STANDING IN THE CAFETERIA DOOR:

You're either one of us, or you're not (Tony Vermeer, The Sunday Telegraph )

AUSTRALIA'S senior Catholic cleric George Pell denounced Catholic politicians who defy church teachings on controversial issues like same-sex adoption

With debate over euthanasia and gay marriage looming in 2011, Cardinal Pell used an interview with The Sunday Telegraph to rebuke MPs who "fly under the Christian or Captain Catholic flag" but "blithely disregard Christian perspectives" when they vote in parliament on moral issues.

"If a person says, 'look, I'm not a Christian, I've a different set of perspectives', I disagree but I understand," the Archbishop of Sydney said.

"If a person says to me, 'look I'm nominally a Christian but it sits lightly with me', I understand that.

"But it's incongruous for somebody to be a Captain Catholic one minute, saying they're as good a Catholic as the Pope, then regularly voting against the established Christian traditions."