German Cardinal's Song by quiavideruntoculi

I am the very model of a modern German cardinal
I'm kind to all minorities peripheral and marginal
I know the mobile numbers of my seniors political
I try quite hard at humour and I'm studiously uncritical
I'm very fond of arguments heretic and schismatical
I like to bitch about my fellow Lords ecclesiastical
About Kasperian theorem I am teeming with a lot of news [pause]
With many cheerful facts about conveyancing and empty pews

I'm very well acquainted too with every kind of blasphemy
I know in every detail all the sins contr'ry to chastity
In short, in things political, peripheral and marginal
I am the very model of a modern German cardinal

I know the Church's history, from Schillebeeckx to G D Boff
I like to wear bad vestments and I'm apt to take my cassock off
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of the traditionalists
I make outrageous statements and proceed to slander journalists
I'm very prone to avarice, and harbouring of catamites
And mawkish modern liturgies with troupes of female acolytes
In profit from the Church tax I've a juicy line in Simony
I'm expert in denial and impervious to irony

Then I can write an article in favour of adultery
And praise unclean affections both unnatural and desultory
In short, in things political, peripheral and marginal
I am the very model of a modern German cardinal

In fact when I know what is meant by mercy, grace and charity
When I can tell at sight heroic virtue from depravity
When such affairs as doctrine and dogmatics I'm more wary at
And when I learn precisely what became of Jude Iscariot
When I have grasped the rudiments of sexual biology
When I can make a fist of a believable apology
When I care more for men than for the dogs they keep at Battersea
You'll say a better German Cardinal had never sat a See

For my Catechetic knowledge, though I'm pompous and effrontery,
Is limited by effort will and interest quite perfunctory
But still in things political, peripheral and marginal
I am the very model of a modern German cardinal.