Warning: May Contain Traces of Nuts.

According to this report, Catholic priests in the north east of England will from today be required to read out a disclaimer prior to delivering the holy sacrament of Communion.

Beginning with tonight’s evening masses, priests will be legally obliged to read out the disclaimer – the exact wording of which has been provided by the council – which reads as follows:

“Congregants should be aware of the gaps and/or problems in the Catholic theory of transubstantiation, including, but not limited to, the Protestant notion that the bread and wine are merely symbolic, the opinions of other religions on the life of Christ, and the lack of conclusive scientific evidence available to support this theory.”

OK, so it’s an April Fool’s joke! Would be nice if it wasn’t.

When I first found out that the idea of transubstantiation was apparently meant to be taken literally, I was astounded. Surely these people could see that it wasn’t REAL, couldn’t they? I mean, come on, you’re right at Ground Zero and you have a front-row seat. You can see for yourself; it’s not like you’re watching it from afar or anything. You’re there. A friend of mine who was raised as a Catholic (but fortunately had the good sense to wake up and is now a staunch atheist) told me that nope, it’s meant to be the real deal.

You just have to shake your head in wonder at things like that.

How I wish that the “disclaimer” story was true, and that a small spark of rationality actually ignited something, eventually resulting in all religious woo-woo vaporising in a puff of smoke.

It won’t, of course, but we can dream…

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