After his lawyer, Bert Fields, accused Katie Holmes’s team of “playing the media” yesterday - click here for a refresher - Tom Cruise tried to solicit some sympathy for himself. PEOPLE.com reports that Tom’s birthday earlier this week was a “sombre” occasion, “very very sad”, spent with his older children Isabella and Connor in Beverly Hills. PEOPLE’s source says that Tom returned to California from Iceland on Tuesday:

"They were all together, and one of the reasons he came back to California was that he had to take his family back to LA.”

Because he’s such a caring and considerate father.

So much so that even though he speaks to Suri by phone every day, he chose not to confront Katie in New York this week because of the paparazzi:

"It's an impossible situation and he does not want to subject his daughter to any more trauma.”

Oh honey, you’re gonna have to do a lot better than that if you want to stop the bleeding...from when your wife cut you in the night and you didn’t even know. A melancholy Tom Cruise isn’t enough. Not against Katie Holmes, The One Skywalker, Neo, Harry Potter. But what are his options, really? What if the Church can’t find any dirt on her? What if they can’t manufacture a bogus secret lover? (Oh don’t tell me you don’t think they’ve been trying?)

At this point I wonder if the only possible counter to Katie is to denounce the Church - in spectacular fashion.

I am giving up my religion to SAVE MY FAMILY.

I am turning my back on this horrible thing FOR LOVE.

I am severing ties with my closest friends to WIN BACK MY WIFE.

It’s a grand gesture. It’s proposing at a basketball game. It’s lifting up a radio outside a girl’s window and not caring who laughs.

But it still, still it might not be enough. And besides, he’s too proud and ragey and vindictive and, frankly, afraid to do it. Tom is expected to counter-file, or whatever the proper legal term is for it, in the next few days. I’m told that he’s being advised, strongly, by his Scientology supporters, to “give her hell”. Those voices are, unfortunately, louder than the ones coming from Hollywood. My sources tell me his agents, the studios, they’ve all very subtly suggested to him that he needs to keep it dignified, and as quiet and civilised as possible. They are trying to assure him that he can let her go and bounce back from this, no problem. That they will help him. That they are confident it can be done. It’s a matter of whose counsel he chooses now.

Please enjoy my favourite Tom Cruise photo of all time.