The Suppository

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I got hold of a copy of last week's Tablet to see if I could work out how it turns a profit: I couldn't.

It suffers from the same problem as all other serious weeklies as the world moves to rolling news: it has nothing original to say about the news that wasn't said within 24 hours of whatever happened happening. And as its USP is left wing, there aren't many people around who are prepared to read ten days late what Peter really said to Gordon.

So the only area in which it has anything original to say is about religion, and Gosh! it's tedious. It is relentlessly on message where the message is a particularly English interpretation of the Spirit of Vatican II. If it met Wir Sind Kirche, both sides would need interpreters, ambassadors, intermediaries: because if you don't understand the UK of NuLabour, you won't understand the Catholic Church of the Tabletistas.

I even read the tendentious, lying, drivel written by Fr Michael G Ryan about the new translation of the Mass to see if it was as bad as everybody said it was: it wasn't really. It was just banal, tendentious, lying, drivel.

I had wondered if we were subsidising the rag by our parishes' overbuying vast quantities of it, but according to Valle Adurni here, everything comes on sale or return.

So we have to face up to the fact that some way or another, enough people are prepared to shell out money to allow the Suppository to turn sufficient profit to allow it to fund scholarships in Spirit of Vatican II liturgical activity (I kid you not).

"The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms."

It is rich too.
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