Catholica Australia feels privileged to give our readers this exclusive look at the itinerary for Pope Benedict's holiday at a secret location in New South Wales

Itinerary for Pope Benny's Holiday Down Under

Day One: Travel arrangements to Jack's Sheep Station @ The Back o' Bourke

The Cardinal has kindly lent on that high profile Australian Papal Knight, Rupert Murdoch — the Cardinal writes for one of his papers you know — to lend us one of his media helicopters to fly you out to my sheep station at the Back o' Bourke where the media can't get you. After you arrive we'll show you around the homestead and where you will be sleeping and then we'll basically leave you to rest for the rest of the day after your long trip from Rome. A light tea will be available at the time of your choosing in your room or in the parlour.

Day Two: Itinerary (please feel free to make any adjustments to this to suit your pace)

Rise: 5.30 am

Holy Mass: 6.00 am: Principal Celebrant The Cardinal, assisted by Fr John George (Australia's version of Fr Ted). (Homily by Fr John George — this should wake you up giving you a fine introduction to one of Australia's most interesting priests.)

Briefing Note: For an introduction to the work of Fr George you might check out the True Catholic website to which he is a prolific contributor. Fr George is retired and lives in a nursing home in the Cardinal's archdiocese near Randwick Racecourse where you will be celebrating the World Youth Day Mass. He's been a bit of a problem child for the bishops out here as a sort of "terror of the internet". Recently, and in typical Church pattern, instead of actually fixing the problem, the bishops actually turned the entire world upside down to deal with Father and give him his very own internet domain. In doing so they deprived an entire community of their internet home. No apologies to any of them (again typical Church behaviour). As Fr George is your number one fan amongst the clergy in Australia we thought we'd give him the honour of being the Papal Preacher on your vacation. (See his work at the True Catholic web domain. I'd also point out the provocative post there by young Trent questioning your own credentials — See HERE — you might want to have a word with Trent, or give him a good clip over the ears for his impertinence.)

Breakfast: 7.30 am (well Father's homilies do drag on a bit):

Feed the sheep: 9.00 am: Three-hour tour of the sheep station including a session "feeding the sheep" hosted by Bill Dowsley and Lillypilly.

Briefing Note: You'll love Bill and Lillypilly. Bill's about your age — we're not sure you're his favourite fan exactly, but he is a retired farmer and knows a heck of a lot about the role of being a shepherd. It's not polite to give out the ages of ladies in this country but could we say that Lillypilly isn't "yoof" and she isn't as old as Bill. What she shares in common with Bill is that "she tells it like it is" — or, to use the local lingo, she calls a spade a bloody shovel! She'll give you a good introduction to the colour in our Australian language. She also knows more priests in this country on a first name basis than just about everyone else so you'll find her a great source of inside knowledge about the attitudes of your priests in this country. Also unlike Bill, we suspect you're about Lillypilly's number one pin-up boy in Australia. We expect that between the two of them you'll learn much about this country … and about how to keep all the sheep in line!

Free time: 12.00 noon: Clean-up or rest before luncheon

Luncheon: 12.30 pm: Luncheon in the Station Homestead.

Briefing Note: We thought you might like to get to know some of the Catholic Mafiosi in Australia — Mafiosi doesn't have the same connotation as in Italy. Down here it means "movers and shakers" — guys who make things happen and who are very good at raising enormous sums of money. They have ways and means of influencing people if you know what we mean. Fr Michael (Express Card) Kelly who heads up Church Resources and Dr Peter Tannock who effectively built the Catholic Education system in this country and who founded our second Catholic University, Notre Dame. The things Kelly can organise via a mobile telephone, an American Express card and his vow of poverty will simply amaze and delight you. He's a friggin' magician. As for Dr Tannock, he's as smooth as they come. Whether we have Liberal or Labor Governments. Pastoral or Reactionary Bishops and Cardinals controlling the agenda and purse strings in this nation Peter manages to "read the signs of the times" more surely than a gps navigation system can tell you where you are on the surface of the planet. Both these guys are born salesmen. You know, the sort who can sell refrigerators to Eskimoes, fire to the devil, or sanctity to saints. Joining them will be Fr Brian Lucas. You've probably already been briefed about him. He's secretary of the Bishops' Conference and one of the next-in-line you'll be handing a red hat to. It's worth meeting him as he's the one often deputed to clean up the mess when someone upsets the chamber pot if you understand what we mean.

Free Time: 2.00 pm: Rest time for His Holiness — free time all afternoon.

Dinner: 6.00 pm: Dinner in the Homestead Dining Room (Guests: see Briefing Note below)

Briefing Note: As we anticipate Your Holiness will have had such a joyous time at breakfast this morning with Fr George we thought you might enjoy meeting some of his friends and colleagues in the unrelenting quest to bring down all heretics, backsliders, liberals, and wet-behind-the-ears progressives. Proudly funded by The Little Vatican in North Melbourne you will have the delightful company of Spider (leader of the delegation and you'll also see Spider in another role tomorrow), Bertus, Trent, Peter D Howard, Clancy, Tony M and there might be a couple of other hangers on or the doppelgangers for Spider. The man has many personas and we are not sure which one he is using each day nor even if he is cross dressing on some days. Spider will set you straight, Your Holiness, on all aspects of Cathedral architecture — you're not thinking of remodelling St Peter's are you and moving the tabernacle? Spider will tell you how to do it. Unfortunately we couldn't fit their female partners in for the sitting but you'll have an opportunity to see them showing off their talents tomorrow also.

