Faith - whilst some have regained theirs, I've lost mine

Oh dear!

The Diocesan Council's investments have run into even more trouble. A shareholding which, we were assured, would yield a profit in fact looks like yielding a rather substantial loss.

The new advisors we took on last year don't seem to be helping much...

Still, no-one predicted what would happen. Not.

Still, it's only money. And not our money at that. The tithe-payers can always be squeezed a little lot more. And you can bet they will be. And then some.

Especially when we have to call in help from Rome. The International Diocesan Fund aren't renowned for pulling their punches.

Still - the Curia will get their bonuses this year. And the Cardinal, his predecessor and his pals have apparently regained their popularity amongst the tithe-payers.

Incompetent fuckwits.

That's why I have finally lost my religion. Friday was my last day at the Council. Whilst I'm sad to leave, and I'll miss my team and my friends, I've lost all faith in the Church.

My new job is... well, let me think about what I can say about it ;-)


BB

They smell...

The French, that is. Well, French politicians, at least. Even more than our own, with the exception of Gordon the Moron, who looks like the last time he saw soap and water was when he lived in the Manse.

Why am I fucked off with the French? Well, apart from the obvious (I think I've ranted about the CAP before)? They do produce good wine, after all (I enjoyed a particularly delicious bottle of 1997 Cornas last night, so much so that I finished the whole bottle...). And their food's good too. Although the Bishop prefers Spain for both.

Well, the French Church currently presides over our European Eucumenical Affairs Council. And the bastards sent a draft communication, to be sent to the Chinese Church, for agreement within the hour in fucking French! Trying to pull a fast one, they included provisions for communion wine to be sourced only from France, and for communion wafers to have 'special geographic status' that means they could only be made in Archbishop Barnier's cow shed!

Unfortunately for them, the Bishop speaks French. So I told them to fuck off.

So a pretty good day, all in all. :)

Time for a good bottle of Ridge Cabernet - 1997. Mmmmm. I might just have to finish the bottle. Only to piss off the health fascists who have been putting stupid ads up all over the Metrocity Metro, you understand?

Cheers!


BB

Losing Their Religion Too...

Whilst senior management at the Diocesan Council are as depressing as ever after their summer break - resorting to pleas, nay, begging (!) to the rank and file of priests, nuns and bishops for information as to why we think they're shit! - the Bishop has been cheered up this week by a seeming rebellion rising in the ranks - it appears that the Bishop is far from alone in feeling that he is losing his religion...

One priest is leaving the Bishop's team, having decided that she would rather carry out missionary work in Newcastle or Manchester (!) than continue to work at the Diocesan Council.

This follows the departure of another colleague to join a far more 'liberal' church, also to engage in missionary work.

Another is showing symptoms of the same 'disease'.

And yet another told me on Thursday that he was looking forward to my leaving speech (a little worrying as I have not yet made definitive plans to leave - does he know something I don't?!).

Sometimes it's good to be open about how you really feel - you'd be surprised at the positive reaction and support you receive.

Those in authority need to know when to back fuck off - it was the story of Civil Serf that inspired the Bishop. And, like the Devil, Cranmer and many of my co-religionists, I won't be shut up by wankers in the European Parliament or fuckwits in what appears to now be popularly known as ZaNu Liebour (at least now I understand why it's OK to intervene in Iraq to get rid of a dictator -something the Bishop, to the annoyance of others :-), supported and continues to support, albeit recognising that Cheney et al fucked it up - but not, apparently, in Zimbabwe...)

I see there may even be some more 'Civil Serfs' in need of anger management sessions... (scroll down a bit to find the relevant article - unfortunately, the link doesn't seem to work, but the precis is enough...)

Oh, and lest I forget, note to the senior beggar Archbishop who made the pleas this week:

• You're not the problem - at least, from what people around the Council said afterwards, we quite like you!
• But the same can't be said for your deputies! Particularly Archbiship D'Inde - apparently, the Bishop is not the only one that thinks he's a total and utter cunt!
• So when you do your 'Heartbeat' surveys which ask us what we think, how about asking about different layers of the Curia, rather than lumping yourself with gobshites like D'Inde.
• And recognise that we're (at least, mostly) intelligent people - trying to spoonfeed us propoganda is going to make us (even) more cynical. Tell it like it is, be honest - and you'll earn our respect. Just like I and many others have more respect for Cardinal Sam after his comments to The Tablet recently...

