Divining the ultimate truth is a tricky business

SO the Vatican is at variance with the views of many Irish Catholics.

Hardly a great surprise. There’s married priests and divorce and homosexuality, to name but a few of the contentious issues: though interestingly, no one even bothers asking Catholics about sex before marriage anymore; which if you didn’t know, is still a sin.

The media reports it all as if it is a political argument or an economics story: that this is an ‘internal row’ in which the liberals or conservatives will eventually prevail; or that the Catholic Church, like any other branded product, is grievously losing touch with its customer base: people who are now looking for something a bit more right-on in their religion — and will inevitably move to other aisles in the religious supermarket.