Catholic church a fraud – we can all go home.

Well almost:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/24/wpio124.xml

Yes I know it’s another link to the Telegraph. I still find it's the best news website around, and once you mentally adjust two clicks to the left, it’s well balanced too.

Anyway, this is priceless for two reasons (three if you count Padre Pio’s undoubted ingenuity – straight out of Fight Club)

First off is the revelation that more Italians pray to Padre Pio than to Jesus, and the second is the riposte that these revelations – true or not – can be dismissed under the all encompassing cloak of papal infallibility:

Pietro Siffi, the president of the League, said: "We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility."

So that’s all right then.

In some ways this reminds me of the Larry Craig story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6998619.stm mainly because both share a strong denial theme.

Craig, who is no doubt advised by the brightest and the best of the Republican Party’s spin doctors, flatly denied that he was gay, on the basis, one must assume, that the spin doctors knew the American public would more readily accept a liar than a queer. At that neatly links a story about an Italian saint to the realisation that Americans expect their politicians to lie (and probably to cheat and steal at the same time).

Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped the US government from using this set of values as a solid foundation from which to export their brand of morality across the world, and why should it when, with a deft adjustment of the blinkers, one can hide behind the twin veils of self asserted infallibility and absolute denial?

Note: This isn’t actually supposed to be an Anti-American blog. I’ve met, worked and travelled with some top people who were also American. My sister is American. But when a target is that large it’s sometimes hard do avoid hitting it. Even if you didn’t aim in that direction.