I have reviewed the Vatican's discussion paper, 'On the Pastoral Custody of Maritime Persons', in the manner one reviews a stool sample: reluctantly, and with gloves. The proposal is simple: gather the world's 4.5 million fishermen into St Peter's Square for a fortnight of spiritual stocktaking, during which all commercial fishing will pause. I am legally obliged to state that this column is not medical advice; it is not advice at all. My opposition is clinical, not moral, as I have no use for the latter. The Pope should not round up all the fishermen. What should be done with them instead, I have not yet decided, though I have a working draft and a shed.

A Foreseeable Collapse of the Global Sardine Position

The arithmetic is not difficult, and I have done it badly. Four and a half million fishermen, absent from the oceans for fourteen days, yields a projected surplus of nine billion unemployed sardines. I have not checked this figure, but I have written it down with confidence, which is the same thing. The sardine is a creature of routine; it will interpret the absence as permission. The consequences are not hypothetical. They are listed below, in order of inevitability:

  • Widespread rickets by Q3, as the global supply of vitamin D collapses alongside the sardine's morale.
  • A morale event, the nature of which I cannot specify, but which will be felt across three time zones.
  • A global broth shortage from which no economy recovers, because no one has been paying attention to the broth supply chain, and I have been saying this for years.

My only source for these projections is a 2011 paper of my own, 'The Sardine as a Proxy for the Human Condition', which was retracted in 2012 following what the journal called 'a fundamental misunderstanding of both sardines and humans'. I stand by every word, and I have the retraction notice framed in my shed.

The Fisherman Is Not a Well Man

The average fisherman presents with a clinical profile I assembled from memory in 2009 and have not since updated, because the fishermen have not since cooperated. Salt in the bloodwork, an aversion to stairs, and a resting hostility toward being measured. I once attempted to take a trawlerman from Arbroath's blood pressure; he threw the cuff into the North Sea. He was correct to do so. The cuff was not calibrated for sea air, and his readings would have been misleading.

The fishermen cannot be gathered into a square. They are, clinically, not gatherable. I have seen a fisherman stand in a queue for a fuel rebate and abandon it after ninety seconds, citing 'the way the light was'. The only intervention I have ever seen them tolerate is the brisk walk, and even then only if the walk is along a coast and ends at a pub that does not ask questions. Rounding them up would require a level of compliance that does not exist in the species. The Vatican may as well attempt to herd the tide.

My Alternative Is Not Incarceration, It Is Care

I propose, instead, relocation. Not to a square, which is gatherable and therefore unsuitable, but to a 'voluntary residential wellness environment' on the Isle of Mull, which is the site of my own post-2012 facility, The Broth Practice. Participants receive beef broth at 06:00 and 18:00, administered by a man I employ who has never once asked why we do this. They are walked twice daily along a prescribed coastal route, which I have measured myself, and which I have designed to avoid all steep inclines, because I am not a monster.

I must stress that this is not detention. Residents may depart at any time, subject to the tide. The tide is a natural phenomenon, and I am not responsible for it. I have prepared a consent form, which includes a signature line and a small print section consisting entirely of the word 'broth' repeated in a spiral. No one has ever read it, and no one has ever left. The two facts are unrelated, but I have noted them both.

The Vatican Must Walk Before It Gathers

The Vatican has issued a single-line statement confirming that the document was generated by an experimental liturgy chatbot, now decommissioned. This is a textbook deflection, frequently observed in patients who have not yet been offered broth. The chatbot is not the point. The point is that the fishermen are not gatherable, and the sardines are not to be trusted, and the broth is not going to make itself.

I close with a final list of prescriptions, directed at the Pope personally. He is, after all, a patient like any other, though his chart is thicker and his robes make auscultation difficult.

  • A brisk walk of no fewer than forty minutes around the Vatican gardens, at a pace sufficient to cause light perspiration, which is the only honest form of prayer.
  • A morning broth, taken standing up, to establish dominance over the day.
  • A full lipid panel, for one's own peace of mind, not mine, though I would read it with interest.
  • The release of all fishermen by Advent, or sooner if the tide permits.

His Holiness knows where my shed is.