“I’m not a man who constantly thinks up jokes. But I think it’s very important to be able to see the funny side of life and its joyful dimension and not to take everything too tragically. I’d also say it’s necessary for my ministry. A writer once said that angels can fly because they don’t take themselves too seriously. Maybe we could also fly a bit if we didn’t think we were so important.”
Pope Benedict XVI
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
“A writer once said that angels can fly because they don’t take themselves too seriously.”
If God had meant us to fly, he’d have given us air-miles.
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A pope walks into a pub, and sees another pope sitting at the bar, with a dog beside him.
“Does your dog bite?” asks the first pope, “No.” says the pope at the bar.”
So Pope One pats the dog, who immediately bites him.
“I thought you said your dog didn’t bite,” he says,
“That’s not my dog,” says Pope Two.
There. The Vatican can have that joke.
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Who would deny that Catholics (at least, the great majority of them) have the most wonderful sense of humour! I think it is plainly evident. They are also able to laugh at themselves…. and that is something one can’t say about some other religions.
If anyone ever needs cheering up after a hard day, just trot along to Bruvver Eccles’ blog! I always end up in helpless giggles after a visit there.
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On a slightly more solemn note, it was one year ago yesterday that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI left us. That was a sad day! The Biltrix has written a very very moving article about this:
It includes this short YouTube clip.
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My beloved Benedict XVI says:
“I’m not a man who constantly thinks up jokes. But I think it’s very important to be able to see the funny side of life and its joyful dimension…”
Hmmm. He may be right, but is that a Catholic attitude? Mark Twain, who the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (
pbuh) plagiarised about a century later, once said:“The source of humor is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”
Please excuse Twain’s American spelling.
But might there not be a kernel of grain of truth in that?
On a side note, speaking of idiots:
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…a kernel of grain…
Lord have mercy. CPS have mercy.
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“I’m not a man who constantly thinks up jokes. But I think it’s very important to be able to see the funny side of life and its joyful dimension…” …said Pope Benedict
Hmmm. He may be right, but is that a Catholic attitude? ..muses JH.
Certainly there are few, if any, Jokes – in the Bible or the NT. That is to their detriment, I believe. But then, I would, wouldn’t I? Life without religion might be unthinkable. Life without humour would be unbearable. “Two Popes walk into a bar…”
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Hmmm. He may be right, but is that a Catholic attitude?
Quintessentially. Only a convert would ask! 😉
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That gag has travelled:
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Right, GC. Here’s an ever older one, because it involves telegrams.
One of Toad’s dogs, Lulu, goes to the telegraph office and tells the man she wants to send a telegram to Toad.
“I want it to say, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof,”
she says to the operator, who then tells her,
“Fine, but that’s only nine ‘woofs,’ and you can send him ten ‘woofs,’ for the same amount of money.”
“Yes, but then it would make no sense,” says Lulu.
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Excellent Toad, I’ve even heard that one before too. I worked for a British outfit here in the early 2000s (lots of “liquid luncheons”, in which I did my best to keep up) and we “took” The Telegraph there.
I’m in at least two minds about what Pope Benedict means by “humour”. I don’t think that he meant a sort of English ” ‘allo ‘allo” buffoonery, such as Toad espouses. Perhaps he meant, rather, always to be of good humour, of good cheer, not to be too serious about certain things we mistake as great misfortunes.
Nor could he have meant that Pythonesque “always look on the bright side of life” levity.
A happy medium, I think, as in all things, as befits a man of deep culture and a supreme pastor of souls, such as himself. A brief clever something to promote hope and humility among the brethren.
I will resist the urge to make any further comparisons with toads.
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“Only a convert would ask!”
Hey! Okay, Benedict is most certainly right when he urges us to see the funny side of life, and so is Toad when he says life without humour would be unbearable; but I wonder whether a persuasive (hypothetical) argument can be made against there being humour (which is not necessarily the same thing as joyous laughter) in Heaven. After all, there is no sex in Heaven, so why humour? What would be the sources of humour in heaven: farce (no), sarcasm (hmm), self-deprecating (maybe in Purgatory), potty (only if Toad shows up), juvenile (ibid) gallows (doubt it) , parody, irony, stand-up improv?
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Yes, let’s hear it, Mr Fisher. We’re all ears.
