I have been passed a private and confidential memorandum passed between the Bishops of England and Wales on those battles that the Church can win.
Catholics have been assured that there are some battles that are not worth getting upset or worried about because we can't win them.
So, here they are, as we enter a new phase of the battle to keep faith in the public sphere, the battle to defend the sanctity of human life and to preserve those vital humanity-continuing institutions, such as marriage, from destruction and redefinition by the State...here are the battles we can win.
The following are the battlefronts that Catholics can expect the Bishops of England and Wales to be fighting. These are exciting times to be Catholic and a dreadful time to be an enemy of the Church. Hear our Shepherds roar! Begone, vile enemies of Christ the Lord, for on these grounds, we shall defeat you!
Tiddlywinks. No game of tiddlywinks is easy. We all know how heated and tense this battle can be. However, the memorandum circulated around our Bishops suggest that, so long as Catholics only play tiddlywinks with each other - and don't try to take on people outside of the Church who might outperform them - this is a battle that Catholics can win!
CAFOD: There is a war going on and part of the war is overseas development. The Bishops see that the battle to ensure the sustainable development of overseas nations can be won, as long as we play by the rules. Thankfully, the rules have been set by the UK Government, so the battle is not with them - no the battle is against poverty and ecological disaster. Here, the Bishops see the battle can be won. It doesn't matter if, in the heat of battle against want and famine, we allow CAFOD to use condoms to win these battles. To complain against the widespread distribution of condoms by CAFOD staff to black people is pointless because if we did that we wouldn't be playing by the rules and, thankfully, the Government set the rules, along with such supranational institutions as the UN Population Fund. We can win this!
The Cuts: The Bishops see inroads can be made in this battle. The Left are angered by the Government's cuts. Apart from the scandalous effect this will have on Britain's poor, there is nothing that hurts the modern Church more than seeing over-sized bureaucracies being cut, streamlined and made more effective. The whole point of the public sector is that it makes jobs out of thin air for the middle class! As long as the Church joins with the Labour Party, trade unions and The Guardian, She will keep her 'right on' image, become more popular with Polly Toynbee and defend public sector jobs to boot. Fight the good fight, my Lords! Of course, the Bishops could battle against the NHS who have been temporarily sterilizing school girls without their mums and dads' permission and murdering the elderly by starving them to death. But hey. Let's not pick fights we can't win, because nobody has ever taken on the NHS and won...especially not Catholic nurses who don't want to assist in the performing of abortions. Be careful with your battles, my Lords. Pick the ones you can win - that way, success is guaranteed! We all know the only thing that makes the Lord Jesus (who sacrificed Himself in order to win no small battle Himself - the redemption of the World) happy, is the sight of pragmatic Catholics willing to compromise with the forces of evil in order to preserve public reputation, respectability and safety.
The Environment: Despite the calamitous 'Climategate' saga in which leading scientists were revealed to have doctored research results on the climate, in the public mind, carbon is still a force for evil in the World. When Bishops fight evil, evil cowers and runs for the hills.
By joining forces with the misanthropic Greens, who absorbed most of the hard left after the discrediting of communism, the Church can win the battle for Mother Earth, encourage Catholics to take every measure possible to save the environment and avoid persecution when the UN tells countries to adopt a two-child policy. That way, not only do we avoid persecution, but we win the battle against carbon emissions with the help of eco-fanatics! None of the faithful thought much of Humane Vitae anyway. Most people think its a brand of mineral water. It's a win!
TV Talent Shows: Susan Boyle confirmed that Catholics have the potential to win talent shows. The Bishops intend to set up a Catholic talent training academy so that Catholics can battle on the front line of glitzy wannabe shows like X-Factor and Pop Idol. This is a battle Catholics can win! A battle for minds...and hearts!
Catholic Quiz Night: The Bishops see one battle that can be won, almost certainly, in setting up a monthly Catholic Quiz Night in which members of Parliament and the civil service are invited over for dinner to be followed by a scintillating quiz. As long as Bishops tell their liturgy and music advisors to come up with the questions for the Quiz Night, a Catholic Quiz Night against atheists and agnostics is bound to be a battle that the Church can win. As well as prominent Bishops taking on members of the British State, in the Catholic team will be the editorial team and trustees of The Tablet. So long as no Catholic Quiz Night questions involve any Catholic trivia concerning the events in the Church before 1967, or much about the documents of the Second Vatican Council themselves, then this is one battle the Church can finally win...and against the State at that!
The Battle Over Marriage: Ah yes, the big one! The Bishops see the battle over marriage to be a tricky one to win, but - and hear me out here - but only if you look at it from a traditionally Catholic perspective.
The memorandum I have seen suggests that this battle over marriage can indeed be won, so long as the Church's public criticism of same-sex marriage is so quiet that people believe there is no resistance to it whatsoever.
In order to win the battle over marriage, all we have to do is lay-low for a few months until this stuff gets passed in Parliament. Hedgehogs hibernate. We can hibernate too! After that, we can all come out of hiding and adopt a new and enlightened way of thinking about the institution formerly known as marriage. Admittedly, it's a risky strategy because the Pope wouldn't like it, but we all know that there are far more Bishops in the Church than there are Popes. This is a battle the Bishops can win! All the Catholic Church in England and Wales has to do is quietly switch sides! It's a similar policy to that which the Bishops adopted over the Equality Act and the loss of Catholic adoption agencies. Just pretend the problem isn't there and it does, eventually, go away. It is a similar policy to that adopted when Summorum Pontificum was released. All you have to do is lay low and not open anything from Rome for a while and, hey presto, you're such a force to be reckoned with you can even take on the Pope! See, also, for further examples, the Act of Supremacy, 1559.
Thanks be to God that our Bishops have the good sense to pick their battles wisely. Our Shepherds are leading us to a new and glorious vision of the Church and State relationship. One of friendliness, warmth, interaction, of endless dialogue and victories in several key areas, as highlighted above. May God always keep them even more faithful to Christ and His Church, today, as this exciting memorandum suggests they were yesterday.
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