The Pope And The Archbishop Walked Into A Bar ...

Don't worry I'm not going to tell you a terrible dirty joke, much less a clean one, knowing as I do absolutely no clean jokes. All jocularity is the Devil's work.

Habemus Papam

Our newish Pope (Francis - who succeeded that nice little German one we went and waved to on the Hagley Road) has worried me a bit at times. Not that I suspect he's much bothered by the part-informed ramblings of this particular fallen angel. No, I was just a bit concerned that he was, by papal standards, a bit of a hippie. That better known (than the OG) convert Papist, Charles Moore, hinted at this type of concern when the Pope went all Green last year - The Pope is Wrong . You see when it comes to Popes this particular parvenu (me not Charles Moore) likes to have his cake and eat it; he wants religiosity and a forbidding mien but also humanity flecked with approachability. Above all he wants a quite certain impression that the pontiff actually believes in God. This combination of characteristics is necessary because he has to carry the weight of his congregation's doubts - and believe me that's a ton of baggage just from this correspondent's direction. Thus when the current incumbent got into an unworthy Twitter spat with the malodorous Trump I was a bit concerned that his mind wasn't fully on the job at hand. But it seems I was wrong because his two hundred and sixty-four page Amoris Laetitia (every page of which you can download here: Papal Exhortation ) has done its job and satisfied loonies at neither extreme of his higgledy-piggledy church. Nice one - even the Guardian seems grudgingly impressed - Papal Score Draw .

Boy played a blinder

I'm a big fan of the Church of England if for no other reason than that the King James Bible knocks spots off all other translations (says he like he's read them all). I also think it is key to our constitutional monarchy - Prince Charles (yes I know you follow the OG) please note. However it can get itself into a squirmingly equivocal mess on the matter of faith. By which I mean I have encountered a disturbing number of its clergy who didn't seem to have any - faith that is. I may just have been unlucky because I exclude from this criticism the Archbishops of Canterbury of my lifetime: the one with the shock of white hair, whose name escapes me (just looked it up - Ramsey) who thanked me when I held the door open for him when he was walking down a King's College corridor; Coggan, who looked very scholarly; Runcie, who won the MC as a tank commander for God's sake; Carey, who perhaps wasn't the sharpest tool in the box but who is a King's alumnus and we need to stick together; Rowan Williams, now I really like him because he is far closer to my idea of Gandalf than Ian McKellen and I don't like the way the media persecutes bearded clergy; most recently, Justin Welby. Two things got Welby off to a bad start: firstly he's another sodding Old Etonian; secondly and more rationally, Archbishops just aren't called Justin, are they? Come to think of it neither are Old Etonians. Anyway, putting such reasoned prejudice aside, I am pleased to say he strikes me as a top sort of bloke and he talks sense with a strong inflection of faith. What has really brought this home is the astute way that he and his officials have handled the bizarre case of his paternity - Archbishop's Paternity . Now, of course, this stuff shouldn't be news at all but the C of E has played a blinder on this one - perhaps Welby should give lessons to the boys at Conservative Central Office who have served their Old Etonian boss so dimly these past few days.

Mind you, I still don't think Justin is a good name for a religious leader notwithstanding that St Justin was around as long ago as 100 AD. The trouble may be that I am a Moody Blues fan and cannot dissociate the name from the sainted Justin Hayward. You see the emotional and intellectual baggage I have to carry? It's a wonder I can even lift a pen. (Has lifting a pen become a metaphorical activity? I ponder this because this afternoon and for the first time I composed some poetry on screen without first scribbling notes. It was still crap. So it goes.)