Christian Priests Exchange Knuckle Sandwiches

I don't know how it is that I only came across this story today, but.... nearly a month ago on December 27th, priests from two different Christian sects who share responsibility for the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem got into a little dispute. Apparently, a ladder being used by one of the sects to clean the church crossed over a line that separates who cleans what. Any good Christian certainly knows what must come of such a horrific offense...

For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.

A dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen were sent to try to separate the priests, but two of them were also injured in the unholy melee.

Yup, that's right, they beat the holy crap out of each other, and Palestinian police had to break it up. I'm sure at some point one of the priests exclaimed something like, "WWJD? Shove this broom stick up your ass, that's what!"

Keep in mind, these weren't wannabe pseudo-Christians in a remote third world country that aren't all that familiar yet with Christ's teachings. No, these are THE priests responsible for maintaining THE church that sits atop THE birthplace of their supposed Lord and Savior. If anybody knows Christianity inside and out, these guys do. This is strong evidence to support the suspicion that the secret 11th Commandment truly is something like "Thou Shalt Physically Pummel Whomever Dost Offend Thee."

"But wait," you declare. "This is just a rare, unfortunate and isolated incident, right?" Wrong!

"As usual the cleaning of the church after Christmas is a cause of problems," Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh told AFP, adding that he has offered to help ease tensions.

As usual! I guess that explains why the priests needed to be separated to different parts of the church in the first place.