Hot under the dog collar

Ratzi and his colleagues at Vatican City (a Mickey Mouse "state" created in 1929 under Benito Mussolini) are furious because Belgian police have "violated" a pair of episcopal tombs during a search for evidence in the crypt of the cathedral in the city of Mechelon, in the Flemish province of Antwerp. What a pity, retrospectively, that Benny and his friends never got quite so upset in recent times when the living bodies of innocent youth were being violated, in every corner of the globe, by predatory priests. Meanwhile, Vatican City needs to realize that it's unorthodox, indeed legally wrong, for aliens to attempt to intervene in judicial inquiries conducted within a sovereign state such as Belgium.

Having made that straightforward remark, I must admit that there's often a Tintin streak to certain happenings in Belgium. (As my readers surely know, the Tintin comic books were one of that nation's most famous creations.) Was it maybe a Belgian police dog akin to Milou (apparently called Snowy in English), sniffing around in the cathedral, that caused the inspectors to imagine that the current archbishop might have concealed secret documents in the tombs of his predecessors? But Ratzi wouldn't understand that point of view. Ah, the world would be a better and brighter place if popes had the habit of reading comics!

BREAKING NEWS: Yesterday (Monday), the US Supreme Court made a momentous move concerning the possible responsibility of the Vatican City in the context of cases of pedophile priests pursued in the USA. On the surface, the court's decision appears to be neutral, in that it has decided not to pronounce a ruling on the question of the Vatican's possible immunity. But this refusal to provide a ruling is the Supreme Court's way of confirming a recent decision of an appeals court, which had engaged explicitly the Vatican's responsibility. So, the anti-papist ball is surely starting to roll in God's Own Country.