I AM A THINKING CATHOLIC

I am a Thinking Catholic, above the vulgar strife
Of those pontificating ranters, Smeaton's SPUC, and LIFE,
Who drone about abortion, and sex-ed, as they keep
The Narrow Way of bigotry, and bore us all to sleep.

For mine is not the Narrow Way, of carping bile and scorn
-I am an Easter Person, and know that we were born
For Joy, Compassion, Peace, and Love, Inclusiveness and Truth
(Nuanced, of course, not rigorously red in nail and tooth).


Oh how I loathe the "traddies"! They're such dingy little dorks,
Their manners less than pleasing - can they handle knives and forks?
Suburban, lower middle-class, grey, narrow-minded squirts!
Were I less sensitive, urbane, I'd kick them where it hurts.

But I hurt with all those women whom the Catholic Church denies
The role of Priesthood: mournful, shrill, I hear their plangent cries
For recognition, Ministry, the rights they rightly crave,
While round them the embattled hordes of Tridentiners rave.

So please do not embarrass me with talk of foetal pain,
There are politer issues: Intolerance the main.
Clericalism, Latinism, homophobes,  small of mind
Who make the Church seem common, They're really not our kind!

I am a Modern Catholic. Papal Infallibility,
A human construct, fallible, or so it seems to me,
Conceived by paranoia, while Rome was under threat
Enacted by a Pope it would be nicer to forget.

I am a Catholic Christian, elegant, suave and grand.
My name has some authority, my voice is warm and bland,
And when I speak on BBC, or blog, or give support
To Thinking Bishops, remember! Respect me as you ought.

I am no ignorant Papist Mick, but went to Public School,
Belong to an Exclusive Club, enjoy un jeu de boules,
Have a second home in Tuscany, not far from You Know Who,
And unlike the Catholic Taliban, I know a Thing Or Two.