Snake Oil Salesmen And Mother Theresa's Hair

"Is it going too far to liken Mother Theresa to some of our infamous televangelists, turning their audiences on to what is in God's heart and mind while encouraging and accepting all donations?"
-From Christopher Hitchens' short book, "The Missionary Position"

By Charley Brady

I'm sitting here on a Saturday afternoon, still on a natural high - as opposed to whatever the rather sad spectacle of self-proclaimed "winner" Charlie Sheen is on at the moment - while thinking about the utter decimation of the Green Party here in Ireland.

It's probably evil of me to say it, but what the hell? I'm glad that they're gone. I'm glad that they have been humiliated and decimated.

I actually hated them more than Fianna Fail and that's saying something. At least with FF you knew that Haughey and Ahern and the whole scurvy, plague-ridden lot of them were crooks to begin with.

The shower of tree-hugging sods of the Green Party, on the other hand, were just sell-outs. The kind who pretended to be holier than thou; yet they would shake your hand and afterwards you would have to be checking for your fingers, your watch and your middle wicket - we've all turned into cricket fans this week - and not necessarily in that order.

Still, I feel that I shouldn't even be writing this on a laptop. I should be sending this off to the editor by way of the quill and the mail boat to America.

Because I think that I'm still living in the freaking Dark Ages.

Thousands are expected to turn up this afternoon (Saturday the 4th) in St. Bridget's Church in County Donegal to see a divine relic.

This is where I think that I have gone completely insane due to a large intake of beer over the years.

What are the good and devout Catholics of this mad country lining up to see?

Well, it's a clump of hair actually. It's not just any old clump of hair, though. It's Mother Theresa's clump of hair.

Pilgrims - oh how I am tempted to add another word for them - are actually lining up to look at this clump of hair.

Now, I've a few questions to ask here: first off, how did they get their hands on this hair? Was some perverted hair freak digging out the clump from her shower?

I cleaned out my own shower drain this morning and it was pretty yucky. I can't think of anyone wanting a clump of it unless it was some ex-girlfriend who was into the Black Arts (I can think of at least one) and wanted me to die in unmentionable ways.

Since that hasn't happened, much to her distress, I'll move onto the next one.

Second question: when I was a young sprog at Catholic Primary I was told never to worship graven images. Now when you are nine-years-old and kind of fascinated by the thing that is growing bigger by the day you're going to do damn all except worship graven images.

I went through torment worrying about this. I remember it was a divine young actress called Madeleine Smith that I was dreaming about at that time.

The innocence when I think of it now. It was a pure love that only a nine-year-old could have. It wasn't until I saw a poster of Ida Lupino in "High Sierra" though that I realised...

So that's what it's for!!!

So here I am, four decades later, trying to understand the kind of necrophilic people who will hate what I am writing and yet queue to see the hair of a dead woman.

You tell me who is the twisted one: me for having natural urges as a kid that hurt not a soul, or eejits who pray to a clump of hair?

Third question: How does this hierarchy in Heaven work, regarding the clump of hair?

This is where I get confused, you see. Mother Theresa is now beatified but is not yet canonised. In other words, she's up there in Heaven, doing whatever the hell they do - washing the Lord's feet, hanging on His every Word, giving out about what a bollix Satan is - and yet she doesn't have the divine right to have intervention yet.

So there's a hierarchy there as well, I'm guessing.

Let's see if I have this right.

If you're a normal good living person, you fall off the twig; you're dead, right? Along comes some busybody who says that you should be beatified. Because you did a couple of good deeds just because, well, that's what you do for people you like.

So now you are elevated in Heaven!! How the Hell does this make sense?

And even then you don't really have a say in what happens down below on Planet Earth because you don't have the power of intervention because we sinners down here haven't voted you in as a saint yet!

And you say I'm crazy?

Please don't think that I'm singling out mad Catholics because I'm not. I think that Muslims are even more twisted. It's just that it's Mother's clump of hair that's gracing us with a visit today. When it's Mohamed's clump of hair I'll get around to them.

Do you know what I love? I love horror films. I just love them.

Especially the old black and white Dracula and Frankenstein movies from the Thirties.

Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff; what is there not to love about these guys? They were wonderful.

Well, today we have young dudes who like Freddy Kruger and Jason Voerhees and the rest of the psychopathic bunch.

Do you know something? Just because I don't quite get it doesn't mean that I'm going to judge them.

I'm not going to judge them but what I will judge is the latest round of scare mongers who say that watching these movies is going to - *ooh, the horror* - make them go out and commit the same ghastly acts.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that despite a mild desire occasionally to blow up the Dail, despite years of watching horror films never felt the urge to go on a rampage. Not once. Not even when I hear Bono telling me how great he is have I felt the need to slice and dice.

Well, maybe there was the time that I was arrested by the Crimes Against Music Police when I accidentally heard a song by Brian McFadden. I wasn't punished for it, though. Hearing that twit's awful warbling was deemed to be punishment enough.

