Ka-ching! Amen.

I suppose this comes as no surprise. From It’s no sin if you try to cash in, we have the following:

THE CATHOLIC Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Pell, said yesterday there was nothing immoral about commercialism as he opened the first official World Youth Day venue: a merchandise tent in Hyde Park.

The “WYD on Hyde” tent features caps, scarves, “I love Jesus” T-shirts, a Receive The Power CD set, stainless-steel dog tags, sticker packs and much more.

Cardinal Pell did the honours at the opening ceremony, which included performances by Tempus, an introduction by Mike Willesee and the launch of the new Vatican-approved book This Is The Mass.

“There’s nothing immoral with a little commercialism,” Cardinal Pell said. “Our way of life is built on commercialism, on trade, on industry and on finance. People have got a right to make a living.

“If you can make a living out of doing a good thing, which is spreading Christ’s message in a modern way, I wish them well. I hope they make a few bob, as we used to say.”

And as if it isn’t enough of an insult having the taxpayers cough up millions of dollars for this Medieval Magic Festival, Pope Palpatine anticipates “some of it would go to assisting the church with the cost of staging the event.”

I don’t know how I feel about that bit. On the one hand, I feel no sympathy for the Religiously Retarded being separated from their money, but on the other, why should The Evil Firm have it any easier in terms of paying for any of this? It’s a bit like giving Microsoft a donation because they need to go buy another lawyer.

And if you need any further proof about how the Catholic religion in particular is really nothing more than a business, we have the introduction of the WYDGET, which is a “leather wristband with collectable jewellery-style tokens containing religious iconography. The tokens contain images including those of Pope Benedict XVI and the World Youth Day logo.”

Images of the Evil Pope Palpatine, eh? I suppose the fanboi movement has come to town as well. What was that bit in the Big Book Of Fairy Stories about worshipping false idols? Looks like the new rock star is here.

There will be 18 “official merchandise outlets” selling garbage ranging from this stuff to didgeridoos (tell you what, Ratzinger old boy, how about the Faithfully-Frenzied buy you a didge, and I’ll happily shove it somewhere for you so that you can blow through it really easily, even during one of your mind-numbingly boring and inane speeches) and even clip-on koalas. Can we spell “tacky”, children?

Yep, merchandise is pretty bloody accurate.

I suppose we shouldn’t judge the Catholic Church too harshly for making money out of this circus - after all, hiding all those pedophiles from the law, threatening witnesses to shut them up, and battling all of those court cases must be expensive. Hell, I think I’ll make a donation right now. Where’s my credit card?

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