Omigod omigod omigod somebody insulted the Catholic church!! And even the pope!!! Omigod omigod.

The memorandum, apparently written by staff planning events for the four-day visit by Pope Benedict XVI, suggested he might like to start a helpline for abused children, sack “dodgy” bishops, open an abortion ward, launch his own brand of condoms, preside at a civil partnership, perform forward rolls with children, apologise for the Spanish armada and sing a song with the Queen.

But it’s all right, the somebody’s bosses apologized and apologized and apologized.

Jim Murphy, the cabinet minister overseeing the visit and a practising Catholic, failed to see the funny side of it, describing the memo as “absolutely despicable. It’s vile, it’s insulting, it’s

Kenan Malik points out that fundamentalism is an idea, not a biology.

Secularism and fundamentalism are not ideas stitched into people’s DNA. They are not born so. Secularist ideas and religious beliefs are like any values: people absorb them, accept them, reject them. A generation ago there were strong secular movements within Muslim communities and fundamentalism was a marginal force. Today secularism is much weaker, and Islamism much stronger. This shift has been propelled not by demographic trends but by political developments. And political developments can also help reverse the shift.

Kaufmann doesn’t deny any of this. But, he insists, nothing can stop the inevitable demographic triumph of the fundamentalists. Why? Because ‘we inhabit a period of ideological exhaustion’.