While wearing a tidy fuschia,cerise or magenta outfit in fetching Emma Peel style, the pond surveys religion on a Sunday ...

(Above: from the incredible - and incredibly frustrating to access - Trove of Australian newspapers. This from the good old days of The West Australian's advertisements of 30th September 1949, discovered by happenstance).

So the big news around the traps has been the sledging the Catholic church's been copping at the Victorian inquiry into assorted cover-ups, lies, deceptions, and other strange behaviour from alleged followers of Christ, and that's before we even get to the paedophilia.

The Victorian coppers have been laying it on with a trowel and Barney Zwartz has been making out like a salivating bandit - he's always happy to sledge the Catholics - and so we've been getting a flow of reports, such as Catholic clergy the worst abusers, inquiry told, co-authored with Jane Lee. (forced video at end of link)

All sorts of chooks are coming home to roost, including this one:

Professor Parkinson, who chaired a review of child protection laws in New South Wales and twice reviewed the church's national Towards Healing abuse protocol, said he broke with the Catholic Church over its cover-up of his independent report on the Salesians of Don Bosco. 
Speaking under parliamentary privilege, he said the order sent three priests overseas to avoid police questioning, then suppressed his report on their actions. He told the committee an American child safety expert had called the order ''the most defiant and unrepentant group'' in the church. 
Professor Parkinson said: ''The lies were breathtaking, and [former Australian head] Father [Frank] Moloney was absolutely at the centre of all the untruths.'' 

What can be possibly said? 

It's such a sad and sorry and unhappy matter, the pond will leave it to others. 

But there was one bright spot. As a correspondent pointed out to the pond, in another piece for Fairfax, Barners, when left to his own devices in Questions demand royal commission, distinguished himself with this line about Georgie Crozier, Victorian MP chairing the inquiry:

Ms Crozier, looking authoritative in a power navy suit with crisp white blouse, spoke well.

Uh huh. The joys of power dressing. The pond yearns for the day that we can read of Tony Abbott:

Tony Abbott, looking authoritative in a lycra-clad power suit, with crisp yellow blouse covering an abundance of chest hair, spoke assertively, some might say aggressively, but all agreed, negatively ...

The moral? The next time you read someone blathering on about how misogyny doesn't exist in Australia, please make a note of their attire, and include it in the story.

Barney Zwarz, looking authoritative in a dull black suit, a skanky striped sort of white shirt, and an incredibly vulgar cross-hatched blue tie (who on earth told him that would go with a striped shirt?), gets down to the serious business of an inquiry into the abuse of children into the Catholic church, or speaking into a microphone, or whatever:

Sadly, it's too serious a business to make fun of, but it does make reading the week-old ramblings of evasive, hand-washing and wringing Cardinal George Pell in the Sunday Terror increasingly surreal:

Immediately following Vatican II many of us were over confident and over optimistic. Only now in Australia are we recovering from the losses e.g. of priests and religious and the moral and doctrinal confusion. 
 Today Christians are inclined in the opposite direction, tempted to be too quiet, uneasy about their Catholic identity and occasionally even doubtful whether Christ's message is adequate for today's challenges. The hope is that this Synod's recommendations will boost confidence and a return to the spiritual sources. As one apocryphal Irish priest is alleged to have said: "The situation is so bad that I have started to pray again". 
 Australia is not Ireland, as the number of Australian Catholics increased by 300,000 between 2005-2011. But we are under pressure. A good number are drifting away. We have plenty of work ahead. (here)

Plenty of work ahead!? Time for some power dressing?

Does the work include any attempt to repair the incredible damage sprayed about by the church, and now being unveiled in Victoria, where the cat is out of the bag and the horse is away from the cart?

Never mind, let's leave Pell in his delusional state, we're off to visit the Sydney Anglicans. 

And sadly once again Michael Jensen is a no show, so we thought we'd show a screen cap of his recent outing on ABC television promoting his apology for being a Sydney Anglican (you can catch it here, a fair way into the ep).

Only one book for an apology? Well it's a start:

What to say?

Michael Jensen, looking authoritative in a power black suit jacket, yet casually commanding in an open-necked shirt, but with a hint of formal button-upness in its discreet if somewhat sombre greyness, spoke defensively, perhaps even apologetically..

What are we left with this Sunday at the angry Anglicans?

Not much, but there were signs of hope in the header Beware the rogue bishop.

They've spotted a rogue bishop?

Could this be the assault on Jensenism the pond has been waiting for years for? Was the rogue archbishop being denounced just as he prepared to leave the stage?

No such luck. It seems there are plenty of rogue bishops out there, but none worth mentioning amongst the Sydney Anglicans.

At least the pond can report on Archbishop Jensen's final Presidential address:

Dr. Jensen, looking authoritative in a blackish sort of power suit, strangely tinted by stage lighting into a glowing apocalyptic orange, and with natty crisp white shirt, accompanied by a hideously vulgar broadly, almost zebra-striped tie, spoke like a prophet who'd just emerged from a time machine which had taken him to ... 2060. (I see... 2060)

Next thing you know Sydney Anglicans will be rushing off to see Loopers. Hey, will they get a shock, as they try to deal with alternative realities. Will a future Jensen rush back in time to stop the current Jensen, and halt the turn to fundamentalism and the cries for the submission of women?

