Brendan O'Neill and where are the straw dog new atheist piñatas for a ground and pound ...

(Above: from an excellent collection of cover jackets, here, and all kinds of stuff, here).

The Miss Lonelyhearts of The New York Post-Dispatch (Are-you-in-trouble? --Do-you-need-advice?--Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. On it a prayer had been printed by Shrike, the feature editor.

"Soul of Miss L, glorify me.
Body of Miss L, nourish me
Blood of Miss L, intoxicate me.
Tears of Miss L, wash me.
Oh good Miss L, excuse my plea,
And hide me in your heart,
And defend me from mine enemies.
Help me, Miss L, help me, help me.
In saecula saeculorum. Amen."

Although the deadline was less than a quarter of an hour away, he was still working on his leader. He had gone as far as: "Life is worth while, for it is full of dreams and peace, gentleness and ecstasy, and faith that burns like a clear white flame on a grim dark altar." But he found it impossible to continue. The letters were no longer funny. He could not go on finding the same joke funny thirty times a day for months on end. And on most days he received more than thirty letters, all of them alike, stamped from the dough of suffering with a heart-shaped cookie knife.

On his desk were piled those he had received this morning. He started through them again, searching for some clue to a sincere answer. (Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West)

Oh dear. Are the days of loon pond, searching through commentariat columnists, just the kind of existential nightmare Nathaniel West imagined?

Today we got as far as: "Life is worth while, for it is full of dreams and peace, gentleness and ecstasy, and faith that burns like a clear white flame on a grim dark altar." But then we found it impossible to continue. The columns were no longer funny. We could not go on finding the same joke funny thirty times a day for months on end.

Until we came across Brendan O'Neill's Atheists bent on painting Pope as a rape-happy ogre, and hallelujah we were saved yet again.

We actually haven't come across anyone intent on painting the Pope as a rape-happy ogre. Dissembling, furtive or deceptive in matters of church policy, especially in the matter of child abuse, where the cover ups have reached all the way to the Vatican, but an actual rape-happy ogre in a personal sense? As opposed to overseer of an organisation in serious disarray and simply incapable of responding to the misery its employees have caused?

We regularly come across atheists and others who question the Catholic church and its pious hypocrisies in relation to sex, but that was happening back in 1933 when the first letter to confront Miss Lonelyhearts in the morning at the start of the novel ran thus:

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts--

I am in such pain I dont know what to do sometimes I think I will kill myself my kidneys hurt so much. My husband thinks no woman can be a good catholic and not have children irregardless of the pain. I was married honorable from our church but I never knew what married life meant as I never was told about man and wife. My grandmother never told me and she was the only mother I had but made a big mistake by not telling me as it dont pay to be innocent and is only a big disappointment. I have 7 children in 12 yrs and ever since the last 2 I have been so sick. I was operated on twice and my husband promised no more children on the doctors advice as he said I might die but when I got back from the hospital he broke his promise and now I am going to have a baby and I dont think I can stand it my kidneys hurt so much. I am so sick and scared because I cant have an abortion on account of being a catholic and my husband so religious. I cry all the time it hurts so much and I dont know what to do.

Yours respectfully,

Sick-of-it-all

Truth to tell, reading Nathaniel West is much more fun than reading O'Neill's turgid, dissembling rambling defence of the Catholic Church in the matter of child abuse.

O'Neill is sick of it all, and mounts some of the strangest excuses imaginable, so that we became sick of O'Neill:

In the increasingly caliginous, almost inquisitorial mindset of sections of the New Atheist anti-Pope lobby, every allegation of abuse against a Catholic priest - whether sex talk or fondling or actual penile penetration - has been lumped together under ''rape'', and every allegation described as a proven ''rape'' - regardless of whether it resulted in a legal trial, never mind a conviction.

Um. So sex talk and fondling and other sexual innuendos and cavortings - and never mind actual penile penetration - is okay, and the only time to worry about it all if it results in a legal trial, never mind a conviction, because after all, who cares if a priest in a position of power indulges in a little fondling, provided it doesn't lead to penetration?

Suffer the little children ...

Naturally O'Neill will change his rhetorical position about this, later in his piece, when it suits him, but already he's done a disturbing amount of damage to logic and fair-minded argument, and displayed his preference for abuse, rhetoric and mounting hysteria.

Having elevated rape to a serious position, so that other activities can be discounted - where's the harm of a little fondling by a priest - O'Neill then indulges in a head count.

The allegations ranged from verbal abuse (being forced to indulge in sex talk) to being shown pornography, to being touched by a priest over or under their clothing. There were more serious allegations, including being coerced into mutual masturbation, oral sex and, in some instances, rape. A total of 1203 individuals alleged rape or attempted rape, not 10,000.

Phew. That's a relief. So the 10,000 that came forward weren't alleging rape, so much as all kinds of sexual or other abuse. And what a relief to learn, in the manner of Bill Clinton, that mutual masturbation and oral sex isn't rape, just jolly good fun between a priest and a child.

