“On 8 March, as Pope John Paul II lay dying in the Vatican, Matt Taibbi, a columnist for the freesheet alt-newspaper New York Press and currently Rolling Stone magazine’s Michael Jackson trial correspondent, penned a piece entitled ‘The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope’. It was emblazoned across the front page of the New York Press, tantalising readers with this strapline next to a picture of the Pontiff: ‘There’s Nothing Funny About This Man Dying… Or Is There?’

…One of the curious consequences of today’s emotionally correct atmosphere is the corresponding rise of a culture of offensiveness, a punkish, kneejerk reaction among what might be termed the Jackass generation against today’s emotional orthodoxy. Where world leaders say ‘The Pope was a good man’, they say ‘Dude, the Pope was an asshole.’ Yet this is a shallow rebellion; it takes the piss out of orthodoxies rather than challenging them. The inspiration of Beavis and Butthead seems to sum it up. Just as they sat around watching MTV, mocking the poncy rock acts, today some individuals watch Mourning TV (all channels) and feel able only to knock the weeping participants. Heh heh, indeed.” — Brendan O’Neill (spiked)