Losers Convention

There are days I (almost) feel sorry for the Magic Invisible Friend's personal representative on Earth.
What a comedown when your 'state visit' to the UK - costing the taxpayer something approaching £100 million - kicks off with you acting as support act to Susan Boyle.
Never mind, at least all those faith leaders can get together today to commiserate the great British public's total disinterest in their faith-based pyramid schemes. And amongst them (see http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=47475 ) will be a gentleman whose unelected presence in our upper House of Fun was decided by his former area manager and rubber-stamped by Gordon Brown.
Oh well, I'm sure they'll have a great time telling each other how nobody loves them and nobody understands. If only we could persuade politicians and civil servants to share our lack of interest the world could move on.
Because it's funny when you think about it. If you want to voluntarily help out at a kiddie football team you need to pay for a police check which can take months (and probably won't be accurate). If you want to be Bishop of Sodor and Mann and interfere with the political process at the most senior level nobody checks you out anywhere. It isn't just that the Manx public have no vote, even the busybodies in government whose main role in life seems to be to prevent democracy (or even community) are asleep on the job.

Keeping nonsense offline

As locals know, the second reading of the Isle of Man's long needed Civil Partnership Bill has been suspended.
Officially this is because MHKs need to have a presentation on the proposals first (Are they really so dim or misinformed they don’t understand yet? That’s really terrifying!). Unofficially it will be to allow the zombie worshippers more time to delay the fair and necessary.
What’s more interesting is why otherwise balanced coverage doesn’t include putting online with the rest of the IOM Newspapers material (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Civil-Partnership-Bill-to-go.6111922.jp ) a highly publicised statement in the Isle of Man Examiner by Sentamu’s Apprentice (AKA ‘The Lord Bishop of Sodor and Mann’).
My guess is SA and his advisors demanded it be run separately to mark his ‘importance’, then couldn’t deliver it on time, then when the editor finally read it he was too embarrassed to run it anywhere except a newspaper now only read in print form by the elderly and other socially disconnected folk.
It was, frankly, confused and rambling tosh which avoided all the issues and bore marks of having been composed by a committee who couldn’t agree on anything (I suspect the executive committee of Churches Together in Mann as it has their usual lack of coherence).
Even so, not putting it online deprives us of the chance to snigger at just how out of touch the church is with 21st century reality.
What a shame.

Christmas Cracker

On Boxing Day I heard a Christmas Cracker which, yet again, illustrates there’s even a huge gap between unelected religious leaders and their own flocks (never mind the rest of us).
I blogged on 1st December about lazy Manx attempts to jump on a Christian Institute bandwagon (see Witless Christmas crackers). Shortly following that story’s appearance in a Manx newspaper, two devout teen churchgoers chatting to their elderly gran were surprised to find she thought the Bish a bit of a wet blanket. So they decided to test her tolerance with a Christmas present from the Ann Summers shop – a box of chocs with, let’s just say, an adult theme.
When they saw her next, on Boxing Day, they were startled to discover the box was empty. Apparently she not only saw the joke, but passed the box round female friends of similar age while all were involved in good works on Christmas Day.
Fair play to all, and I share this story with hardened atheists because it’s only fair to mention when ordinary folk with a faith that baffles show evidence they’re not completely brainwashed by their windbag clerics.
I'd like to think this shows even local professional godbotherers might turn into tolerant human beings. But that would be a miracle, and take rather more swallowing than mint flavoured chocolates modelled on the male anatomy.

New arse, same old excrement

I’ve followed news about about the new Archbishop of Westminster with increasing hilarity.
I laugh because it proves that all rationalists need do now is sit back and watch Anglo-Catholicism chew itself to bits.
Forget recent attempts at positive spin by the church’s PR wing and look at the real signs.
The Daily Telegraph has long been Anglo-Catholicism’s real mouthpiece, and by that I mean not just those ‘officially’ within the church but fellow travellers secretly wanting to abandon Anglicanism but unable find a new paymaster for reactionary twaddle.
As I’ve mentioned before, the paper’s ‘official’ religious correspondent reported back on the views of insiders at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5067037/Bishop-of-Leeds-favourite-to-become-next-Archbishop-of-Westminster.htm. He went into more detail at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4991585/Leading-candidate-to-be-next-Catholic-Archbishop-criticised-by-fellow-bishops.html, from which we learn that, not only do many other bishops despise the new guy, but the Vatican’ s own London ‘ambassador’ briefed Benny the Boy Nazi against this ‘career churchman’.
So unsuprising that when the new Westminster Weasel had to be announced to Telegruff readers the PR team bypassed their usual cheerleader and went for someone blander with http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/04/04/ten_things_you_should_know_about_archbishop_vincent_nichols_englands_new_catholic_leader.
By the way, do we really care about any of those ‘ten things’ and isn’t the only relevant question something much simpler?
Murphy O’Connor's record on clerical child abuse was abysmal. So will his successor, when faced with evidence of priestly improprieties involving kids, co-operate with police enquiries? Or will he simply follow diktats put in place by Benny when he was just the ‘Defender of the Faith’, i.e. use the Vatican’s ‘diplomatic immunity’ and send the papers direct to Rome to be hidden away in a big safe long enough for victims not to be able to press charges?
Think we know the answer to that!
Then again, no-one in their right mind these days leaves vulnerable people in the same room as clergy, so why not just laugh from the sidelines as they screw each other’s lives up.