O'Neill carries this line of reasoning over into his defence of the abuse of children within the control of the Catholic church in Ireland:

How did 68 claims of anal rape over a 59-year period translate into headlines about thousands being raped? Because once again, everything from being smacked to being emotionally abused was lumped together with being raped, creating a warped image of a religious institution that rapes children almost daily.

You see if you set up anal rape as your sole criterion, it's a sweet kind of get out of jail card. Funnily enough, even the Catholic church didn't bother with this kind of tosh, this kind of offensive, specious defence, as Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, the Primate of All Ireland made clear:

This Report makes it clear that great wrong and hurt were caused to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. It documents a shameful catalogue of cruelty: neglect, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, perpetrated against children.

I am profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions. Children deserved better and especially from those caring for them in the name of Jesus Christ. (here).

Because after all, child abuse is child abuse, whether there's a bonus anal rape involved or not. And it's hard to imagine that anyone, after reading the Irish Commission's inquiry into child abuse - which is to say actual abuse, rather than one variant in the form of anal rape - could indulge in statistics and actual convictions as a way of avoiding the kind of cultural and institutional humiliations inflicted on children in the name of the church (and if you can stand to read it, the Commission's findings are online here).

By this time, it's clear enough that O'Neill loves his straw dogs. Why, we began to wonder, was he redefining the issue, so that rapes and convictions became the measure, rather than the culture which the Church itself has conceded is a problem requiring ongoing reform:

Why point out these basic facts? Not to defend the Catholic Church, which clearly has a sexual abuse problem, or to minimise the suffering of those individuals who ''only'' suffered being verbally abused, shown dirty photos or fondled over their clothing by priests - all of those acts are abhorrent and potentially punishable by law.

Say what? You mean all that downgrading of offences and defence of the Catholic church wasn't a defence at all?

What then was the point of all the blather? Perhaps it's because there's an even bigger villain than the Catholic church, in some mysterious way responsible for all that's gone down?

No, it is worth pointing out the reality of the extent of allegations against the Catholic Church to expose the non-rationalist, anti-humanist underpinnings of the current fashion for Catholic-baiting among the liberal, opinion-forming classes. The wildly inaccurate claims suggest that modern atheism has zero interest in applying the tools of rational investigation and critical questioning, and is hellbent on using the politics of fear to invent a fantastical rape-happy ogre, in contrast to which it can pose as the pure defender of childlike innocence and integrity.

Yes, it's a chance to indulge in the purest blather and the wildest fantasies, in order to give those straw dog liberal opinion-forming classes a good drubbing, yet again. Even if it means living in a fantastical world where modern atheists purport to pose as pure defenders of childlike innocence and integrity.

Throw in fantastical rape-happy ogre and you're in la la Shrek land when it comes to wax-eared hysteria.

Which is of course to entirely flip the way things work, as anyone who's ever taken first holy communion in the Catholic church would know, what with the fetishistic white dresses as gleaming and as spotless and pure as the nascent soul until the evil songs of experience in the world begin to leave carbon on the soul, and it becomes coarse, blackened and hardened.

In the past, it was the Catholic Church, especially during the Inquisition, which demonised its enemies as depraved perverts. Now, the so-called New Atheists have adopted these tactics in their drive to depict religion as the greatest evil of our age.

Actually I've come to think that the greatest evil of our age (given that we can all accept evil as a description of offensive human behaviour) involves the dissemblers, poseurs, and delusional paranoids who use straw dogs to win specious arguments, in a frothing, foaming way, and never mind the actual inexcusable suffering that actual people might have experienced along the way.

But at least this week, they're not the militant atheists, or nouveau atheists, or that recent favourite, born-again atheists. Now now they're simple New Atheists, and somehow mysteriously and ineluctably, in a way that passes understanding, the moral panic within the church is all their fault ...

And never mind the actual people within the Catholic church, some of whom who still remain within its portals, who can be swept up and away, and their complaints and issues mitigated, by lumping all the problems of the Church at the door of these brand spanking New Atheists.

It'd be a laughing matter if it weren't so pathetic. And sordid and sad. So instead we turned for a laugh back to Miss Lonelyhearts in his/her/gender bending quest to provide an answer to it all:

A copy boy came up to tell him that Shrike wanted to know if the stuff was ready. He bent over the typewriter and began pounding its keys.

But before he had written a dozen words, Shrike leaned over his shoulder. "The same old stuff," Shrike said. "Why don't you give them something new and hopeful? Tell them about art. Here, I'll dictate:

"Art Is a Way Out.

"Do not let life overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the debris of failure, look for newer and fresher paths. Art is just such a path. Art is distilled from suffering. As Mr. Polnikoff exclaimed through his fine Russian beard, when, at the age of eighty-six, he gave up his business to learn Chinese, 'We are, as yet, only at the beginning...

"Art Is One of Life's Richest Offerings.

"For those who have not the talent to create, there is appreciation. For those...

"Go on from there."

Oh sweet absent lord. Not even art is safe from the cynic ...

(Below: and now a few scandalous images being circulated by New Atheists to show how intent they are on celebrating the innocence of children, as if atheism needs children as its willing victims).