No Sackcloth, No Ashes

About a hundred and twenty French clerics gathered at the weekend for a show of penitence, begging forgiveness of their invisible friend for the advantage taken by their institution of His divine plan for a couple of hundred thousand children. Their act of contrition consisted in kneeling before a photograph, which falls rather short of the penalties imposed by the Church during the good old days; possibly one or two of the participants feared that public humiliation and corporal punishment would stir too many lower instincts and arouse too much priestly ... fervour. In any case the Father, having known from the beginning of time that the abuses would occur, and having lifted about as many fingers as He usually does, did not noticeably respond.