BB

Archbishop D'Inde

Dear Reader (if you're still here...),

First, apologies for the non-blogging of late. Partly because I've been on a leave of absence, and partly because I'm a lazy sod... :( But I hope my forthcoming posts will make up for it...

The Bishop has been upsetting some at the Diocesan Council recently, particularly Archbishop D'Inde and his cronies...

Archbishop D'Inde is in day-to-day charge of the Council's investments. Now, whilst he seems to do extremely well at 'managing relationships' with banks - well, no shit, I mean they want our money! - he seems to have dug himself in something of a hole with some of his investment decisions, although, to be fair, Cardinal Sam and the Pope himself share a great deal of the blame.

In particular, D'Inde et al have invested a very large proportion of the Diocese's funds into one particular institution, and claimed that it was a zero-risk investment... and then adopted an investment policy based on the same strategy for the future. Whilst the Bishop objected loudly, and a few others quietly, most in the Diocesan Council didn't dare question D'Inde's approach...

Unfortunately, some (rather sick looking) chickens appear to have come home to roost:

• As the Bishop mentioned ages ago, his willingness foolishness to openly question D'Inde has been severely punished, with the Diocese's first openly-female archbishop, Archbishop Kerry, together with D'Inde, coming down on BB like a ton of bricks... despite D'Inde later backing down on some of his most foolish policy decisions. The lesson for anyone thinking of dissenting from received (from above) wisdom in future is clear...
  
• At the same time, the Cardinal has been musing on the lack of experience amongst the more senior clergy... this may be linked to the last point, a culture encouraged by his Eminence's predecessor. The Cardinal is apparently concerned that this may underpin some of the problems in the Diocese and the Diocesan Council. No shit, Sherlock! However, nothing will be done about it whilst the current senior clergy are in place (note to Cardinal Sam's successors (Archbishop Ozzie is apparently in the frame): you'll need to clear out a lot of people - replace them from outside the Diocesan Council...)
• Oh, and the financial outcome... what was 'risk-free' is apparently very high risk... I fear that £3bn is not the last we'll hear of it...
  

Oh well. The parishioners will simply have to put their hands in their pockets again. Tithes to rise significantly... but it will be the Cardinal's successor who will be left to do so, and sort out the mess (let's hope there isn't an appeal to Rome again, like there was in the 70s, when the Diocesan Council last fucked up on such a scale...).

And Archbishop D'Inde will no doubt receive a fat bonus and a promotion for his efforts (Archbishop Kerry already has... :(


BB

Church politics...

Dear Reader,

After another wonderful week of work at the Diocesan Council, the Bishop feels the need to let it all out...

Whilst those who work in business can expect to be at the end of a little office politics from time to time, I wonder if it gets anything like as vicious as Church politics? A few years ago, the Diocesan Council introduced a delightful approach called 'relative appraisal', under which, at the end of the year, the performance of priests, monks, nuns and bishops is assessed against that of their colleagues. The result: a race of 'survival of the fittest' which would shock a piranha! Whilst our Scientologist neighbours across the road have simply to be from public school / Oxbridge and be able to at least pretend to be gay in order to receive a top 'box marking'; and our Calvinist friends who share some of our block have to be able to spell properly (though not, of course, add up or store records correctly - that would never do...), we are required to bullshit for a living.

When, therefore, our flock wonder why our finance department holds its funds at the Northern Rock and invested in an Equitable Life pension fund, our maintained schools seem unable to teach pupils, donations meant to care for the poor so often end up in the hands of the lazy, feckless and/or criminal, and the costs of caring for the sick and elderly in Church hospitals / hospices has risen enormously with little apparent benefit, they need to bear this in mind: we have become so adept at bullshitting that:

