5-20-02, Danny McBride

Have you ever noticed that you don’t hear much about Rabbis being in sex scandals?  Money occasionally, but not sex.  Okay stay with me here.  I’m talking about clergy.  How many times can you remember a Lutheran or a Methodist minister being hauled into court on lewd charges?  Or for that matter an Episcopalian or a Presbyterian?  Or a Congregationalist or a Baptist?  Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker don’t count.  How about a Hindu or a Buddhist?  When was the last time you saw a headline that screamed “Zoroastrian Sex Scandal”?

So what’s up with the Catholics?  Dare I say the one word that separates them from all these others:  Celibacy.  Get real, Il Papa (Italian for Bubba).  It isn’t working.

In almost all other religions, denominations of religions and even cults, marriage is an acceptable option for the priests, ministers or rabbis, or shamans (or is that shamen?), medicine men or spiritual poobahs.  Heck, Mormons insist on it- -sometimes two or three times- -but nobody outside of Utah takes them any more seriously than they do Jehovah’s Witnesses or snake worshiping Charismatics.  (I enjoyed the fellow on NPR recently describing his small southern hometown as so backward that even the Episcopalians were snake handlers.)

Did you know that The Bible does not demand celibacy?  This was something worked up by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages and like much of the Church’s teaching of that time, has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus.  Indulgences.  You sin, you pay the Church money and you’re saved.  Yup they did that for years.  It’s not only not in The Bible, it’s about as opposite as you could get from what is in The Bible.  

So how come people fell for this stuff?  One word:  Latin.  No one spoke it by then except the clergy- -oh yes some lawyers and physicians and scientists knew it too- -but the common folk did not.  So the common folk couldn’t read The Bible.  Just had to take Father Anno Domini’s word for it.

And why do that?  Well, you don’t want to end up in Purgatory, do you?  Of course, in The Bible there is no such place.  Another invention thrown in to intimidate the populace.  And people were willing to believe anything to be saved from whatever might await them at the end of their lives.

Enter modern civilization’s first Super Star- -Movie Star, Rock Star, Media Darling all rolled into one- -Martin Luther.  Of course in the 1520s there were no movies or rock bands, but there was media.  Gutenberg- -no not Steve- -Johannes.  He had invented the movable type printing press which allowed documents to be mass produced and distributed all over Europe faster than ever before in history.

So when Luther nailed up his 95 Theses on that Church door in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517 challenging the local clergy to a debate- -and by the way, remember, Luther himself was a priest at the time- -the ability to spread his words far and wide meant that his ideas were all over the continent in less than 30 days.  Heck, the U S Postal Service doesn’t do much better nearly 500 years later.

Of course, those of you astute history buffs will already know that this was the start of the Reformation, where everyone reformed from the silly clothes they were wearing and began wearing jeans.  No- -wait- -The so called Reformers, or Protesters to the ways of the Catholic Church, really just wanted to reform the Church- -do away with the Indulgences and such, but they were all kicked out.  They were lucky if they weren’t burned for heresy.

Okay, so here we are 500 years later with almost the same Catholic Church puttering away as it once did before all this.  I mean in 1633 they wanted to string up Galileo for proving Copernicus correct and Aristotle wrong about whether the Sun revolves around the Earth, or the Earth revolves around the Sun.  Galileo died in exile for this after being forced to eat his words.  And another supporter of Copernicus’ work, Giordano Bruno, who would not recant, was burned at the stake.  “Believe what we say or you die.”  Sounds like present day Islamic extremists.

So now we have Catholic parish after parish admitting they have been harboring deviant priests, and big name Cardinals and Archbishops going out and defending  themselves and their whole staff.  Next we’ll find out Arthur Andersen does their books.

And why?  Because of a mentality rooted in the Middle Ages instead of The Bible.  All the stuff that was added in to the Church that has nothing to do with The Bible is what makes it possible to this day to have sexual predators choose this safe occupation.  Children look up to their Sunday School teachers.  And if Father Ex Post Facto says “Let’s all play the naked movie star game” what do you do?

If priests went back to being able to marry and have families, the priesthood would attract a whole different bunch of people- -committed to the work, but normal people like those they minister to. 

I suppose there will always be those who think they should bring back the Inquisition, but if these guys don’t get their Acts together, they’re in for a new Revelation.

These wacko priests are going to drag down a two-thousand year old institution.  When they ask years from now what wrecked them, they need only say one word: rectum.  Wrecked ’em?  Rectum.

Makes me want to go toss my cookies- -Vomitus Nabisco.

-30-

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