Running out of puff

Many years ago (when I was an ickle lad) my dad decided to take me to work with him as a treat in the Summer holidays. At the time he worked as an engineer at a large chemical refinery, "cat crackers" were his thing at the time and I was both nervous and excited to be seeing something like that up close for the first time, it sounded so macho and dangerous. We drove to the plant and went through the large gatehouse, once through we were escorted into a side building. Since I'd never been there before it was decided that I should be given a safety briefing, the briefing was given by an extremely laconic Northerner in a boiler suit and hob-nail boots (the plant was in the North of England) and to this day I'm convinced it was a stitch up, anyway, I listened with great determination as much as a 12 year old could muster. My instructor explained about the different sirens, the safety zones, where to go, where not to go etc. and right at the end he said "and never forget the most important thing on the whole site is that union jack fluttering high on the flagpole outside", why, I thought to myself was this some kind of workers pride thing?, I plucked up courage to gingerly raise my hand and ask, "well lad, he said, where ever you are on site, never forget where that flag is, if a siren goes off look at the flag, work out which way the wind is blowing and bloody leg it in the opposite direction" (much sniggering broke out among the men present).. Anyway I didn't actually get to see that much (there isn't much to see really), just a lot of pipes, the flares were cool but I was only allowed to look at those from a mile away, it's the safety briefing that sticks in my memory most vividly.

I was reminded of this story today when I read about two Catholic Bishops who released a document to their "flock" advising them of a list of unsuitable charitable organisations for Catholics to donate either money or time to, the list was surprising, I was expecting a bunch of front organisations for sinister or corrupt governments or companies but no, it contained some familiar names, for example,

-Amnesty International
-The American Association of University Women
-UNICEF

There were even some religious organisations on their list like the Church World Service, anyway you can probably guess why these organisations are no longer considered kosher by these Catholics, but it made me think, there is something comfortingly reliable about such pronouncements, if I am ever in any doubt about my own moral compass, I could clearly do a lot worse than taking a quick look at which way the Catholic flag is blowing, and then running in the opposite direction.