The Exorcist

Oh joy of joys - just when you think you can't make it up along comes no less a figure than the Catholic Church's very own Chief Exorcist to defend the Pope and his cardinal cohorts against the forces of evil attempting to undermine their divine authority. Don Gabriele Amorth is his name and he's been the CE for over 25 years, dealing with 70000 cases of demonic possession along the way (no, seriously, I'm not making this up). "When one speaks of the 'smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true - including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia" say Rome's answer to Max Von Sydow. The Don has recently published Memoirs of an Exorcist which has just shot to the top of my Amazon must-read list. All we need now is the opinion of the Vatican's Lord of the Witchdoctors for Benedict and his mates to clear up this mess once and for all.

Church Unity

We read at the weekend that a group of Anglican bishops are feeling discwiminated against. Whilst having some sympathy for the 56 year old hospital worker who wanted to wear her little gold cross to work it's all-too-predictable that this is what gets the bishop's exercised and not the continuing discrimination against women and gays in the laughably-monikered Anglican 'communion'. The bearded wonder leading this rabble mutters tut-tuttingly at each awful revelation of bishoply vitriol but has miserably failed to show any leadership when it comes to shutting these hate-filled clerics up. Who needs a bloody Church of England anyhow?

Spot The Difference

Nuns eh - doncha love 'em? Ghostly white brides of the only man in recorded 'history' to be born to a virgin. Pinch-faced celibates who present themselves as the embodiment of female suppression in a church where Mary worship does little to mask its indifference to 50% of the world's population.

God's Rottweiller

From my Catholic childhood I remember one particularly favoured form of priestly burial - the Mission. Errant or straying clerics were dispatched to some pagan stronghold (Africa, South America, the Far East) to save the locals from Satan. Not, of course, that we were given this as the reason for their departure. No, they were packing their bags as fast as they possibly could as a response to an unstoppable calling from the man upstairs. Yeah, right. As usual it was a win-win for the Church of Rome - priests with pre-pupescent proclivities were taken out of the homeland frontline and their presence across the globe made an invaluable contribution to the continuing quest for World Domination. It also meant double bubble for the straying men in black. Not only could they pack up their troubles in a glowing kit bag, they were also being given access to young and available recruits in distant and unmonitored lands.

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United In Sin

As a kid growing up in a Catholic household and surrounded by the men and women in black, I was told that priests were benign representatives of God's will on earth, bishops were the closest thing to heaven that we were ever likely to encounter and that the Pope was a ghostly holy man who emerged from a puff of smoke. I also learnt that there were 3 perfect holiday destinations: Rome, Ireland and Lourdes. What I was never told was that where there were predatory priests with a predeliction for young children there was also a code of silence that made the Mafia's omerta seem like an invitation to bedlam. To paraphrase their own words: "Father don't bother to forgive them for they knew exactly what they were doing"

The Users

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Losers

According to whatever source of news you favour, Facebook now has 400 million Users. Love that term 'Users'. It's the same label that's attached to illegal drug addicts and rhymes with losers.