On Natural Law and other things

Let us now hear an extract from a lecture given by Monsignor Peppas earlier today:

"...In the confessional an acolyte raised an interesting question of moral philosophy concerning the use of the glory hole. Traditionally the practice had been regarded as morally justifiable because there is no certain way of determining the identity of the orifice on the other side of the plywood wall. Of course, in all probability, we know it is the toothless gob of a meth addict called Cassie who takes sixty cents for every mouthful of seed she manages to suck from the hole. However we do not know for certain. If we did, it would indeed be a breach of the moral law. But there remains a possibility, theoritical though it may be, that it could in fact merely be the hose of a vaccuum cleaner that someone has accidentally left out directly in front of the hole, in the 'on' mode. As I say, the point is we simply have no way of knowing for sure, without violating the sanctity of the glory hole.

Nevertheless, some theologists expressed concern that the vaccuum cleaner scenario was too remote a possibility for them to not still be in some kind of moral jeopardy. Therefore, as you may have read in last month's newsletter, we now have a system in place where one of the alter boys does in fact randomly apply a vaccuum cleaner to patrons of the glory hole. In the same way as the sherriff will put blank cartridges into one of the rifles of the unknowing marksmen in a firing squad before they execute a man to lessen their guilt, our parishioners can now use the glory hole without sin because they do not know for sure whether they emptied their nut into a whore's mouth or a dust bag.

But the acolyte who came to me in confession asked, what if in one's enthusiasm they thrust too vigorously into the glory hole, causing a retching sound to be heard from the other side of the wall and a stream of rancid stomach bile to flow shaftwise? Assuming that the vaccuum cleaner is not capable of vomiting, has one received constructive notice of the identity of the receptacle? Is one then not morally compromised? Ought we be inquiring into the intentions of every man to determine the righteousness of his acts?

I was reminded of a story that happened just the other day. I saw a young man taking photographs of the cathedral: he seemed nervous and was taking his shots hurriedly as if trying to make sure that no one saw him. On some of the shots he didn't even look into the lense, turning his head away pretending he was not interested. He would then check the photo on the digital screen and, discovering that it was out of focus or something he would have to take it again. In short, it looked suspicious and at first I thought he surely a Nonsington.

So I followed him back to his townhouse in Newtown. I went to the side of the house and peered through the window where I could see that he had old Cassie naked on the bed all tied up with her feet around her ears such that her arse-cup was being raised into in the air like the eucharistic chalice. I could see that she had just had a hit of ice and did not have clue where she was. The young man walked cautiously into the room and, without making eye contact with her, he took an object out of the drawer. It was silver and cigar-shaped on one end with handles on the other end like that on a pair of scissors. I recognised what it was straight away from my days in the seminary: it was an anus dilator (the old 'Dirty Bertie' as we used to call it!). Meticulously, he inserted it into her and then he opened the handles so that her butt opened like a jar of vegemite. During this time Cassie was mumbling something about Jesus and bugs crawling under her skin.

Now the strangest thing was that he started taking photos again in the precise manner as he had at the cathedral, looking away as he clicked, pretending that he was not really interested in the subject. Again, he had to re-take the photo a number of times until he had the shot he was after (i.e. one with a clear view of the gaping blackness). When he was done he put the camera down and went into the other room and brought back a two litre bottle of coca-cola. Anyway, I could see where this was going. The young man was clearly after the money shot: the prolapsed anus. I could actually see his hands shaking as he fed the half-empty coke bottle into her rectum, the end with the lid first. When he got to the coke sticker he removed the Bertie, and poor Cassie started hissing like a kettle. Then came an almight crack as her arse lips finally inverted themselves, the pink shitty flesh-pulp blooming like a demented flower all over her perineum. He carefully removed the coke bottle and for a very brief second a smile came across his face as he admired his work. But he immediately checked himself, and as he reached for his camera he resumed his facade of detachment, again refusing to look directly at his creation even as he took his photos.

Well, this hypocritical spectacle became too much for your humble priest. I marched right into his house and addressed him: "Young man, why don't you just look at old Cassie and at least enjoy while you can that for which you will most certainly go to hell?" The young man replied: "Father, I am a sinner, that much is true. But surely I have sinned less than the man who has recklessly gorged on the arse-flower with free abandon. I fear it as I fear god, so, like the thief crucified next to the Christ, does a place in heaven not also await me?" At that point, we both noticed what a raw filthy stench it was that was spilling out of Cassie's splayed arsehole, both her sphincters having been ripped beyond repair, rendering her an open sewer for the rest of her life. We left her there and went down the road to have a few sherberts and to discuss further the Jus Naturale and the works of Augustine of Hippo, Aquinas and Connacher...."

A Child v Cyrinus (an application)

Per Tordmuffin J

This is an application by the defendant to prevent certain tendency and coincidence evidence from being put before the jury. I have sent the jury away to take tea and sweetbreads until this matter is resolved.

