I don't have a lot of time for celibate men in frocks but am quite happy to let them go about their business. As long as it doesn't impinge on mine.Unfortunately, the Catholic hierarchy has been much in evidence this week.
Firstly the McCann family, surely crazed with loss, got to meet the Pope for 30 seconds and told the world it was "all very personal".
I hope it helps them and their child, but it struck me as exploitative in the extreme. Now they are meeting clairvoyants. Is it so different?
Then a man with limited experience of women, Scotland's most important Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, on the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act, urged Parliament to stop supporting this "unspeakable crime".
He likened abortion to the massacre at Dunblane. This turned my stomach. I do not see that a woman choosing to terminate a pregnancy because she is too young, single or poor or already has too many children, is in quite the same league as a monster who randomly murders children.
But then I don't understand that one way of protecting the unborn is by shooting doctors outside clinics as they do in America.
It is reassuring, given the outbreaks of madness, that most people in this country respect a woman's right to choose. Nonetheless, religion is further encroaching into our lives at the very point when fewer and fewer go to church or believe much at all.
It's hard to get offended by wishy-washy C of E niceties, but bigoted and fundamentalist belief is all around.
I live near a Hasidic Jewish community whose women shave their heads, wear wigs and are considered unclean for half the month. Muslim girls are not allowed, of course, to enter the inner sanctum of the mosque for similar reasons.
Christian evangelicals want to keep their daughters in a state of grace and Catholics, as we know, peddle a fine line in self-sacrifice for females. Many churches, mosques and synagogues do fine pastoral care.
But is this really enough to make up for the institutionalised misogyny that is at their core?
This is but one reason I do not want politicians and law-makers dictated to by fundamentalists, whether of the Catholic or Islamic persuasion.
Following the "culture wars" in America over abortion, there is also a concerted effort over here to whittle away our rights. Remember Ann Winterton, that despicable Tory MP who had the whip withdrawn for her remarks after the Morecambe Bay cocklepicking tragedy?
Well, she's back showing her caring side by promoting a Ten Minute Bill which means mandatory counselling will force delays for women who have chosen to have abortions.
We know some doctors find carrying out these procedures unacceptable. I understand, but I find it equally unacceptable that people whose religious views I do not share feel entitled to interfere not only in women's lives but in this country's legislation.
Cardinal O'Brien is playing dangerously with Scottish sectarianism.
Does he really want to take Scotland back to the Middle Ages? Actually, yes.
Why must a largely secular nation pay so much attention to such a man? Why must we fund bigot-factories in the form of faith schools?
As Christopher Hitchens points out in his book God Is Not Great, it is perfectly possible to live ethically without faith and if you believe you have only one life it may as well be a good one.
Of course I respect the many religious people who lead decent lives. But why should I respect bigotry, narrow-mindedness and apartheid dressed up as religion?
The idea that a woman has control over her own body, her own reproductive system and actually her own life, is still a heresy for most major religions.
But why be shocked?
They are all entirely man-made.
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