FO AND THE POPE

Young Carlton-Browne of the FO aka Anjoum Noorani and Steven Mulvain, really put their foot into it, what with letting their sense of the irreverent get the better of them and all that. It's so easy to guy an authority figure, especially a religious one, most especially a Catholic one, best of all the top Catholic one. Apparently a sense of the irreverent is a sine qua non nowadays for entry into the Foreign Office. Gosh, what a jolly jape it must be, representing Great Britain abroad and providing opportunities for the country to choke with amusement over its breakfast Rice Crispies. Let's face it. The Benedict brand condom? Could anything be funnier of a sunny morning?

Young Master Milliband apparently was not amused. He after all is in line for the flack from various Vatican vigilantes who perhaps might murmur that the proposed visit be at least postponed for a while, thus scuppering any advantage that might accrue by cosying up to the Vatican - think climate, think poverty. All this could have turned to dust as a result of a wheeze dressed in official memo style by junior hands. Gordon Brown must be chewing the carpet at this stage. The speed of apology missives has apparently been warp 10. No matter. The secret that Catholics suspected and some knew, is finally out for all to see and digest at brekkers. You can take a kick at Catholics and get away with it.

LADIES IN WHITE

Ladies in White are an unexpected group to come across in the socialist paradise that Cuba is not. Wives and mothers of political prisoners, these ladies quietly and calmly protest that they wish to have their husbands and sons returned to daylight from the prisons in which they have been incarcerated merely for disagreeing with the Disreputable Two, Fidel and Raul.

Their most recent protest led to Fidel's rentacrowd baying hysterically at them for hours on end, accompanied of course by the red flag waving. Funny how these despicable marxoids refuse to see anything else but their own behaviour as having a right to exist. More power to the Ladies in White arms. Is there not something about the right to assembly or to political activity in the Human Rights legislation that all these political imposters signed up to ?

CUBA - A NEAR BASKET CASE?

Cuba's Cardinal Ortega has laid it on the line for socialism's last despairing outback outpost. The country isn't working, the workers are restless, the prison cells are full, the champagne socialists of the West are distracted by their own problems, Fidel and Raul are holding hands with Hugo Chavez.....the Caribbean's own little socialist paradise is slowly twisting in the wind. What does the picture above have to do with all this? It has appeared before and will again. It reminds me of the way of the cross of the Cuban people under the iron heel of the Castros.

I believe Fidel sleeps well in his comfortable bed. Perhaps if he wakens during the night, he may hear the gentle breeze riffling the curtains of his window. It may or may not sound like 'Ceausescu'. I would hope for his sake that it does not. He and sibling still have time - not much- to do something about their nearly sixty years of ruthless domination of a whole people. I await with interest reports that Dawkins and Hitchens are setting out their traps for the Glorious Leaders.

We've heard it from the Denial Duo, Dawkins and Hitchens - they're out to huckle the Pope when he comes to visit. Think of the headlines ; 'Benedict in Belmarsh'. Bad enough the media are filled with the Tiresome Two ; the distaff side has joined in. The Thunderer's Purves has chipped in with her slant on the growing Papal imbroglio, while Gledhill agonises about wearing a cross, forgetting perhaps that there is no cross without Christ and no Christ without a cross.

It is hard to tell where all this furor and furore will end. What it will succeed in doing is compromising such a visit if in fact it takes place.

Benedict; a great pope

I am much taken with this photograph of Pope Benedict. It highlights the valley of darkness through which he is currently passing. There is an almost Easter Passion about this. Deserted by friends, "I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my beard. I did not cover my face against insult and spittle". Isaiah said it all.

As Catholics we are all experiencing a collective dark night of the soul, stunned by the revelation of what Benedict has called the 'filth' in the Church. In many ways, he is bearing our burdens. We must pray that God gives him the strength to continue. Isaiah again; "The Lord is coming to my help, who dare condemn me?"