I THINK I MIGHT BE OUT OF STEP AGAIN
Posted: 19 Apr 2026, 01:32
I THINK I MIGHT BE OUT OF STEP AGAIN
2 April 2005
I think I can understand why people of my vintage get the reputation of being grumpy. The programmes that BBC2 are running at the moment where grumpy old men and women are given air-time to bang on about their pet hates is hilarious. Like many people of my age I find myself sat there saying “Right on! You tell ‘em!” and then I laugh at myself.
On a parallel track, I remember a programme called ‘The Oldies’ that only ran for two or three episodes, it was hosted by Richard Ingram and one of the guests was Ludovic Kennedy. I remember the latter saying that one of the compensations of old age was the fact that you got to the point where you didn’t give a damn about what society thought about you, you gave your opinion and left them to sort it out. This is particularly seductive when we are witness to some major public event which is given one-sided reporting by the bulk of the media and mass hysteria sets in. Recent examples were the deaths of Princess Diana, the Queen Mother and the Pope. In the case of Diana and the Queen Mother there was almost a moratorium on any objective reporting, it was as though the dissidents were waiting for the dust to settle before they expressed any opposing point of view. I remember in 2001 when the Twin Towers were hit I was in a small mid-west town in the States and knew I had to be very careful about expressing any opinion about what had happened and why.
So, I was heartened this morning when I read my Guardian and found that they had printed a very telling list of some of the events of Pope Paul’s Pontificate which cast a rather different light on his views and what he had achieved. There was also an article suggesting that it might have been good management but it could be argued that certain aspects were not very Christian.
Organised religion has always worried me. Not the religion itself, but the management systems put in to administer it, the hierarchies, the use of power and, in the case of the Roman Catholics, the authoritarian pronouncements from the Vatican on matters which I believe passionately are a matter of personal choice. This Pope not only opposed abortion, birth control, the use of condoms as a defence against aids and many aspects of advanced medical research but he declared them to be mortal sins. In 2000 a document was issued in his name which said in effect that only the Roman Catholics had the right attitudes to religion, all other systems of belief were inferior and possibly heretical. Mind you, he does seem to have softened his attitude towards the Jews of late.
I found myself wondering what Ian Paisley thinks about the Pope. No need to wonder actually, he has stated often enough that he is the Anti-Christ. I have no time for bigotry like this but note that there is no mention of it in the news reporting this morning and like it or not, it’s a point of view. No mention either of the views of the Orthodox Church who hold that theirs is the original Church and that Roman Catholicism is an upstart version of the true religion and originated in the Great Schism in the 15th century when the Eastern church refused to accept the findings of the Council of Florence in 1472 and we inherited the Orthodox Church in the Middle and Far east and some parts of Eastern Europe with the Western Catholic church centred in Rome. I know that we can’t assign blame for this to the present Pope but they have a point of view and I haven’t seen it represented anywhere.
My mind goes back to when the paedophile scandals in the church started to surface and a secret conference was called in Rome to discuss what should be done. Apart from an apology and an expression of regret from the Pope it seemed to me that basically they were trying to bury the matter.
I could go on but when I look at and listen to the flood of reverential comment that we are being subjected to I reflect that this is one immensely powerful old man who is dying supported by the whole might of a very powerful organisation. How many children have died of starvation today in Roman Catholic countries where the churches are full of immensely valuable works of art and the bishops are well-fed? How many poor women, faced with a catastrophic pregnancy that could be caused by rape or forced intercourse are suffering the pangs of hell because some celibate priest is telling them that to even consider abortion is a sin? How much damage is being done by the church’s insistence on their role as guardians of public morals and ethics?
If we could see behind the scenes at the Vatican today we would see a power struggle that would make Harold Macmillan’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’ look like a picnic. Lord Acton said that all power corrupts and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. I didn’t realise until I read my paper this morning that he was Catholic. I wonder whether he had a fight for the Papal Succession in mind when he wrote it?
Several things are certain, the new Pope will not be a woman and will not be married. He will be faced with immense problems from day one. Chief amongst these will be that to the outsider the Roman church is completely out of step with the modern world, top heavy and facing falling church membership in the West. John Paul’s last acts have been to reinforce his hold on the church from beyond the grave by appointing ‘sound’ cardinals. He has ensured that the traditionalist arm has ascendancy and the Vatican thought police under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger have hounded down any priest who dared to think outside the box. We are not going to see any move for reform in the immediate future, business as usual.
So what am I griping about? I suppose what really upsets me is the demonstration of the power of what is after all a large and very successful business whose success is measured by their market share. The original multi-national which could possibly have done more damage than MacDonald’s, Coca Cola and Disney all rolled into one. Let’s hear it for the dissidents, the non-conformists, the agnostics and the atheists amongst whose ranks I will admit to being most comfortable.
A contrast comes to mind. At the top of the lane going down to County Brook Mill there is a small chapel, Mount Pleasant. It dates back to the earliest days of Dissent in England and is still in regular use. There will be a service there on Sunday and it will be very simple. To my mind it will have more validity in religious terms than all the pomp and ceremony we will see in Rome and all over the world.
One last thought, there is in America a red-neck country singer called Ray Stephens and one of his songs concerns a man watching a fundamentalist preacher on the TV and wondering ‘Would Jesus wear a Rolex?’ I wonder how many of the cardinals will turn up in limos and wear a Rolex?
