A Corrupt Tree Bringeth Forth Evil Fruitcakes

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor has been doing his bit for the furtherance of a secular state with a timely reminder of what the alternative might be. He repudiated the Archbishop of Canterbury's maundering anglico-sharia fudge with a warning about the dangers of placing "faith people ... in that lobby, and non-faith people in that lobby ... I think that's too simplistic". The reality, of course, is that there are, in descending order of humanity: the Catholic lobby; the Christian lobby; the Judaeo-Christian lobby; the sky-daddy-in-general lobby; the faith lobby including Buddhism, sun-worship, voodoo, Scientology and the Order of the Jedi; and the damned. The cardinal, who once compared abortion with Nazi eugenics, is "not in favour of an intemperate battle" between these various interests, and observed with his usual brand of meekness that "there is no other heritage than the Judaeo-Christian heritage in this country". The Guardian refers to this kind of thing as "defend[ing] the church's right to speak out", as though the frothings of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor or the foamings of Cardinal Keith O'Brien were in the slightest danger of being suppressed. On the contrary. Why anyone wishing to see the continuing decline of religion in this country should object to all this good clean fun, I cannot begin to imagine.