Virtually every time a story about the Catholic Church appears in a major metropolitan newspaper, like this from the Los Angeles Times, you can invariably see profound irony all over the page. Featured here is the newly minted pope merrily greeting the faithful. The story declares how much he's going to be "open" and "dialogue" with everyone and everything.

       But right next to the story, and directly underneath his image in the photo, is a story titled "Happy to Feed 'Em a Line." The story is about a dedicated street poet, but the irony here is anything but poetic.

       Tripling the irony are the two stories on the right of the page. A particularly tragic story from the always tragic Iraq situation, it and other such horrors would not happen and appear prominently in the paper if it weren't for the pictured Agent of Cain leading a gargantuan sin management operation showcased by its idolatrous mass and sacraments of magic arts. This system actually encourages people to do things like machine-gun people lined against a wall, for then he may proudly proclaim how much he is against that sort of thing and make yet another call for peace.

       Then there is inflation, which for all its lint-picking economic analysis is certainly one thing: the overestimation of people's value demonstrated on the macro level. This comes about because so many people do not have Christ, the One from Whom an individual can securely identify his or her value. Without Him they must flounder trying to get some value elsewhere — somebody must tell them that they have value, but they have so much trouble finding it that they must go overboard in assessing their productive capacity. It is a futile effort based wholly on fear (and, I might add, a daft ignorance about the impact of violating the Tenth Commandment) because it comes down to this: Without the Son, they don't have life. Those with the Son have life, are heirs to His riches, and cannot inaccurately appraise their value by Him.

       It is supremely ironic that these people continue to live in their agony with pasted smiles, and they don't seem to have a clue that the Pope is the most instrumental force behind it all. Does anyone really know that the reason that Jesus plainly commanded us to call no one Father or Teacher was because we are who we follow. Follow the Vicar and you get the World. Follow the Lord and you get your soul back.

       So there it is, all on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2005. The whole story: People murder a whole bunch of other people because they don't have the One Savior who'd free them from their sin, a fact revealed all too plainly by unending inflation. Thank goodness there is the Pontiff, Ruler of the World, who is happy to feed them a line about all he's doing to fix things.

       Oh, and I can't help but mention that also featured on this very front page, just below the fold (not pictured above), was a story about another savior of the world. It was about the new CEO of Disney, Robert Iger, and everyone's beloved,

       Mickey Mouse.

       Talk about irony.