Joe's comments about Fatima as a fascist rallying point reminded me of what's happened at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has similarly become a pilgrimage site as a result of a series of "visions". I was in Mostar (the nearest city to Medjugorje) in the last couple of weeks. Probably related to Medjugorje is the enormous Rio-type concrete cross someone recently put up on the top of the hill obove Mostar. It's sited at the exact point where the Croatian Catholic fascists placed their artillery to blast the city to pieces, with thousands of deaths, in the early 1990s. The whole Medjugorje cult was fake mysticism intended to rally Catholics around the Croatian fascist cause (i.e. the expropriation of half of Bosnia). It's one of the biggest Catholic pilgrimage sites in Europe.

I think the moral is that if Catholic kids start having officially-approved visions anywhere in your neighbourhood, it's time to make sure your anti-aircraft guns have enough ammo.

A lot of what the Catholic Church did under John Paul II was far worse than raping a few kids, but because mass murder of Muslims and socialists doesn't trigger approved moral outrage under the capitalist sustem in the way that sexual deviance does, it looks like nobody's going to be held to account for it, least of all Wojtyla, the genocidal shit in charge of it all.

I thought about going to Medjugorje but decided anything with associations that violent and depressing was a bit much for a holiday. Instead I went to Blagaj, a few miles out of Mostar in the other direction, and by pure fluke hit their annual Muslim festival (around Mevlud, the birthday of Mohammed). There were about 20,000 people there, mainly for the street fair (stalls selling roast meat, Muslim kitsch souvenirs, wooden toys and cheap underwear). The most violent thing about it was a chance to ride on the dodgems.