Physician Heal Thyself

Church: Refuge of Sinners and Bed Wetters

The degree of women bashing, women hating, women persecuting , women disrespecting and women disdaining at the core of the all male hierarchy of the priesthood is really something worth study- and it is worth studying in depth the relationships between priests and their mothers. I don't say this to condemn but because of the obvious need for healing in these men the church isn't going to be healthy unless the priests themselves are. Many are- many are clearly not- and this is at the core of why the world isn't leaving it alone on the scandals. If they keep confusing sickness, mental illness and dysfunctional as piety the world isn't going to let up. They don't know how sick they are often.
All one has to do is look at the garbage fueling people like Tom Peters and those going off on that Chicago priest for merely suggesting something that is totally biblically correct- married priest- to understand how deep the antipathy toward any women in authority is and why these men revolt at the idea of any of them being married. 1 Timothy 4. the historic spin on demeaning Mary Magdalene, the complete disappearance of Mrs. Peter Pope, etc.

Sure there are some women who deserve it- sure there are some women who take abortion too lightly and practice the sin too flagrantly- but there is something deeper at the misogynist psychology at play at the root of the theology that is contributing to the deceptions inherent in sweeping too easily forgiven sexual sins under the rug.

Scripture says that nothing should be added or subtracted to it doctrinally- yet the Catholic world has created an all male authority structure world that runs completely counter to scripture where only men can consecrate and bring Jesus food into the world (when Jesus survived for years off the food of a woman exclusively). Women throughout scripture clearly had a significant Apostle role, and were integral to ministry in all dimensions, were Deaconesses (ask a Dominican one day to explain that one away for you and your head will spin at the spin) and not only financed the travels of the apostles but were the backbone of the living churches.
When you hear someone like that American Papist rail violently and start an entire lobbying effort to persecute someone who is taking a biblically correct view of a married priesthood, I would really want to look deeply at the following questions (a) did he wet his bed (b) was he potty trained before the age of 5 (c) did he draw on the walls with his crayons till he went to first grade. Because someone like that would have woken up every day to a really annoyed ticked off yelling angry mother and much of his early childhood would have been surrounded by the shrill voice of a woman screaming "Oh My God, Not Again, Now I have to Change and Wash those damned Sheets Again! " followed by a swift spanking. He probably had his crayons taken away from him daily. Someone like that is going to have deeply entrenched resentments toward any women in authority structures all his life. The Church is a very comforting place for someone like that.
Then there is the type who never had a mother emotionally present and saw an elegant beautiful woman who asked nothing of him in statue form at a place he found lots of women mother figures doting on him in church- so idealized a blessed mother figure beyond something that has actual flesh and blood and milk glands in her breasts that kept the infant Jesus alive for a few years as he sucked on her breasts. Gasp. What-you think they had Gerbers baby formula in Egypt and Nazareth? John Paul II curiously lost his mother at an early age and had as a result a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother. I am not saying he was a hater of women in authority, but the distorted views on womanhood as something either completely ethereally otherworldly looking down from heaven or otherwise rather irrelevant on earth can come from such a distortion.
A third type would be the opposite of the screamer who in between the soap operas while she was ironing had nothing but a disciplinary relationship with her son (perhaps acting out her own revolt against an oppressive husband) comprised of mostly "get off that couch!" "don't wear that! change your shirt you spilled on it!" or "don't you hit your sister!" or "stop punching the dog!" "go take your homework upstairs!" "get off that phone!", etc. The opposite type would have been the smothering doting type of woman. This woman type who didn't get emotional fulfillment in the marriage so transposed it upon her son(s) did the worst damage- this woman, equally unbalanced emotionally is someone who felt emotionally starved in a marriage so buried herself in her kids-to a point where she is still feeding and babying adult male children and effectively espouses them emotionally keeping them in emotional bondage to her dreams for them. Some let them live forever in the basement. These women sometimes (often) cause or are in divorce situations and they use children as emotional crutches, and their children pay the price for it. They can be nice women, but just badly damaged and it passes along in emotionally crippling ways. These can create deep resentments in men who blame the dysfunctionalities of their relating with women and lack of ability to get a life of their own on their mothers and they likely from their fathers have a disdainful view of their mothers as their faults are amplified in a divorce context as the blame game flies. Again, this creates a distorted view of women authority figures, and deep antipathies towards women in authority structures. This is the martyr mother- look what all I have to put up with for you kids. Look what I do for you. Martyrdom becomes the highest virtue-these priests emphasize dying to self not surprisingly. So they commit emotional suicide in the name of Jesus. It's not piety, it's perversity.

There are all kinds of men who would be attracted to an all male authority structure where women are seen as just to be bilked for the bills. The best kinds of priests are those who had healthy relationships with their sisters (in a church I love where I consider the Pastoral relationship one of the healthiest I have witnessed, the Pastor's sister attends the church and sings in the choir and you get a sense he views women as his sisters in a completely appropriate way.) Another priest I admire had a large professional in tact family he was surrounded by during his ministry and was just singularly devoted to his priesthood the way law students focus so intently on the study that they simply don't have time for frivolities because there are souls to save who otherwise would burn in the lake of fire hotter than that volcanic eruption in Iceland.

My experience at the Dominican House was that there was one nasty guy who sat in a dress on a fancy fluffy chair and for men to be ordained they had to kneel in front of him and kiss his ring as he sat there like King Tut while the women, banished to the back banister sidelines bowed their heads as neary a one of them dared approach. My reverential thought was "you have to be kidding me." I expected that the ring should turn into a pot of gold then take flight and turn into a dove. One woman I know at the Dominican House was led on by a professor of high rank in a dress who lived there who had her head so twisted over the thought that he loved her it drove her to psychiatric meds as she wrote love letters to him into her 50s that went unresponded to, while the checks all got cashed.

The church needs, as the Pope has admitted, serious Penance and Repentance. But more than that, it need serious self-evaluation and healing. You cannot begin to correct the problem unless you understand the depth of the sickness.
Jesus does love his sick, dysfunctional hurting diseased church. He is mad as Hell at it now.
It is Get Real Already Time Folks.