(Just to go off on a tangent, by the way, I want seriously to send out thanks to Mike Bowen in Australia. Keep McFadden over there, Mike. I know that the Aussies don't want him but at least you have a bloody huge country to isolate him in. Over here, with that large gob of his and nothing to back it up with except a nice girlfriend that he's living off, he would eventually be served some of the "damage" that the creep talks about doing to a drunk girl in his new "song".)

Do you know what I would say to the latest wave of Born Again, do-gooder, old-before-they-were-young "do what I sayers" is?

I'm sorry for you. You want to embrace this new Christian Right thing? I think it is admirable that you are taking what you see as a new choice.

But don't make the same mistake that our generation did. Don't be led by lies. Don't be led by politicians or TV evangelists or those that say they have a direct link to... whatever?

Don't be led by priests, many of whom lie for a living. Don't be led by journalists who will always have their own agenda. That includes me. I always try to be honest but I'm pretty sure that my own prejudices creep in at times. [Surely not? - Ed.]

OK, I'm going to get back to horror movies.

These idiots want to start banning the work of geniuses that I love.

Jesus, Tod Browning's 1932 "Freaks" - a work of compassion and humanity - remained banned for forty years. Why? Because it was an almost documentary like film about those who were born different.

It would have a worse fate today. We don't mind looking at deformity as long as we know that it's a good-looking actor under the make-up.

There are minds that are crippled inside though. Take a look at that awful waste of space Peaches Geldoff: Oohh, my dad grew up in Dickensian Ireland. He never gave me pocket money. Boo hoo hoo.

Dickensian? Did she say Dickensian?

Well, you don't know much about your old man's history, do you, you silly spoiled little brat. He comes from one of the most affluent areas of Dublin - it's called BLACK ROCK - try not to confuse it with the Spencer Tracey film. As for the Dickensian school he went to, what can I say? Well, it was one of the better ones, wasn't it? Certainly no one who came from the kind of background that I came from would be within a donkey's reach of getting in there.

All that education that he didn't pay for you really went somewhere, didn't it? Oh, and by the way, the house that he grew up very comfortably in was Edwardian, I think.

Mind you, if he hadn't been so lenient in a "Dickensian" way then maybe you wouldn't be seen all over the place in your altogether because a skank sold you out for a few grubby photos.

It might even be time to blame somebody other than your old man. Start with your selfish spoiled self, Peaches.

Having got that off my chest I want to make a very serious proposal to you all. I think it makes sense.

I want to ban the Bible.

Yes, that's right. The Big Book that all Catholics have in their house and never read.

Why not? It's a twisted piece of nastiness. There is graphic gang rape, Jehovah visiting all sort of cruelty on people left, right and centre and the creep of a God even telling you to butcher your own son if you want to show Him how much you love Him.

Sick, sick, sick.

There's war, with this strange God taking sides - never did quite understand that - and then we thankfully leave the Old Testament behind and move on to someone entirely different. We get Jesus the Christ.

Now I know that a lot of kids aren't exactly like their old fella, but this guy takes the biscuit altogether.

Talk about the apple falling far from the tree. This guy preaches love and understanding, all the good stuff that makes the world go around. Granted, the wives of the Apostles probably weren't too crazy when they up and left them to wander around the country with this hippy, but still he was a definite improvement on his old man, who was Him. I'm getting confused again.

Yes, this book has done a lot of damage. You might get the odd nutter saying that a horror film made him do it, but when it comes to killers a hell of a lot more say that it was God that made them do it. Hmmm.

Anyway, Father Eamonn McLaughlin in Donegal's Lietirmacaward is organising the Mother Theresa event, and commented: "In order for Mother Theresa to be canonised, there must be proof of an event that defies scientific investigation."

Maybe Mother will oblige. It might even be worthwhile for Paul W. Turley to go along. He was the Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles County who wrote to Mother after she had tried to intervene in the sentencing of Charles H. Keating, the egregious fraud who got ten years in the slammer for his participation in the infamous Saving and Loan scandal. She wanted clemency for him as he had been slipping her some of his stolen loot as conscience money.

Mr. Turley wrote, in part: "The biblical slogan of your organisation is 'As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, You did it to Me.' The least of the brethren are among those whom Mr. Keating fleeced without flinching...

"You urge Judge Ito to look into his heart - as he sentences Charles Keating - and do what Jesus would do. I submit the same challenge to you. Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime; what Jesus would do if he were in possession of money that had been stolen...?"

Well, Mother never graced Mr. Turley with a reply. She was probably too busy hanging out with President Reagan or Princess Diana but presumably she dismissed the idea, as she never returned the stolen loot. Now, Father McLaughlin, if Mother HAD returned that money there would have been your miracle.

So roll up! Roll up for the entertainment in Donegal! I wouldn't be surprised if they even had a snake oil salesman there to look after you rubes good people.

If bolts of lightning from Mother's eyeballs don't strike me I hope to see you all next week. I'll be selling special toothpaste that actually reverses tooth decay!

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net