• Many of us believe the bullshit ourselves.
• Even if we don't believe it, only the foolhardy (here, unfortunately, is the Bishop's problem) dare to point out that it is brown, sticky, comes out of the back end of a cow, and doesn't smell very nice...
• At which point, the foolhardy are told that they are not acting in a 'collegial' fashion, are simply ignored or are bullied into shutting up (or, in the Bishop's case, a mix of all 3...).
• And only the BS experts stand any chance of ever making it into the College of Cardinals - hence nearly everyone aims to be a BS expert, rather than focussing on their vocation, be it developing better ways of helping the poor, improving standards of teaching in maintained schools, running the Church's investment portfolio in the best way possible, etc.
• Thus, the Diocesan Council, which is supposed to be committed to 'diversity', actually only attracts one-dimensional, 'cookie-cutter' 'yes-men' (and 'yes-women'), exacerbating the problem of low stipends which means that the Diocesan Council is disproportionately upper-middle class (or higher), and has no staff (even those from ethnic minority backgrounds) who have any experience of the social problems faced by the poorer members of our flock. This is why their answers to every challenge always involve more control by the Diocese and higher tithes.
• And those who are genuinely committed to their vocation move to another Diocese, join another Church, or turn to alcohol.

Where will the Bishop end up?

God bless you for listening... Now, where's that nice bottle of communion wine... :)


BB

Appraisal for beginners

Dear Reader,

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while - it's appraisal time at the Diocesan Council, and therefore time to write my objectives for the past year, so that the Bishop (Senior Grade) can fully appraise my religious activities and fitness to continue my Ministry.

Not that this will tell me anything new...

1. The Bishop is very strong in his study and analysis of the Bible and other religious texts.
2. The Bishop gets on very well with most members of the Diocese (although he must resist making up nicknames for staff from the Vatican Bank, even if only in private: it shows a lack of Christian charity and respect for the cerebrally challenged).
3. The Bishop provides appropriate support to the priests and nuns in his pastoral care.

And:

4. The Bishop sometimes expresses views that do not fit with orthodox thought - 'whilst this provides welcome challenge in some contexts [i.e. 'we wish he would shut up and stop with his nonsense about 'evidence'!'], the Bishop must take greater care in how he expresses such views.'

Translation: if the Bishop wishes to retain his current role, let alone become a Bishop (Senior Grade), he must not challenge the views of his colleagues, especially those that are more senior, and therefore infallible.

Thus the traditional Church Orthodoxy is preserved, unaltered and in all its glory, throughout the generations (well, since the 1960s at least). Unless, of course, it conflicts with the latest views on 'social justice', gender, class, race, and sexuality (together known as 'Liberation Theology') from those renowned experts at Neasdon University*.

At least the Bishop has the consolation of a decent bottle of altar wine to look forward to this evening..... no wonder many of his predecessors ended up like Father Jack...



*Formerly, The Neasdon College for Morons with a single Grade C in GCSE Media Studies.

Anal Retention

Another wonderful day for the Bishop at the Diocesan Council...

The Bishop has been informed that, from now on, a 'clear desk' policy will apply. Given the Council's archaic methods for locking papers away, this means that the Bishop will be forced to go into its deep underground vaults to retrieve all papers, ranging from his doodlings during 3 hour meetings to his musings on the latest theological journals, to his thoughts for next Sunday's sermon.

Now, the Bishop understands that, when he is writing a speech for the Cardinal, or when he is drafting a Sunday sermon on ecumenical relations for the Archbishop, he needs to lock it away, lest it end up in the hands of the Tablet before it is released.

But he does not understand why anything else needs to be subject to Top Secret procedures (although he is led to believe that the Scientologists across the road won't even allow doodles to be left out - apparently even these are 'sensitive, but unclassified').

Unfortunately, the Head of Security at the Diocesan Council - let's call him Woody Woodpecker, not least given that he is as annoying as the irritating cartoon character - obviously has a problem with anyone who does not share his fascination with filing. The anal 'pecker clearly had to ruin the Bishop's day by forcing his stamp-collecting views on everyone else...

Whilst this is symptomatic of wider problems at the Council - which tends to promote automaton types who demonstrate strict adherence to orthodox theology, rather than demonstrating any true connection with Our Lord or any ability to empathise with the daily challenges faced by the faithful - the Bishop had hoped that a possible future change at the Vatican might - just - lead to some changes. Tonight, however, the Bishop is losing hope that such change will happen in time, before any clergy capable of relating to those they serve are forced to abandon their Faith...

The Bishop will be meditating on the Meaning of Gethsemane tonight...