Cheap Spirits

He loves you and He needs money!
George Carlin

Executives at the French branch of Vatican Incorporated are aflame with moral indignation at proposals to charge an entry fee at the restored Notre Dame cathedral. With so much of the Church's worldly treasure bound up in defending its sex abusers, and the Almighty as helpful as ever, many of the country's religious buildings have fallen into secular disrepair. Even so, the Catholic church in France vehemently opposes the idea that filthy lucre should enter into the tourist industry, and the law specifies that visits to churches cannot be subject to payment. Religious institutions elsewhere in Europe routinely require visitors to pay; in our own nation of shopkeepers, the privilege of entry to St Paul's Cathedral costs six times the proposed amount for Notre Dame. Even in France, once the threshold of God's house has been freely crossed the messengers of Christ are at liberty to impose whatever tariffs they see fit on visits to the rooms inside.