Is there somebody – anybody – anywhere – who can explain how Greg Sheridan turned out to be how he is?

There’s got to be a doctorate of psychiatry or sociology or psychology – or all three –  in it for anyone who can unravel how his brain ended up in the tragic dark-matter abyss of risible right-wing religious and political ideology from which its simpering thoughts ooze forth like puss from a boil.

A  Nobel prize surely – let’s make up a new category if need be – for someone who can identify the causes of his sad and lamentable mental state so that the likes of Greg Sheridan are never be inflicted on polite society ever again.

That answer is desperately needed in the wake of the recent masterclass of moronic reasoning we’ve all been coping from the torpid, turgid, quivering slagheap of suppurating stupidity that Sheridan sadly sees as fair and reasonable thought.

Look, we all accept that Sheridan is one of Australia’s leading right-wing religious nutters. Anyone who can write books with titles like God is Good for You and Christian: The Urgent Case for Jesus in our Lives is probably already beyond profession help. He is clearly a loser who believes in dying causes, including the Liberal Party and, until recently declared dead, buried and cremated of course, any positive legacy from Scott Morrison’s time in politics.

What’s up next from Sheridan’s poisoned pen? Ted Bundy: His Good Side. Tony Abbott: PM without Peer. B.A. Santamaria: The Case of Canonisation.

So while there’s no rhyme or reason to it, Sheridan’s devoutly deviant defence of kiddy-fiddler protector George Pell sort of makes sense. To Sheridan’s addled faith-fiddled brain at least. Love is indeed blind.

I’ve never seen a poll as to whether Australians thought Pell kiddy-fiddled himself … well, apart from that unanimous poll of those 12 jurors in Melbourne, of course … but my best guess is that a significant majority would bet their bottom (sorry!) dollar that Pell had choirboy/altar boy/private schoolboy shit all over on his rigid, devout, cock during his early pastoral work on behalf of his Lord and Master.

For Pell’s self-confessed paedophile-protecting ways alone though, you’d think that anyone who truly has religious faith and harbours a desire to see the Catholic Church recover from the shameful extent of child sexual abuse by the church as uncovered by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, you’d give Pell’s death an almighty swerve and write about the upcoming cyclone season or the upcoming Ashes or some such thing.

Especially seeing the RC found the church was so chockablock (again, sorry!) with kiddy-fiddling priests and Christian Brothers that “paedophile priest” almost became a tautology.

But not Sheridan. And too many of his ilk. His tears of sadness at Pell’s passing making it hard for him to see let alone strike the keyboard, he sallied forth with reflections on the paragons of priestly virtue, the cardinal without sin, the living saint that Pell was in life. Like Pell’s cock, his words were chockablock full of easily recognisable shit.

But as those researchers mentioned above will perhaps find out, there is no sense of shame to Sheridan’s brain. Or logic. Or common sense. Or decency. Or fairness.

Which brings us to Sheridan’s latest brainfade: his misogynistic, just-plain-mean, assault on retiring New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern.

Sheridan is not alone among countless old white guys offended by the fact that the world is passing them by and far fewer people are listening to them anymore.  Their thoughts are blinded by a white, redhot rage that prevents them of seeing that Ardern, regardless of her faults, was a much-loved world leader for so many real and decent reasons.

Sheridan is blind to things he can’t or refused to see. He is from a coterie of confused chaps whose world view was threatened by Ardern. The only thing they are woke to is the need to drag such people – read mostly women who didn’t know their place – down. Get them out of university, married and so disillusioned with life that voting LNP is a plausible solution to their woes.

Their columns must now be filled with falsehoods that she – read any woman – can’t hack it in the political world. That’s she’s chickening out because another win is now beyond her. A heading in today’s Sydney Morning Herald is typical of the revisionist theory now under way by the Sheridans of the mainstream mediocre.

That’s right. A Tasmanian Premier can pull the pin unexpectedly with nothing more than matey, take-care-now, MSM messages of goodwill. Ardern calls it a day for any number of sensible, sound, reasons and the SMH gloats she didn’t win a third term. It’s pretty hard to win a third term when you retire. Still as preferred PM, mind.

While my own brain surely has its problems as friends could no doubt attest, I’m just so damned proud that it has – and I vow it never will – display any symptoms of sheridanitis. I think I’d neck myself first if it starts to.

Since Ardern rose to power, I have looked at images of her and have gotten quite emotional when I see an intelligent, empathetic, kind and decent person – beautiful inside and out – who tried to turn the largely masculine world of politics on its head. I fell under her spell with her wonderful words and compassionate actions after the Christchurch masssacres.

By comparison, for as long as I can remember, photos of the likes of George Pell and Scott Morrison have sparked an entirely different physical response, one requiring a chuck bucket, extra-strength kimbies or both.

I saw a disgraceful supposed man of God who always put kiddy-fiddlers and the reputation and finances of his church before the safety and rightful recompense for physical and mental damage inflicted on innocent kids. And as for that mouth of Morrison’s; it sprayed shit faster than a busted intake pipe at a sewage works. A fib always preferred over a fact.

Wrapped up in his cocooned version of Christianity and as a founding member of the nation’s obnoxious, overpriced, overrated far-right stink tank of political ideology, Sheridan saw things entirely differently.

I’m not sure what happened to Sheridan in his childhood that he could write such a piece with nary a kind word to say about Ardern and her legacy. Too many bike accidents without a helmet? Wasn’t made to eat his greens?  Didn’t get the Christmas present he wanted when he was nine? Never had a puppy?

But for fuck’s sake, people, there surely must be some professionals out there who can rush to his help – to see why he preferred reading the bible than Biggles – and to shepherd him out of the dark satanic world he inhabits and through into the blinding light of reason and decency. You know: some form of real Christianity that Sheridan is incapable of embracing.

Many would argue, of course, that after working for The Australian for so, so long, Sheridan and that brain of his are well and truly beyond such help. But I still think we should heed Ardern’s parting words to care for and be kind to one another – and at least try.

Don Gordon-Brown