A HORSE CALLED VIATICUM

Once upon a time in a country accused by a former Pope of the credulity of its mothers there lived a Parish Priest.

No, not THAT Parish Priest - I am prohibited from telling that ultra-germane story by the Vatican thought police and the current tsunami of secular political correctness. I'll have to keep that one for the next life, assuming there is one and that we both end up in the same place.

Well, THIS Parish Priest had a horse, and a family in the parish had a field. The family, for whatever reason, allowed the PP to graze his horse in their field. And as Voltaire said of Candide, all was for the best in the best of possible worlds.

But then came the day when, for whatever reason, the family had to sell or cultivate the field and the news had to be broken to the Parish Priest that his horse would have to find other pastures. The PP was not pleased.

Fast forward >>>

As the granny lay dying, the family sent for the priest, as one does. The Parish Priest refused to attend, stripping viaticum at its roots. The family, fully aware of the possible implications for the granny's immortal soul, were devastated. But the PP would not budge. There was in play the unmentioned story of the horse.

Fortunately for the family, and possibly the granny as well, there was a religious order located nearby and an order priest did the needful and the good granny had company on her journey to eternity.

This is a true story. It happened in my family.

Now why would I drag up this horseshit, so to speak, at a time when the current Pope appeals for love and toleration all round and takes the scythe of tolerance to the chaff of clericalism. Surely all this holy hubris and triumphalist theology is becoming a thing of the past and it is irresponsible of me to fan the flames of anticlericalism.

Would that it were.

The Eucharist is once more being weaponised in the faction fighting within the Holy Roman Catholic and Universal church.

Refusing Communion to those straying outside the dictats of a fossilised and outmoded Magisterium is increasingly the norm. The Church, by which I mean the clerics in this case, is wielding its power because it can. No matter that this is an incredibly cruel and short sighted thing to do.

The horse is back, screaming for its grass