In which the Caterists take a holyday and the pond decides to visit Rome ...

This is what happens when the Caterists set the country on course for a sugar high, then slink off into the night, leaving the pond bereft and heartbroken ...

Someone lets the poodle out, and the poodle, up to his gills on the white stuff, decides to announce, with the fully tone deaf Malware in full cry beside him, that Australia will become a nation of war mongers, and isn't that good ...

Not only were the reptiles mocking it ...others were wondering how joining in a global arms race might improve the prospects for humanity ...

Who else but the poodle could be so gung ho, so tone deaf and so silly?

Australia's defence exports are worth about $2 billion a year — but Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said he wants that figure to be higher. "We sell a veritable welter of [defence] products, but we haven't really taken it to the next level, which is to seriously compete in the world for a part of what is a $1.5 trillion part of the world economy," he told the ABC's AM program. "We have a high reputation for quality and capability — we need to turn that into products and services."

And that's what happens when the Caterists ship out and leave the pond high and dry.

It has to pay attention to the real world, and the things that delight local cartoonists. The products of war, the death machine, and the services that go with it, the killing fields and repression and havoc.

Oh let loose the poodle of war, alongside the other dogs ...

Naturally Rowe was also on a sugar high, and keen to advertise Australian products and services ...

As always, there's more Rowe here, and in the meantime, the pond began to wander free-form style around the lizard Oz to see what else might catch the eye and serve as a Caterist substitute, Caterist-lite if you will...

The reptiles were naturally agitated about power prices - all this dreadful renewable energy, dinkum Aussie coal oi, oi, oi - and selling modest dress to Islamic countries was also a winner, but being perverse, and reading the Catholic Boys' Daily, naturally the pond was drawn to this story ...

Say what?

It reminded the pond of that old Protestant saw about the church of Rome and the whore of Babylon, as featured in Luther's bible ...

Poor old one-time Protestant David Marr tried to eradicate the idea, thinking it a form of religious bigotry, and yet, when he came to writing up the Royal Commission at length here?

...the political challenge that must be faced across the country now the commission has finished its work is how to grapple with Rome – an old, shrewd and complicated institution that has never quite abandoned its role as a world power. 
Rome still sees itself as the judge and protector of its priests. Local bishops can’t sack them – they can stand them aside but not sack them. And Rome has never issued an unambiguous directive to priests and members of religious orders who become aware of child abuse in their ranks to call the police. 
Coleridge cited lots of talk but no “structured discussions” on the point. Canon lawyers assembled by the chief royal commissioner, Peter McClellan, debated the issue for hours. Leo XIII seemed to say something quite promising but in the end they couldn’t turn up a clear direction from the church to report priestly abusers to the state. 
McClellan thought the discussion extraordinary. How can church law be so opaque? “Maybe I’m just an ordinary common lawyer, but we normally say things in simple words.” The canon lawyers balked. McClellan suggested Rome might adopt a plain formula: “Obey civil law.” 
What emerged from the evidence of church lawyers, theologians and a slew of bishops about the workings of Rome in Australia was the blueprint of an organisation perfectly suited to eluding control. Coleridge made rather a joke of it: “When I hear people talk about the monolithic Catholic church, I think to myself, which church are we in? It’s like herding cats … ”

And then, a little further down the page ...

...the church is a foreign power. In 2014 it used its status as a little state to deny vital documents to the commission. The refusal was not blanket. Rome’s obstinacy came hedged about with respectful rhetoric. But when it mattered the church said no. 
McClellan got the message: “Our experience is that documents generated in Rome in relation to a perpetrating priest won’t be available to civil authorities in the state where the priest lives. That’s what it amounts to.” 
Third, the church really doesn’t exist. It’s everywhere but nowhere. It has no more legal form in Australia than a gathering of book clubs. All those dioceses and orders with their immense property holdings are mere unincorporated associations. Among other things: they can’t be sued. 
Fourth, no one here can issue orders to every corner of the Australian church. There’s a local bishops conference with considerable authority. But all decisions that really matter are referred to Rome. And bishops have no authority over the orders that run schools and hospitals. Between priests and brothers is a great divide. And the orders have been found to be sheltering appalling numbers of paedophiles.

There's a lot more at the link, but that sets the scene nicely for the paranoia on parade in the Catholic Boys' Daily ...

Strange the good bishop didn't mention all the good work done by the church in the matter of abused children, whereby the local church authorities acted as a chapter for a foreign government pulling the strings from Rome ...

Oh how sweet it was to read, and how wondrous the denials and the insistence on local autonomy ...

International links?

Is that how the Pope is viewed these days? And the local church doesn't act on behalf of the church of Rome?

Why it seems like Catholics down under are now living in a religious crowned Republic ...

Of course Malware's government has made a mess of this legislation, with many unintended consequences, but there's nothing new in that. Just ask anyone hooked up to HFC ...

What was pleasing was the pond being reminded that even when the Caterist cat went away, there would be many other wonders designed to replace the cat and amuse the mice ...

And that brings the pond back full circle to Australia doing a Rambo, and Malware and the poodle drawing a first blood strike from the real Pope, resident in Canberra, with more papal missives here ...

And look, there's some dinkum Oz coal, oi, oi, oi ... won't the reptiles be pleased ...