(For those who don’t know, clerihews are named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a school-boy friend of Gilbert Chesterton. Sitting next to Chesterton one day in a dull Chemistry class, he picked up his pen and in an inspired moment wrote these lines: ‘Sir Humphrey Davy/ detested gravy./ He lived in the odium/ of having discovered sodium’. Thus was born a new literary genre.)

 

JP II

We (with hindsight) love you.

You knew that a wedding ring

Wasn’t a bit of bling.

 

Papa Ratzinger

Was fond of cats; linger

He didn’t, but made himself ex

In a way that was bound to perplex.

 

Pope Jorge Bergoglio

Caused quite the imbroglio.

Did he enter the Church to destroy ‘er?

And who exactly was his employer?