2 April 2005
2 April 2005
I think I can understand why people of my vintage get the reputation of being grumpy. The programmes that BBC2 are running at the moment where grumpy old men and women are given air-time to bang on about their pet hates is hilarious. Like many people of my age I find myself sat there saying “Right on! You tell ‘em!” and then I laugh at myself.
On a parallel track, I remember a programme called ‘The Oldies’ that only ran for two or three episodes, it was hosted by Richard Ingram and one of the guests was Ludovic Kennedy. I remember the latter saying that one of the compensations of old age was the fact that you got to the point where you didn’t give a damn about what society thought about you, you gave your opinion and left them to sort it out. This is particularly seductive when we are witness to some major public event which is given one-sided reporting by the bulk of the media and mass hysteria sets in. Recent examples were the deaths of Princess Diana, the Queen Mother and the Pope. In the case of Diana and the Queen Mother there was almost a moratorium on any objective reporting, it was as though the dissidents were waiting for the dust to settle before they expressed any opposing point of view. I remember in 2001 when the Twin Towers were hit I was in a small mid-west town in the States and knew I had to be very careful about expressing any opinion about what had happened and why.
So, I was heartened this morning when I read my Guardian and found that they had printed a very telling list of some of the events of Pope Paul’s Pontificate which cast a rather different light on his views and what he had achieved. There was also an article suggesting that it might have been good management but it could be argued that certain aspects were not very Christian.
Organised religion has always worried me. Not the religion itself, but the management systems put in to administer it, the hierarchies, the use of power and, in the case of the Roman Catholics, the authoritarian pronouncements from the Vatican on matters which I believe passionately are a matter of personal choice. This Pope not only opposed abortion, birth control, the use of condoms as a defence against aids and many aspects of advanced medical research but he declared them to be mortal sins. In 2000 a document was issued in his name which said in effect that only the Roman Catholics had the right attitudes to religion, all other systems of belief were inferior and possibly heretical. Mind you, he does seem to have softened his attitude towards the Jews of late.
I found myself wondering what Ian Paisley thinks about the Pope. No need to wonder actually, he has stated often enough that he is the Anti-Christ. I have no time for bigotry like this but note that there is no mention of it in the news reporting this morning and like it or not, it’s a point of view. No mention either of the views of the Orthodox Church who hold that theirs is the original Church and that Roman Catholicism is an upstart version of the true religion and originated in the Great Schism in the 15th century when the Eastern church refused to accept the findings of the Council of Florence in 1472 and we inherited the Orthodox Church in the Middle and Far east and some parts of Eastern Europe with the Western Catholic church centred in Rome. I know that we can’t assign blame for this to the present Pope but they have a point of view and I haven’t seen it represented anywhere.
My mind goes back to when the paedophile scandals in the church started to surface and a secret conference was called in Rome to discuss what should be done. Apart from an apology and an expression of regret from the Pope it seemed to me that basically they were trying to bury the matter.
I could go on but when I look at and listen to the flood of reverential comment that we are being subjected to I reflect that this is one immensely powerful old man who is dying supported by the whole might of a very powerful organisation. How many children have died of starvation today in Roman Catholic countries where the churches are full of immensely valuable works of art and the bishops are well-fed? How many poor women, faced with a catastrophic pregnancy that could be caused by rape or forced intercourse are suffering the pangs of hell because some celibate priest is telling them that to even consider abortion is a sin? How much damage is being done by the church’s insistence on their role as guardians of public morals and ethics?
If we could see behind the scenes at the Vatican today we would see a power struggle that would make Harold Macmillan’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’ look like a picnic. Lord Acton said that all power corrupts and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. I didn’t realise until I read my paper this morning that he was Catholic. I wonder whether he had a fight for the Papal Succession in mind when he wrote it?
Several things are certain, the new Pope will not be a woman and will not be married. He will be faced with immense problems from day one. Chief amongst these will be that to the outsider the Roman church is completely out of step with the modern world, top heavy and facing falling church membership in the West. John Paul’s last acts have been to reinforce his hold on the church from beyond the grave by appointing ‘sound’ cardinals. He has ensured that the traditionalist arm has ascendancy and the Vatican thought police under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger have hounded down any priest who dared to think outside the box. We are not going to see any move for reform in the immediate future, business as usual.
So what am I griping about? I suppose what really upsets me is the demonstration of the power of what is after all a large and very successful business whose success is measured by their market share. The original multi-national which could possibly have done more damage than MacDonald’s, Coca Cola and Disney all rolled into one. Let’s hear it for the dissidents, the non-conformists, the agnostics and the atheists amongst whose ranks I will admit to being most comfortable.
A contrast comes to mind. At the top of the lane going down to County Brook Mill there is a small chapel, Mount Pleasant. It dates back to the earliest days of Dissent in England and is still in regular use. There will be a service there on Sunday and it will be very simple. To my mind it will have more validity in religious terms than all the pomp and ceremony we will see in Rome and all over the world.
One last thought, there is in America a red-neck country singer called Ray Stephens and one of his songs concerns a man watching a fundamentalist preacher on the TV and wondering ‘Would Jesus wear a Rolex?’ I wonder how many of the cardinals will turn up in limos and wear a Rolex?
2 April 2005