BELIEVING that God created the universe in six days is a form of superstitious paganism, the Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno claimed yesterday.

I just keep coming across these articles, not that I’ve got anything special against catholics.

Brother Consolmagno, who was due to give a speech at the Glasgow Science Centre last night, entitled “Why the Pope has an Astronomer”, said the idea of papal infallibility had been a “PR disaster”. What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept “somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority”.

“It’s not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear,” he said.

But the idea is that we have the word as the final authority that we check against, somethign that’s totally infallible. Not a guy who is fallible, and made to be the final authority.