Oh

Absolute power always corrupts absolutely - and helas for all ecclesiastical gentlemen with pointed hats on, this is a universal principle that is valid the whole way round this hopeless planet. The more power is invested in some fruitcake that thinks he is sitting on the centre of the universe, the more the disaster that inevitably follows. Always always. The only exception is the Bishop of Rome and that is because he is surrounded by idiot-proof cardinals and monsignors who put him right when he is being stupid. Alas not so, not so are the witless successors to Augustine who still dine out with the Tories while thinking with the Reds. The reds of the venerabile were a case in point. Like the infamous cataline conspiracy in the time of Cicero, it took us 40 years to get the reds out of that august and venerable institution that Newman so loved, and we are still cleaning up the grey ideological hogwash and dichotomous divide-em-and-rule-em drivel resulting. The later black conspiracy involving a dark Malvoglio like some ridiculous Mithras figure for gay seminarians was even worse. Malvoglio in his burgundy smoking jacket a la Fr Noel Coward, and his worse yellow stockings. So there is no fool like an old fool, and there is nothing as absurd as an old red grandaddy who still thinks he is impressive in the Grauniad with the left-wing sixth form boys. This sort of behaviour should be dealt with by the wifey of the said Fly by Night. St Justin the real martyr - pray for us all in the grand old Church of England. England expects.

Anyway

Pocohontas would say that the early jesuit fathers were very brave on the frontiers of 18th century Canada. Very brave. They had to face her squaws and avaricious women. And brave they were. Imagine if you were a young Israelite boy and you had to meet Eva Braun???

Let us pray

Let us all sincerely hope and opine in such grave times that our dear communist separated brethren will think hard and serious about any possible manoeuvres in the forthcoming days. With 2m men at arms on a green for go button it will be hard for them to pipe down their legions. And let us pray that our common love of Jesus the brother of the poor will yield peaceful results in those regions so close to the American Aleutian Islands. Jesus is always a brother to poor nations that cannot compete fairly with the richer ones. Paul VI wished it so - Populorum progressio. And Jesus would bless a nation so close to his heart as per - Acts 2:42. Still we must be vigilant -all threats to the peace of nations must be monitored. And besides we were solemnly warned by the military judges of Nuremberg 45 that disturbing the peace of nations is the gravest of all crimes against humanity. V agrees at Coombe Abbey. All quiet here at Jodrell Bank. The boys at Thornycroft nr Macclesfield are all well.

Lady T

Lady Thatcher was a serious woman - the Duke of Wellington of her time. The Churchill of her generation at conservative central office. Aside from such party considerations, she was every housewife's choice because she knew that come hell or high water, whatever the local TUC official said in the pubs around the factories each day at lunchtime, there had to be food on the table for the kids by 6 o'clock every evening. It took a woman to brush up the economy of sick industrial Britain in 1979.

And a happy pascha

Well tonight we wish all our young vicars and canons a very Happy Easter Night, the most solemn and most beautiful night of the year, what with the singing of favourites like the Early Church Exultet and the like and its sweet memento of the work of the honey bees. We hope everybody finds their Easter bunny or cadbury's creme egg in the vicarage gardens tomorrow morning and that all children will give pressies to each other tomorrow, especially since Easter is now recognised even by the secular world as the New Christmas!! Happy Easter to Jesus, happy Easter to you all!!

Church

Churches are nice. Shame that the legendary learned Dawkins has not built his temples yet so we can visit them and criticise them.

Anyway

Anyway it is always a happy day when a non-false pope is enthroned. There is so much of the false prophet kind of pope around nowadays. So nice just to see some real ecclesiastical charm and elegance for a change. The world's media and the secular media moguls are all in love with the old pope in old Rome but if the world speaks well of a prophet we have it from the originating licensing authority in holy writ that the prophet is probably false. He certainly has some very dodgy characters around him including someone called the living waste-paper bin - El cestino - though anybody throwing out that much paper is definitely destroying the habitats of our beautiful kamayame indians in Venezuela. Mind you, soviets know no different, nor the red chinese kind either, always flooding villages and building dams all over the poor kulak land holding peasants. Cash never offends in Red China. And there is no such thing as a mere individual in such 1984 states, since the state is everything, their states are all. Noamh Chomsky - come back all is forgiven.