I remember calling my father shortly after Blessed John Paul the Great was shot in St. Peter’s Square back in 1981. A devout atheist (anti-theist, to be precise), he was nevertheless shaken by the news. “Who the hell shoots the Pope, goddammit?” was his typically sacrilegious response to this outrage. But he was right. Of course, we all knew then who shot the pope: an agent of the communists who his holiness later forgave. This time there was no shooting - only shoving.

A woman jumped the barriers in St. Peter’s Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday.

The 82-year-old pope quickly got up and was unhurt, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini. Footage aired on Italy’s RAI state TV showed a woman dressed in a red jumper vaulting over the wooden barriers and rushing the pope before being swarmed by bodyguards.

The commotion occurred as the pope’s procession was making its way toward the main altar and shocked gasps rang out through the public that packed the basilica. The procession came to a halt and security rushed to the trouble spot.

Benedettini said the woman who pushed the pope appeared to be mentally unstable and had been arrested by Vatican police. He said she also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who was taken to hospital for a check up.

Obviously, this maniac was an unhinged liberal (is there any other kind?). According to the canon law of the Roman Church, anyone who lays violent hands upon the supreme pontiff is excommunicated - latae sententiae - from the Church.

My only regret is that that they didn’t shoot her on the spot. After all, we used to do that much with rabid dogs, no?

Yeah, Yeah, I know: turn the other cheek. Mercy. Forgiveness. Blah, blah, blah.

I would have shot her on the spot. And then wished her a very Merry Christmas.