2005-01-25 - 12:20 p.m.

I suppose I was what you might call a devout Catholic until I turned 18. I was fairly happy, too, though I did always obsess about minor details, and these seemed to override the awesome timeless wonder of the Christian faith.

I understood that we were supposed to believe in angels, for example, and that was fine, but had trouble with the big boys of the celestial world. The archangels. What was their story?

It was all very well having angels who wielded more importance than the others � it would just have been feathery, halo-chucking anarchy up there otherwise, but the merit system set up by God seemed to be a little unfair.

Take that posturing little cherubic runt Raphael, for example. What you might call a real do-gooder. He was sent to give comfort to Abraham after his circumcision, and then again to cure Jacob�s thigh injury, sustained when �fighting a dark force�. Healing a tot�s sore winky and giving someone a leg massage. Not too demanding. Basic First Aid course and a good bedside manner. Thanks for playing.

Then there�s Gabriel. All he had to do was let Mary know of her unexpected pregnancy. Granted, this could have been a bit awkward, socially. She�s been knocked up by the business end of the holy trinity, and she�s going to want answers. Dress it up all you like, though, you�re still just the heavenly equivalent of a home pregnancy kit.

Uriel is the dark horse, but equally jammy when it came to tasks. His most high profile job was warning Noah of the impending flood. So�forecasting rain, essentially. �That�s all the news for the Israelites! Now here�s Bob with the weather.�

It�s Michael who gets the rough end of the celestial stick with his angelic tasks. The others are basically given some of God�s housekeeping. They�re yes men, minions, jumped-up errand boys. Michael, on the other wing, gets charged with, and you can imagine his disdain when THIS little doozy got dished up, casting the metaphysical embodiment of ultimate evil out of paradise. Expelling the evil overlord Satan and his amassed dark forces from heaven, and you can believe that those bad boys didn�t want to go quietly. That has to be possibly the hardest task imaginable.

Where's the justice? That�s all I�m saying.