By way of background, the Crown was leading evidence in chief from one Aengus Ling, the skipper of the sea-trawler "Los Pescados Cópula". He was retelling how, on the morning of the alleged crime, he had been following a school of tuna along the island coast, all the while keeping a vigilant watch on the shores for any natives in coitus horribilis. For though he is a simple fisherman, Captain Ling is also a man of God who perceives it his Christian duty to cure the Papuans of their wicked ways. If he happens to find any of them engaging in immoral acts, he promptly sets anchor and paddles to shore whereupon he burns them at the stake as a lesson to the others.

As an aside, I was so impressed by this man's vocation that I was compelled to inquire how he himself managed to avoid Satan's temptations on board a ship for so many months with only the company of a few handsome young deckhands. The Captain then revealed himself as not only a pious man but also an ingenious one as he described how a lonely sailor can easily craft a piece of abalone into a prosthetic pleasure box. If an abalone is not at hand, one can equally use the tubular body of a gutted squid (with or without the ink gland removed) in much the same way as one might use a sock full of vaseline.

As it transpired, Captain Ling was aboard his boat and in the course of witnessing two lusty savages interlocked in sin on the beach (this particular act was "the most vile he had seen" in his long campaign) when the alleged crime scene did veritably float by his way. As he tells it, he was busily fiddling with his perescope so as to confirm the events on the shore, when all of a sudden an eerie fog came over the ship, entirely obscuring his vision. His first instincts were to make for the row boat and continue to pursue the transgressors on the shore but as he did so his attention was diverted by a faint whimpering coming from the water starboard. Though he could nought see a thing, this experienced seaman knew at once that Los Pescados Cópula was not alone in those waters.

When the fog resided a bit, Captain Ling could make out a phantom schooner in the middle distance drifting towards him. The whimpering sounds seemed to be coming from some kind of banshee on top of the mast. It was dolefully singing "Que Sera" and seemed to be in an utmost pained and distressed state. Still the ship ghosted its way towards them and the Captain candidly confessed that about that time his sphincter did fail him, spilling a good load of gut-curry all over his sea legs.

Soon the ghost ship came to rest alongside the Captain's vessel and he was able to see that it was not a banshee ontop the mast at all, but rather a boy named Robert Barker (verily the victim in these criminal proceedings). As we know, he had been gruesomely impaled on the mast through his arsehole and was in the last agonising moments of his life when Captain Ling came upon him. Shortly thereafter, a seagull which had been circling him, pecking on the thick bloodshit running down the mast, stopped to perch on the boy's head, the slight addition of weight being too much for his shattered rectum to withstand, sending the mast crashing up through his body and out his neck. His little spotty head snapped right off and splashed into the ocean where it would have been torn apart by crabs.

Having observed the boy's demise, Captain Ling then made his next big discovery: that this was not a phantom ship at all but, rather, the far more terrifying "Floating Barbershop" of Cyrinus Nonser. In the local taverns the old salts would often relate a legend about a ship that was captained by a pederastic hairdresser that haunted the waters just beyond Commonwealth jurisdiction, appearing outside of the Papuan villages and hamlets offering the golliwog children 'haircuts' - but most had regarded it as just a myth. Yet we now know there was at least some truth in this tale and that the last victim of the Floating Barbershop seems to have been young Barker. But the question remains whether Cyrinus (who was later found by the Federal police lying unconscious in the hull of the ship, apparently caused by a methamphetamine overdose) is criminally responsible for his murder.

Now, it is at this point in the evidence that, in the absence of the jury, the defence has made its application. One of the principal pieces of evidence, first discovered by Captain Ling when he boarded the Floating Barbershop, is the hundreds of stuffed toy animals sitting on the sharp end of pool cues lying on the deck of Cyrinus's ship. There were also a number of other toys, Panda Bears mostly, found below the deck which, evidentally, had been previously sitting on a pool cue and were now hemorrhaging their stuffing which was all soaking wet with, what was later forensically identified as, the infamous sauce a la Cy. The Crown wishes to tender these stuffed toys as evidence depicting a tendency of the defendant to shishkabab small, furry things and the coincidence that Robert Barker, who might also be correctly described as small and furry, was caused to be deceased in a similar state.

However, the defendant says that this evidence should be withheld from the jury on the basis that it would be "unfairly prejudicial" and cited R v Papalonis for this principle. In that case, the defendant Papalonis was arraigned under the crime of necrophilia, having allegedly dug up the corpse of his former piano teacher and made unnatural union with it. He managed to have excluded from evidence the fact that, while on bail, he had been caught (and indeed confessed to) having intercourse with most of the cadavers in the morgue, including that of his former piano teacher who was having his head re-attached. I think R v Papalonis a sound authority for the defendant's application, as a matter of principle and policy, and therefore make the order accordingly.

The trial continues.