My Yoke is Easy, And My Burden is Light

The Catholic Church in Ireland has introduced psychological vetting for its acolytes, with slightly unfortunate effects. "There is no point in people coming to us expecting a sheltered life," said one Father Kenneth Brady; "the walls have come down a long time ago. They are going to meet the same kind of humanity as everywhere else, and they have to be ready for it." The author of a book called Empty Pulpits claims that "leading members of religious orders in Ireland admitted they now preferred quality to quantity in the priesthood", if not among the converts. The weeding-out of those who are not ready for an unsheltered life, and those who might inconvenience Mother Church and the Irish taxpayer by exploiting vulnerable women or buggering altar-boys, has resulted - quite unpredictably - in a clerical crunch: a hundred and sixty Irish priests and two hundred and twenty-eight Irish nuns died last year, but only nine former men and two former women were found fit to replace them. Imagine that.