The Third New Sermon of the Neo-Catholic Church

That Morthos Stare writes:

Most of you, if not all, were probably not expecting me today, here and especially in this tawdry uniform. I can explain; you see I have been let off early for good behaviour.

Indeed, I have been remarkably good in recent times; in an act of perverse mismanagement the Church is currently suffering a surfeit of funds, partially because I've been gainfully employing myself but mostly because I've stopped Brother Morthos from taking any money out of the 'Shoot the Tories Into Space' Fund (which, for the numerically interested of you, is responsible for 13% of the most recent advances in mid-to-large range projectile technologies).

Employment has been interesting; in need of a little more pocket money and a reason to leave the Bunker I became the Papal Under-secretary's Under-secretary, making me simultaneously Mr. HORansome's boss and underling. Whenever he fired me I'd just sign (and then counter-sign) a new contract, type another derogatory note to the Pope (the few of you who are not mentally challenged will know that this (or that) is me (or I?)) and then use Ransome's stamp to signify it. It was then the matter of a moment to deliver said note to myself and then subsequently ask Hieronymus to send himself a note to the tune that I was notifying him that I would be watching his work all the closer. One should never call my Mother a deranged fruitbat with a brain the size of a Bismarck Herring.

Work, as you can ascertain, is 'Fun' for all concerned. Although I worry about the raft of conditional statements I have begun using...

The old days of slinking off to my bunk bed with a book of jumbo-sized elephant parts and a wagon of 'holy water' have gone the way of the gannet; now I type away for hours on end and have lustful thoughts about the women who wander in to our office asking about the services we offer (there is a sign outside which says 'Woman, come in and ask about our services!' which Hieronymus assures me was left over from the last establishment that lurked here). What it is that Ransome tells them I've yet to overhear, but it mustn't please a large section of the female populace because he gets slapped (well, more so than usual).

Hieronymus Oliphant Ransome, Papal Under-secretary and guttersnipe, who I am sure you have been asking after recently, has taken to his native gutter journalism like, well, a guttersnipe. After the incendiary remarks made about him by one of the Cardinals (who is now very much on the outside of Neo-Catholicism) Mr. Ransome has taken to writing pieces on just how ineffectual any kind of social policy is, and why your Mother, in particular, is a deranged fruitbat with a brain the size of a Bismarck Herring. Considering that the Neo-Catholic Church really espouses no particular politic either way this has come as a shock to at least one member of the clergy, who was surprised that there were still elections going on.

Hieronymus' views can be summarised as 'The world is a collection of processes, none of which have any particular assigned purpose, and thus the world is working out as the processes dictate, which is neither good nor bad;' at least this is the view he put forward in 'Drinking With Children: Gin for the Under Fives as a Social Experiment.' As far as I can gather, having had to type up most of it, his argument is that the world isn't mean to function in any particular way; it's just meant to be. If there is no purpose to existence other than to exist then you really can only pass judgement over existence if you import an idea of how things are meant to work, and that is a suspicious move (apparently). He calls the view that the world isn't working out as 'middle-class angst,' claiming that it is symptomatic of the middle-classes to be brought up believing in things working out for the best and then being shocked when the world doesn't provide it without large-scale help.

Frankly, I can't help but be bemused by it; he seems to be espousing a kind of middle-class angst about middle-class angst (and if you buy my bemusement then I'm showing some degree of middle-class angst about middle-class angst about middle-class angst; this could go on ad nauseam)...

Which is why I plan to retire from my working life and returned to the onerous responsibility of keeping Morthos away from the torture cages and puppy farms. I'll miss the steady pay check and the playful punching of the groin that my employer delivered, as well as not being able to engage in the jabbing of his kidneys on a daily basis, a regret I will just have to bear.

But it does have the immediate benefit in that I will not need to worry, unduly or at all, about the pros and cons of the modern lifestyle and the invasive nature of the media. No longer will I need to read social commentary or be made aware that certain things are just not done. Piqued self-interest always comes before the Empire's fall and I want to be holidaying elsewhere when that happens, preferably in a bunker.

Ah, there comes the local constabulary; they'll want to know what exactly I've been covering up with this policeman's helmet.

Ta ra.