Bring Hither the Fatted Calf

It appears that rumours of the conversion to Catholicism of a well-known crusader, witch-hunter and tin-pot Messiah are not without substance. I am sure we all wish Mother Church joy of her new-found Son, and it is certainly nice to know that there is at least one thing about Tony that is not without substance. Tony has been "interested in Catholicism for many years", but refrained from conferring the blessing of his membership on the Church because of "constitutional sensitivities". Given the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, the ongoing campaign for internment, the NHS database, the leukopachydermal fiasco that is the ID card and so forth, I suppose we must also be glad that Tony has at least one constitutional sensitivity, even if it is a little redolent of a chronic wife-beater ordering his children not to talk back to their mother. Tony's government "pursued a number of policies which the church opposed", possibly because God, one of Tony's oldest and greatest allies, told him it would be all right, or perhaps because the Christian churches, however much they might squeal about abortion, homosexuality and stem cell research, have always stopped considerably short of ordering the faithful not to kill Muslims in return for worldly goods.