HEATHENLY DELIGHTS

Dear Curmudgeon's Agony Aunt

I'm a professional church cleaner and take my responsibilities very seriously.

I'm also a Catholic so my job puts me into conflict with my beliefs when I'm

'doing' the opposition churches.

In the Catholic churches I know my way around so nothing surprises me (except Father Outthaniwannabe - the new African priest at my local church who caught me taking provocative photographs of the Virgin Mary - but that's another story).

I know that the Presbyterians, Anglicans and other 'Protestant' churches don't have Jesus Christ on their crosses. The crucifix is empty so I can't get enjoyment from contemplating the sufferings of Jesus. How unfair is that? They just have depictions of the resurrected Christ looking quite happy and smug.

Protestant churches must be treated with reference though they look baron with a hidden will to decorate. I mean behind the scenes there are plenty of images of Mary and Jesus if one has the opportunity to look but when I sneak around I run the risk of being caught. Only last week Pastor Usebydate at the Methodist church The Amazing Grace of Gethsemane found me in a cupboard and banned me. I went straight to my Catholic church where no one was there except Jesus in his tabernacle. I prayed the rosary and the divine chaplet but he didn't join in. Maybe I need to learn to speak Aramaic.

Should I continue to service the heathen churches or should I stick to my own?

- Robert the apathetic sinner and toilet cleaner.

Dear Robert

Yes the Catholic Church reveres Mary, the mother of Jesus, as "Queen of Heaven" but there are few biblical references to support the Catholic Marian dogmas — which include the Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity and her Assumption into heaven. This is why they are rejected by Protestants who, I dare say, take a more practical view of things rather than get all caught up in that mumbo-jumbo stuff that you Catholics believe in. Take that observation you made about non-Catholic churches not having a dead and decaying Jesus on their crosses. They don't take that Catholic suff about crucifixion, resurrection and the Eucharist as literally as you do. As I said, they are practical.

As regards Mary my feeling is, since you have this rather unnatural and may I suggest, voyeuristic obsession with her you might find more of what you crave hidden in the cupboards and hidden rooms in those Presbyterian, Anglican and Methodist churches - images of her that are not so reverent and maybe of her as a normal, attractive young woman and not necessarily a virgin. You will probably enjoy photographing the non Catholic versions more.

In the chapel of St. John the Baptist in the Rhein-Hunsrück region of Germany there is a black Madonna that may be of interest to you.