Pope Francis has delivered the first Papal address to the European Parliament in a quarter of a century, using it to berate the “elderly and haggard” EU for its treatment of immigrants and multitudes of unemployed young people who really need jobs.

26-years ago, Pope John Paul II called Europe a “beacon of civilization”.  Now, Francis took the continent to task for what the world sees as the “aloofness, mistrust and suspicion” and accompanied the rise of anti-immigration, xenophobic parties like Britain’s UKIP, France’s National Front, and other complete doofuses.

“We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast graveyard,” Pope Francis said, referring to the thousands who drown while attempting to cross from North Africa to Europe in smugglers’ boats in the Mediterranean Sea.  

“We encounter a general impression of weariness and ageing, of a Europe that is no longer fertile and vibrant,” he told the assembled legislators.  “The great ideas that once inspired Europe seem to have lost their attraction, only to be replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions.”

You’d think that the 700 assembled legislators wouldn’t be really happy about being called a bunch of unfeeling and uninspired, pencil-pushing technocrats.  But it actually went over quite well.

Parliament President Martin Schulz noted the loud applause, and told Francis, “You are a person who gives us guidance at a time when we have lost our compass.”

Not everyone was down with the Pope.  UKIP Nigel Farage, speaking in strikingly outdated slang, said Francis was “a with-it, up-to-date pope” (gear fab luv) but the EU “has gone badly wrong”.  French ultra-Leftist Jean-Luc Melanchon didn’t attend, out of respect for the concept of separation of religion and politics.

The speech, in Italian, lasted 36 minutes.  Afterwards, he conversed with EU dignitaries spoke in German, French, and English without the aid of translators.