Relaxation and Bed Time: At your own leisure — the guests will be ejected at 8.00 pm sharp.

Day Three: Itinerary (please feel free to make any adjustments to this to suit your pace)

Rise: 6.00 am (Sleep in allowed today)

Holy Mass: 6.30 am: Principal Celebrant Bishop Manning

Briefing Note: We have chosen Bishop Manning as the Principal Celebrant today because he's the next bishop in Australia to retire). His acolyte for the Mass will be his favourite friend and number one fan in the Diocese of Parramatta, ta dum and drum roll, Spider (whom you met yesterday although we can't be precisely certain what name he'll be trading under today and whether it will be clerical or lay, male or female. Assisting him as Assistant Acolyte, will be His Master's (Spider's) Voice, the editor of AD2000 — the man who for so many decades now has set the agenda for the Catholic Church in Australia (and basically prevented institutional Catholicism travelling anywhere that is very productive). You need to meet these two as they play such a key role in this country in setting the entire agenda for Catholicism. It should be an interesting Mass as basically the Bishop represents the Sydney "Old Left" ecclesial agenda in this country and the other two are part of the remnant from the great 1950s split in the Labor Party.

Breakfast: 7.30 am

Free Time or Feed the sheep: 8.30 am: We do have an interesting but perhaps demanding tour in the afternoon but you are welcome to accompany Bill Dowsley and Lillypilly on their daily "feeding of the sheep".

Morning Smoko: 10.30 am

Briefing Note: We've had this character, a retired veterinarian from Queensland pestering us ever since it was announced that you were coming to Australia. He wants to have a word to you about the Monitum imposed against Pierre Teilhard de Chardin — the French Jesuit Priest who died in the 1950s who I am sure you are familiar with. Unfortunately the man keeps repeating himself so we have only allowed him ten minutes to have a quick word with you during the Morning Smoko break. He'll probably try and hand you a ten thousand word screed arguing his case along with about 50,000 footnotes. You can please yourself what you do with that. (One of the former employees of your department has probably already briefed you about our veterinarian friend.) It's true, this man is like a dog with a bone about Teilhard – and half a doxen other things which he has a bee in his bonnet about including how many times Archbishop Battersby used the word "hope" at the last Brisbane Synod, the credentials of staff at Australia's largest Catholic University, his belief that my boss, the editor of Catholica is only "cyber-squating" on the name "Catholica" because he eventually wants to blackmail you and earn a herdy great profit by flogging the name off to you. My advice is don't give him any wind on these other subjects or you'll never get rid of him. Just keep him focused on the Teilhard issue. A few others of us would also like an answer on what is happening with the Teilhard monitum. I hope you do realise some of our other friends whom we introduced to you at Mass this morning use that monitum to belt everybody else within striking range over the head with. It really has been causing a heck of a lot of confusion in the Church for a long, long time — the confusion mainly comes from the conservative and insecure sectors in the Church who use it constantly to prove how orthodox and righteous they are. My advice, for what it is worth is either ditch Teilhard and make it explicit and permanent, or do the guy a favour and stop him being used as a political and theological football by those you dubbed not so long ago as "the little people".

Luncheon followed by Aerial Tour of Outback Australia: 12.30 pm: Bar-be-que in the Shearing Shed.

Briefing Note: Now we have a couple of things to make you feel really at home this afternoon and this evening. Firstly we are bringing back our "flying bishop", John Jobst from Germany to give you a quick afternoon flight over the great Murray-Darling River system part of which is in flood at the moment. This is a rare event in Australia these days and the landscape looks spectacular with amazing bird life to be seen. You'll also be able to see some of the sunburnt, still drought striken parts of the country. Your expert commentators for the trip will be the Bishop of Willcania-Forbes — the vast diocese you're in — Bishop Chris Toohey and Bishop Jobst's replacement in Broome, Chris Saunders. They're the experts on all this climate change stuff but I also confess we're playing a bit of politics here on behalf of the Aussie Bishops as we've heard they want to see Chris Toohey moved to one of the Dioceses closer to Sydney because of all the committee work he's involved in. This will give you a good chance to get to know him better. If you want further information about this tour the ABC ran an excellent documentary last Thursday night on the Catalyst Program.

Dinner: 6.00 pm: Light Dinner in the Homestead Dining Room (with the Station staff)

Concert: 7.30 pm: We couldn't let your visit go without a little Mozart (for details see Briefing Note below)

Briefing Note: Not only an evening of Mozart but Gregorian Chants as well. It is our enormous pleasure to fly in from Germany your number one fan in the entire world, the Australian expatriate Leider Meister (another drum roll), ExpatM. ExpatM will be leading an evening of fine choral work accompanied by his chorus gals from the old CathNews Discussion Board. They have all been busy in reheasal in their new domain at CathViews. You'll see plenty of goody two shoes tonight, Your Holiness, and hoop-jumping and all sorts of other delights for the eye and ear — all very restrained and demure of course and nothing provocative.

Relaxation and Bed Time: At your own leisure — the Leider Meister and his chorus girls will be ejected at 9.00 pm sharp. Get a good night's rest as tomorrow you "face the real music" in Sydney for World Youth Day.

[Index of Farmer Jack Animations]