I watched a programme today called Some of my best friends are... Catholic, presented by Dermot O'Leary. Do you know, I've never resolved how to type surnames that begin with 'O? I guess I shall look into it later. The premise was this: Dermot outs himself as a catholic (he's in a confessional, it's terribly witty), says he has an issue with some of the church's teachings, exclusivity of salvation through the catholic church, contraception, morality of homosexuality, and then proceeds to ask some other Catholics if that's the kind of thing he can get away with and still call himself a catholic. Obviously they differ. I guess they had a pretty 50/50 liberal/orthodox representation. It was quite interesting.

The orthodox people were fairly vocal, but with a tendency towards being completely unpersuasive. I daresay that was because of the editing, but naturally I couldn't say. One guy about to enter into theological college, or whatever it's called, apparently didn't even understand Dermot's question of what would happen if the Pope said one day "Actually, come to think of it, maybe contraception's a pretty good idea." He just said it was an impossible question, an impossible situation, which is presumably what he believes, but of no rational help to anyone. There was also a woman representing Catholic Truth, a web-site (couldn't find it) apparently with the purpose of snitching on liberal clergy to the church heirarchy. She said that questioning church authority was wrong, which is one of the most stupid things I've heard for a while.

Dermot was very put off by these answers, saying that his reason and conscience were God-given. For solace he found some more liberal catholics. They never justified their liberal position, so far as I can recall, with reference to anything other than the world and it's problems. They tended to have an air of naughty schoolboy to them, and one of them looked a bit like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. Hmm. The frustrating thing is that no-one represented an alliance of faith and reason to Dermot, or if they did, it was edited out. In conclusion, Dermot walked into the sunset saying something along the lines of "My faith is strong, and the church authorities can't take that away from me." Poor Dermot. I wish I could have a chat with him.

Ah well, apparently the nights and days shall be cooling off from hereon in, so I might get a good night's sleep as a prelude to my search for the elusive beast known as a job in Exeter. On the other hand, speaking to Mary today, I remembered that Bristol is a fairly big nearby place, and they'll have jobs too, so perhaps I should apply for stuff there too.