You know, as an avowed atheist who would be deliriously happy if there were no religion in this world, I am very concerned about what is going on in the Catholic church. This is nothing to do with the fact that I was brought up Catholic, still less to do with any sense of schadenfreude. Millions of people adhere to the Catholic faith, I'm all for anyone adhering to whatever they want to adhere to, and I think they deserve a better deal (incidentally, it's rather quaint of Catholicism to claim a billion members. I wouldn't mind betting that me, my mum, my sister and my brother are all counted in that lot even though we are all most decidedly not Catholics any more!). That's the point really. I don't really care that much if an individual bishop has been up to no good. And if a bunch of priests have been misbehaving, well any self-respecting setup would clamp down on it immediately, not shove it under the carpet. Sadly, in trying (by lies and denial) to demonstrate that it is above human imperfection, the Church has actually shown that it is just as "down there" in the morass as the bankers and the landlords and the union-bashers and the pimps and the traffickers and the money-launderers. Show me a virtuous Catholic church and I'll show you an organisation that we atheists would have severe difficulty knocking.