Dump Catholic guilt and identify the real sinners

THERE was a survey published last week in the UK that found that Catholics don’t feel any more guilt than other religious adherents: indeed, the results were so striking that the pollsters felt bold enough to claim that Catholic guilt is a myth.

However, the survey concentrated solely on sexual matters — proof, one could argue, not of a lack of guilt but of the astounding irrelevance of what any pope, retired or otherwise, might have to say about matters relating to the uterus.

Catholic guilt, as it has been traditionally exercised, is more all-encompassing and tied to the notion that we humans are mired in sin: no matter how hard we try not to, we’ll mess up. And in a country where the Church managed to have us all feeling terrible about ourselves for hundreds of years, it would be naive to think that the residual traces of those emotions have been expunged: perhaps not about sex any more, but about money.