Submit, submissive women, to the superior dress skills of the authoritative power suited Anglican male!

Meanwhile - you know when 'meanwhile' turns up we're off in segue land - it really wouldn't be a complete round up if we didn't spend a little time off with news of Islamic activities.

What better way to celebrate than to ponder on the story in the lizard Oz - paywall affected - with the header Canberra Islamic college contracts to family.

It's all very well to talk about and promise pie in the sky but in the meantime, you'd better make sure you get a little tickle in the sweet bye and bye:

Among the contracts given to Mr Patel's son-in-law, Afraaz Mohammed, was $280,900 of commonwealth money for a security fence - still incomplete - under the Gillard government's Secure Schools program, which gives schools deemed at security risk hundreds of thousands of dollars for fencing. 
 The school went on to collect another $76,000 for the fence from the ACT government and surrounding property owners - including the Australian National University - bringing the total cost of the unfinished project to $360,628. According to financial records, the school is still claiming another $28,000 from the Attorney-General's Department. 
 In 2010-11 the school handed over an additional $275,607 to Auz Fix, Mr Mohammed's one-man company, for what was labelled "repair and maintenance jobs". The amount given to Auz Fix by the school dwarfs other payments made to contractors, the second-largest payment made to another contractor being just over $30,000. 
 Auz Fix has no listed office or shopfront, its only mailing address being a PO box in Queanbeyan, just outside of Canberra. 
 The school is managed by AFIC but relies on state and commonwealth grants for its survival, receiving $575,723 from the government last year, or about 60 per cent of its funding.

Yep, it's another triumph for government funding of religious schools.

Mr. Ibekal Patel, looking authoritative in a powerfully crumpled navy suit - no woman irons or drycleans his clothes - with a commanding mix of striped shirt and dots on tie, spoke of handyman fixes for funding difficulties ...

... while coming as fresh as a daisy from a previous funding triumph:

Australia's largest Muslim school, Malek Fahd in Sydney's southwest - where Mr Patel is also chairman of the board - is under police and ASIC investigation after the NSW government ordered it pay back $9 million in fees paid to AFIC that it concluded were for profit.

Come one, come all, come ye scientologists, come ye Exclusive Brethren, come ye creationists, come you submissive girls, come ye young children yearning to be fiddled with, and enjoy the benefits of government funding of a religious education.

Will anything ever change?

Not likely, well at least until the rapture spirits away the rogues, and leaves the sensible people behind.

Looking authoritatively casual in a splendid short-sleeved button-up green top, setting off his casual brown slacks nicely, Jimmy was completely able to overlook the double entendre implications of his shout of ecstasy thanks to his tidy power dressing clothes, while Jenny's blonde hair showed off the buxom readiness of her ripe bosom, concealed beneath a crisp and engagingly powerful red dress with fetching white collar and button up front... buttons that so easily could be de-buttoned in the fevered imaginings of Jimmy's raptured brain ...

Or some such thing. Remember you can always get a decent dose of Rapture comics here (slow to load and some missing but worth the effort if you're inclined to the cult weird).

Meanwhile,  in international news, the Pope stands firm, shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church (even if they are splitters and heretics), against those badly dressed, appalling pussy rioters, as you can read in Russian Church was right to condemn Pussy Riot, says Pope. Or did he?

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told The Independent: "I have nothing to say. This was reported on the site of the Russian Patriarch and it was about a meeting I was not privy to. I have no intention of disturbing the Pope to ask him about it."

Damn splitters. 

How to report the story in the fetching, bold Barney Zwartz style?

Pope Benedict the XVI, looking astonishingly authoritative and resplendent in a gorgeous golden frock on a revealing plain white petticoat shown off in dashing flasher style, said dammit pussy rioters, I'm in a meeting and so what if I washed my hands in a bowl handed to me by the Russians ...

Oh okay, all this has been completely frivolous, perhaps a 'T-shirt with shorts and flip flops' scribble, but all these religions have form, and Barney Zwartz is a practitioner who dabbles in reporting, and they all have used dress as a way to control women, whether it's burqas for the Islamics, or penguin suits for the sweaty nuns sent to torture in the pond in the hot Tamworth sun.

And so for something a little different, a promotional sign which shows either (a) how stupid some Christians can be, or (b) how desperate some Christians can be, or (c) how heartless some Christians can be, or (d) how deluded some Christians can be. 

Go on, have a guess, truth to tell, the pond doesn't mind which way you answer. 

Heck you can select all four options if you like, but just imagine how you'll spend eternity with your body reconstructed after the rapture, mouth cancer, buggered lungs and all.

(Below: as featured outside St Peter's Anglican church on the Princes Highway, and then featured in Blessed are the smokers for they are welcome in heaven).

And so to explain the obscure pond header.

Emma Peel? Que, you ask, proud of your ability to imitate Manuel, he's from Barcelona, in Fawlty Towers ...

Yes for too long the pond has been ignoring the demands of its gentleman readers. 

So here's a selection of images of an authoritatively dressed Diana Rigg in crisp 1960s gear (she spoke well too). 

Oh fashion, how cruel it is ... but surely looking at pictures is still a better way to spend a Sunday than in the company of the Pellists, Jensenists, Islamists and Barney Zwartzists? 

Special bonus image for Sydney Anglicans included. Guess which one it is?