Heads of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches in England are planning a mass brawl to settle their differences over today's Ash Wednesday walkout by Church of England dissidents.
The 600 have left the CE in protest at the decision to ordain women as bishops.
They will join the Ordinariate - a special branch of the RC Church established to accommodate them.
But the move has finally brought to a head the worsening relations between the two churches, which have been rearing their head off and on ever since Henry VIII broke with Rome in the 1530s.
Said a spokesman for the CE's Anti-papist Intervention Unit: "This has been coming for a while.
"Those papist f**ks over there have been poking and poking at us again ever since that kraut was elected pope - telling our people they can come over. Well, we ain't putting up with it any more.
"We need a healthy clear-out anyway - get rid of the bad blood, like in the good old Tudor days and during the Civil Wars and that.
"Obviously we can't say where and when the barney is planned - we don't want the Filth spoiling it - but we're in constant touch with the papist bastards... it'll probably be in some good open space like Bolton Abbey, or Salisbury Plain - the army's bound to be sympathetic."
An RC insider: "Yes, this is very welcome. A good ruck always clears the air - our top hard lads versus theirs, no holds barred.
"We haven't had such a good one since before the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 - that went our way, of course.
"It's been too long coming."
