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Monday's Belfast Telegraph headline read Church Facing Priests Crisis. As it was not immediately obvious to me what a priests crisis might be, and because the free copy had been shoved in my bag at Eason's along with my magazine purchases, I spent a few minutes to actually read it.

It seems the Church in Ulster is not attracting many young men to the life of celebacy. Of course, rather than look at itself, the Church blames it on people like us:

"I also think this is a symptom of the culture of liberalism and individualism we live in today. People are not so keen now on life-long commitment, whether that be the priesthood or marriage."

Perhaps if they went back to the old ways: the way things were before Rome tried to use Henry to enforce their will on the Irish Church and got used by him instead. Priests would marry, have great big Irish families and all would be well.

I'll bet this pronouncement did more to up the popularity of individualism in Ulster than all the pub chatter I've done in 15 years.