Brendan O’Neill says that Lapsed, or Recovering, Catholics are wallowing in their victim status now that a traditionalist has been elected Pope
Lapsed Catholics are sorely disappointed that the 265th Pope of Rome, Benedict XVI, is — shock, horror — a strict Roman Catholic. The 20 million lapsed Catholics in America had hoped, according to an Ohio-based newspaper, that the Church would become a ‘friendlier place’ after the demise of John Paul II, and coax ‘hurt, angry and lapsed Catholics’ like themselves back into the pews. Lapsed Catholics in Britain also prayed for a new happy-clappy era under a less dogmatic Pope, who might, a friend of mine hoped, ‘bend some of the old rules’. Perhaps they wanted the Dalai Lama in the top job, or Oprah Winfrey — isn’t it time we had a black woman for Pope? Instead we got Papa Ratzi, and the lapsed have gone into a sulk.
But I have a question for Benedict XVI, should he be reading this: do you really want this lapsed lot — an irritating bunch who have all but set up their own breakaway religion anyway — back in your gang?
Lapsed Catholics get on my wick. In my experience, they bang on about Catholicism — how it moulded them or damaged them or made them into sexual inadequates or guilt-ridden masturbators — far more than practising Catholics do. Many of the observant seem sensibly to have abandoned hope that we heathens might be converted to the One True Path, and thus tend to keep their religion to themselves. But if you have the misfortune to be plonked next to one of the lapsed at a dinner party, there’s a very good chance he will bore you comatose with tales of his time in the bosom of the wicked Mother Church.
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