Perhaps air freshener would hide the stench?

There are some services, such as dentistry or embalming, when it’s always advisable to engage the services of a professional rather than attempting to fix the problem oneself. Other matters, such as, for example, explaining the loss of a paltry $160 million, can be handled without outside assistance – but only if you’ve either got a degree of expertise in the field, or you’re a cult leader dealing with a large number of really gullible disciples.

In little Archbishop Peter Jensen’s case it appears he’s not leaving anything to chance: not only is the GAFCON faux-primate attempting to generate his own oily cover up, but he’s also engaged a personal spin-doctor (no sense wasting what little money remains on anything trivial, like clergy stipends); an almost-famous journalist who formerly worked the graveyard shift on an all-news public broadcaster, and who in the course of this cutting-edge role on occasion communicated to as many as several dozen people, some of whome might even have been actually listening.

Now I’ll be honest about this: I prefer to not mention the Diocese of Mordor in any of my homilies more often than once a month. A most dear great-uncle of mine was on a number of occasions convicted of practicing proctology without a license, and referring to Jensenland more frequently than this gives the unpleasant feeling that I may be starting to follow in his footsteps. Yet in this instance little Peter’s potential Pullitzer prize winner (he also occasionally filled in on Sunday afternoons when rain cancelled the football) has set a new standard in gloss too bright to ignore: with the finesse of a flat-footed ballerina his weekly news summary segues his whitewash (“the effects of the GFC”) into a report that “one in three Australian families had faced some financial hardship in the first six months of this year” (not as big as the Sydney Diocese’s, they haven’t), after which (see point 3) he attacks American Lutherans in one of the most charming examples of the timeless GAFCON principle of ignoring any inconvenient planks in one’s own eye since Nigerian Christians cast the first stone at western “immorality” while torturing and murdering children accused of witchcraft. (Special thanks to the Beloved Sinner who sends me links like that one: nothing so effectively puts little Martyn Minns in perspective, and no doubt his canonical co-residents shall one day look truly resplendent attired in their specially selected millstones)

Yet the final word on all this doesn’t come from little Pete’s professional. Nor does it come from Noble Wolf or Alcibiades Caliban, two Beloved Sinners daring to defend Anglicanism from within the heart of Jensen’s Heretical Stronghold. No, the truly definitive comment – the one which with breathtaking naivety most effectively sums everything up - must surely be this:

“There has been from the diocesan hierarchy disclosure, honesty, soul-searching and taking of responsibility. I know this first hand and from reading what has been written.”

It’s written by little Pete’s son and heir apparent, who quite naturally doesn’t have to worry in the slightest about whether or not he’s going to have a job next year. You can find it in the comments of an hilariously censored thread here. And after all, if little Jensen Jnr. says he’s seen “disclosure, honesty, soul-searching and taking of responsibility” the matter should be settled then. Claiming he’s not capable of making an objective evaluation is a ludicrous as claiming Kim Jong-il can’t be trusted when he says he routinely hits three or four holes-in-one every time he plays.

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.