archbishop machievelli martin strikes again

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin sat in the plushest armchair in the plushest room in the plushest episcopal palace in Dublin.

He was reading a printout of The Heelers Diaries.

The following sentence caught his attention:

"Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is a liberal leftist infiltrator colluding with shadowy figures from the Judiciary and Media in attempting to remake the Catholic Church in Ireland in his own image by ascribing contrived criminality to Bishops for their handling of child abuse cases thirty years ago."

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's eyes narrowed as he once more read the truth about himself in the only place on earth where that truth can be read.

He stood up.

He thought it unlikely that The Heelers Diaries could be a threat to him.

As far as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is concerned, God is still on the side of the big newspaper groups.

The Anti Catholic Irish Times. (Current losses: A hundred million a year.)

The Anti Catholic Independent Newspapers Group. (Net indebtedness: Two thousand million dollars and rising. Year End Accounts, a work of fiction that would embarass Anglo Irish Bank.)

The Anti Catholic broadcaster RTE. (No viewers. No revenue. Financed solely by 500 million dollars a year in compulsory taxation raised from the citizenry who have to pay for it whether they watch it, or disapprove of its Marxian ethos, or excoriate it, or spurn it, or not.)

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was counting on these behemoths to crush The Heelers Diaries like an ant.

Yet he had also lately become aware that a growing number of Bishops, and a growing number of priests, and a growing number of nuns, and a growing number of ordinary Christians, an inordinate number of them in fact... wouldn't p*** on him if he was on fire.

He frowned.

Yes the change in attitudes was real enough alright.

Real and growing ever more discernible.

A few nuns had quite deliberately cold shouldered him when he was glad handing a group of Poor Clares at a recent photo opportunity event.

And even though the photo with the nuns had been emblazoned in newspapers throughout the British Isles by his media allies, he still couldn't quite shake the memory of the way some of the nuns had shrunk away from him.

As though he carried the spoor of the damned.

Then there was his attempt to place himself at the head of the Dublin Pilgrimage To Lourdes.

He'd gone along and been photographed.

And the photos had been disseminated as per usual by his media allies.

And sure enough some of the peasantry had indeed been lapping out of his hands.

But the others.

Really quite a lot of them.

The ones who glanced at him quickly with accusing eyes.

The ones who wouldn't talk to him.

The ones who wouldn't shake his hand.

The ones who wouldn't even approach him.
The memory was most unsettling.

This rebellion had to be coming from somewhere.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin squinted at the Heelers Diaries printout.

"The mouse that roared," he murmured.

He recognised that the blatent clearly stated exposition of his plans to remake the church in his own liberal leftist image, could be most dangerous if it became common currency.

The jig would be up.

And gone.

The wily old diplomat knew what he had to do.

There was only one thing for it.

He would without delay insert the phrase "remaking the Catholic Church in his own image" into one of his own speeches and apply it to his own critics.

Two days later in Italy that's precisely what he did.

This element of his speech was faithfully reported by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's media allies in the Anti Catholic Irish Times who of course deliberately concealed the fact that the phrase had been originally applied to him and that the Archbishop had simply lifted it from this website.

And all across Dublin, in plush armchairs in plush drawing rooms in plush palaces, the Archbishop and his media pals toasted their own cleverality.

You know what folks.

They really think they're getting away with it.

O tempera.

O morons.