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Tom Fisher, the funniest joke I’ve ever heard (a “quintessentially” English one by a Catholic) came from the lips of Auberon Waugh, as he lay grievously wounded on the ground in Cyprus after being accidentally shot several times in the chest by his armoured car’s mounted machine gun, which he had been cleaning. His platoon sergeant, Chudleigh, was holding Waugh’s head in his arms until help arrived, and Waugh said to him: “Kiss me Chudleigh”; but Chudleigh didn’t recognise the apocryphal reference to Nelson at Trafalgar, and after that always kept his distance from Waugh.
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Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
I think we know who said it.
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Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
I think we know who said it.
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But whether HB said it twice is the question 😉
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00ps. I forgot that GC is able to take editorial liberties with her posts.
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Rats! Not fast enough for JH in my liberty-taking, it seems.
(A rather strange-looking 00ps there, by the way, JH)
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A “strange-looking 00ps” it was, GC. I used zeros instead of “o”s. Just trying to keep one step ahead of Michael.
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“(Benedict) a man of deep culture and a supreme pastor of souls, such as himself..” ..well yes, GC – and for a brief time – Pope.
And then not Pope.
“I will resist the urge to make any further comparisons with toads..”
..to paraphrase Carlyle yet again (poor old Tom!) “By God, you’d better!”
Mind you, I agree with everyone on here – the best thing Dear Old Ben ever did was to bale out early.
Best to know your limitations.
Most of us don’t. (Including me.)
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I think Twain was probably right about humour in heaven, but what do you want to hear? Your comment doesn’t make sense to me sorry.
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I agree, humour in heaven doesn’t quite seem right, no grit for making that kind of pearl
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One had almost hoped that Mr Fisher could make an interesting response to JH’s query just above? No? Oh well.
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🙂
I never did get an explanation as to why capitalising ‘oops’ is a grammatical faux pas, or what one should use in its stead at the start of a sentence. I remember something about it being a ‘visual idiom’ but am still not entirely sure what this has to do with capital letters. Could you enlighten me (so I am ready for the next time an ‘oops’ or suchlike may be appropriate)? I am intrigued!
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Oh well, Michael, I suppose I was in my (tea)cups when I raised the issue. To call ‘oops’ a “visual idiom” was a bit off the mark. A ‘heart like stone’ or ‘shake a leg’ are visual idioms that my son who teaches English overseas likes to discuss with his students when they they suggest some of their own:
http://chinalert.com/2010/09/24/chinglish-fuck-vegetables/
But I think that “oops” has more visual impact than “Oops” even when it’s the first word in a sentence.
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Just shows what can happen if you get your Chinese tones wrong, JH. Embarrassing. It can completely change the meaning of a word, in this case from “dry/dried” (i.e. “dried vegetables” here) to “do” (and in certain contexts “do” with undesirable and inappropriate connotations, as you’ve shown us). Beware, all you foreign devil imperfect Chinese tonists!
How about this? Different, huh?
It actually just means “restaurant”.
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Hmm, sorry JH, I still don’t see what difference the capital letter (or lack thereof) makes in the visual impact of the word. Nevermind – here’s a couple of jokes to redirect things away from grammar back towards humour:
Q: Why did the scarecrow win a Nobel Prize?
A: Because he was outstanding in his field.
Q: Why did the Buddhist refuse novocaine when having his tooth out?
A: Because he wanted to Transcend-dental Medication.
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The ‘oops’ thing is still a mystery to me too.
I once read that about 100 years ago two English visitors to Egypt visited St Catherine’s Monastery at Sinai. While they were there an elderly monk allowed them to view a 10th Century Greek codex containing the four canonical gospels. However bound within the codex they found leaves of a much older document in Coptic, dating from the 3rd Century at the latest. Only fragments were legible, but both men swore to their dying day that it was a copy of St Peter’s long lost sermon on the the capitalization of exclamations.
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I promise never to mention the virtues of “oops!” again. although still using it 😉
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The Pope Emeritus may appreciate humour, but the present Bishop of Rome is not amused. Sandro Magister now persona non grata after premature release of the encyclical on the environment.
Read my donkey’s critique of the encyclical here: http://brotherlapin.com/2015/06/16/pope-francescos-amazing-climate-theatre/
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