Of Little Shepherds and Big Crooks

One of the most prominent aspects of the Christian churches has always been their tolerant attitude towards the poverty and illiteracy of those who do not happen to be priests or popes; and their invisible friend and His virgin mother have naturally sought to reflect this favour, bestowing upon the great unwashed those visions of divine grace which tend to lose something in translation when filtered through minds afflicted with the blasphemous tendency to think. A century ago, such a vision was vouchsafed to some Portuguese peasant children, in the form of messages which foreshadowed the Second World War and the rise and fall of the USSR in terms sufficiently unambiguous to be parroted by the Associated Press and reproduced without noticeable scepticism in Britain's leading liberal newspaper. Regrettably, these messages of love and forgiveness failed to include any remedy for Spanish influenza, which two years later carried off two of the children in the pandemic that followed the First World War. Fortunately, their cousin survived to beat the drum, and the pair are now to be canonised, which will certainly help matters.