Excuse me for a moment, I think I just vomited in my mouth.

It's not swine flu - it's Kennedy Funeral.  Okay so he apparently went to confession before he died and therefore just about scrapes through the canonical requirements to get a Catholic funeral (though if it's the same priests he's been hanging with for the last forty years, well, I suppose they have it on their conscience). 

I saw a bit of the Left Hand of Darkness doing a eulogy - those of you with long memories will remember my first published letter in the Irish Times condemning eulogies - before Gary O'Sullivan decided to black ball me - the man who has brought The Irish Catholic to such noble depths with his page two thoughts that are always so moving.  Where was I?  Actually bizarrely the Left Hand was far from the worst and at least he has the excuse of not being a Catholic.  What was truly horrific were the Prayers of the Faithful which you can get on youtube here. 

Make yourself listen and remind yourself how far the Church has to go to restore some sense of what is the liturgy is supposed to be about.  The prayers reminded me of a slowed down version of Ben Elton.  Basically everyone who disagreed with Teddy was attacked as unloving, intolerant, in need of prayer.  For a laugh go to 3.00mins on the clip for a woman whose had a chin transplant from Gail Tilsley.

But even all this could be forgiven, but was is unforgiveable - well go to 5.10min and you'll see a form of child abuse worse than anything you'll ever read in the Ryan Report.

The post title is based on my imaginary vision of Elton John singing his quickly rewritten "classic".