Thus I to myself in a note hurriedly jotted into my notebook earlier today. What happens in a society in which every individual’s relationship with the divine, and thus ultimately with him- or herself, is cunningly mediated by a rapacious clergy? Well, murderous popes. Infant skeletons buried deep in nunnery backyards. Pedophile priests. Thieving crusades. Castrates singing in church choirs. Churches large and small behind every corner. Altars gleaming with gold and silver.  Painted statues shedding tears of fake blood. And myriad sycophants, bigots, charlatans, impostors. A search of the World Wide Web makes it clear at once that I am way behind on the subject of quite some vintage. Max Weber pops up all over the place, of course. In any event, I am kind of relieved to have stumbled upon a subject that both includes and transcends Croatia. By itself, the country of my birth bores me to death already.