A Poem

The Church doth have a merciful hand,
Reading between the lines, I see,
The Church doth have a sense of humour too,

For he was only "showing off, bragging by a young English working-class musician who had grown up in the age of Elvis Presley and rock and roll and had enjoyed unexpected success",
And with this, I am led to believe, he was merely joking of course,
I should have known better, it was all a joke,
Or was it perhaps something greater?
I suffer the Vestibule if I do not decide, I suffer damnation if I do...

Oh, 'tis absolution for him!
And the Church, with its forgiving hand
strokes his angelic spirit, claiming it was a 'youthful joke' only,
and so all is well, hereafter,
for he is forgiven! Mercy on his soul! Forgiven!

But when a time comes (and it's come before as well),
when the Church has to be itself absolved and forgiven
for its remark on the boyish bragging of a prole - an insult in fact
under the guise of a forgiving cardinal,
who will do the job, God or man?

Who will The Church be answerable to?

A message: when in the midst of a communion,
some cardinal's mitre falls off (by accident perhaps?)
it'll mean somebody up there (beyond those towering spires)
overheard that remark...

To a God like this, I tip my hat.