surface facade within the Catholic Church about the importance of incense burning, and Mary statues, and ‘praying’ to the Saints for your Grandmother in purgatory.
But it doesn’t really hit the core differences between Catholicism and Protestantism- namely Catholics being against Sola Scripture, and the key component of the Mass being Holy Communion in the real presence of Christ.
We can all preach the Gospel more often, and the Catholic Church is no exception. From what I remember of the many years of Masses that I have attended, they have a ‘First Reading’ from the Bible (often a letter of Paul), a ‘Second Reading’ from the Bible (often OT), and always a Gospel Reading. Then the Priest gives a Homily, which must relate to the passages read. You might debate whether or not the preaching should last longer than the standard 5-10 minutes, but still.
ps- despite the apparent need for the ‘assault doves’, Pope JP II was generally accepted quite good
Adam
September 16, 2010 at 9:32 pm
What do you mean by facade?! That some aspects of Catholic life appear more distinct to non-Catholics is far from implying that they are the defining characteristics of our faith. On the contrary it is because the church has such a rich history that it has all these cultural traditions which spring out of the Gospel’s interaction with many generations of human society.
To understand this it’s CRUCIAL not to forget that over the period where Catholicism developed, people didn’t have TV and the internet to amuse themselves, so naturally the faith of the Church took a much larger role in their lives. The role allotted to devotions to Mary and the other saints -to their life stories and their written works- enriched the lives of these people in ways that would not have been possible if they only ever thought about Jesus.
My point is that after the reformation and the development of modern society the Church kept these cultural and theological traditions (or in the case of insense, a beautiful symbol), while seeing as people are now free to consume all sorts of services and printed and electronic media, it is not surprising that such tradtions have not developed in Protestantism yet.
This is not to say that Jesus is not the central focus for modern Catholics who do not spend all their leisure time contemplating their faith. Christ speaks through all the other figures, and in an authentically human way which is highly inspirational when one considers that these are people just like us, from the recent past of our world. And I don’t think I’ve ever met a Catholic who was focused more on a devotion to Mary or the saints than they were on the Gospel.
You are right about sermons being to short though, they are often very poor theologically and the links made between the three readings are usually quite tenuous. I try to go to posher, more upmarket churches then you get something like a half hour academic lecture. It’s certainly the most interesting part of the mass for me. As for your issues with communion being the centrepiece of the church service, I’d ask what else did Jesus ask us to meet up for?
Peter Hardy
September 17, 2010 at 3:17 am