Regrettable Misunderstandings

The Catholic church's flounderings over the abuse scandal have been replayed in miniature thanks to one Father Thomas Daly. Last week the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, had an attack of spinal fortitude unprecedented in recent European politics and accused the Vatican of "downplaying the rape and torture of children". Father Thomas Daly reacted with a leaflet titled Heil Herr Kenny in which he claimed that the last European leader to be impolite to the Holy See was "the ruthless German dictator Adolf Hitler". As when the Vatican blamed the abuse scandal on the Jews, the homosexuals and various other pests whose gassing might be more easily countenanced after a Catholic education, Daly showed an authentically Christian degree of intellectual honesty by proclaiming that Kenny, like Pope Pacelli's pal, "had to face reality. A cautionary tale". After complaints from Fine Gael, Daly matched spiritual stature with moral fibre with an "apology" that might have come straight from the Ascended Incarnation of the Reverend Blair. "I regret the headline and the misunderstandings that might have arisen out of it," Daly said; "I am not comparing Enda Kenny to Hitler", thus obeying Jesus' non-canonical but much-respected command that one should never repent one's own actions, but only their misinterpretation by others.