My dear friends and fellow Christians, it is our solemn privilege and especial pleasure to pray for the health and safety of the Supreme Pontiff, especially whilst he travels amidst a nation of infidels and schismatics. The Archbishop of Birmingham, the ordinary in the land of my present and temporary domicile, therefore, encouraged all his subjects to pray a novena beginning before and including the days of Pope Benedict’s sojourn in dangerous lands. I heartily commend his sollicitude on behalf of the Supreme Pontiff, but I question the effeminate taste of the scribe who produced what was given to the whole archdiocese:

Lord, source of eternal life and truth,
Give to your shepherd Pope Benedict XVI
a spirit of courage and right judgment,
a spirit of knowledge and love.

By governing with fidelity those entrusted to
his care may he, as successor to the apostle
Peter and vicar of Christ,
build your Church into a sacrament of unity,
love and peace for all the world.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

A sacrament of unity? Did I miss something during catechesis? The mysteries of an eighth sacrament, perhaps, were not unlocked for me. And if not “sacrament” in the technical sense, then in the late, churchy Latin sense of “mystery”? Yes, O Lord, build your Church into a mystery of unity, love, and peace. I think that’s closer to the idea!

To counteract the nausea I felt after a few days of this prayer, I petitioned my friends, Giove Vitteleschi and Maximilian Hanlon, to write a novena prayer worthy of the man who was once styled the “Panzer Cardinal.” I think that our readers will find that my friends were more than equal to the task:

O God, Who of old didst suffer the bowels of Tartarus
to vomit forth the ancient Serpent and Prince of Darkness
to reign within the soul of that false prophet,
Mohammed, prince of the dark races of Arabia,
ever delighted by bloodshed and his childish wife,
and didst permit him to amass unto war
the diabolical nation of Turkish warlocks
deranged by the false promises of hell,
and so through them didst vent forth the venom
of Thy wrath upon those effeminate Greeks,
once Thy precious Dardan sheep,
but now disobedient goats of Satanic pasture,
willfully wandering from the Universal Shepherd
of the Entire Church, the Roman Pontiff,
unto the rocky crags of schism, sin, death, and Mohommedian dominations,
that the ungrateful and disobedient Grecian sons of Rome,
who did rend asunder the Mystical Body of Thy Son,
might be torn asunder by the war-mongering
sons of Hagar the bondswoman for justice’ sake;
deign, we beseech Thee, to send forth the Holy Ghost,
eternally proceeding from Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord,
to call the Grecian ingrates back unto Thee,
and to enlighten the intellect and will of Thy Vicar,
Benedict of Bavaria,
now making pilgrimage unto the darkest recesses of pagandom,
to imitate his successors of felicitous memory
and so to indulgence the Final Crusade against those
demoniac Turkish swine, other Mohommedans, Uzbecks, Moors,
and all those who refrain from pork flesh and fine vintage,
that the Standard of Thy Most Holy Cross may once more soar in triumph
even from the minnarets of Constantinople
and the hellish crescent be trappled underfoot,
and that Thy Vicar may at last arrive at the end of his earthly pilgrimage
and attain unto Thee,
Who livest and reignest with the
same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord,
in the unity of the same Holy Ghost,
the only true God, world without end. Amen.

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