Pride Comes

Before A Fall

     Another 8 Million down the drain- from where- insurance? A recent settlement from a non-diocesene order is paying another abuse victim a few million for his torment this week.
These sorts of things prompt more of the inevitable article challenging the myth of higher holiness in celibacy: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/nothing-sacred-about-celibacy-20120706-21ly3.html

   Imagine a country where there are no women making any real decisions, holding any superior positions of power in any way power is construed and women are used for cover of the practices men dictate to torment other women who disagree.  Then picture yourself in the Vatican where not one statue of the wife of the great Saint Peter, the first Pope can be found anywhere. She has been completely written out of history. Then imagine an institution where great buildings and cathedrals of architectural wonder have been built and no woman can live in them. Because they are run by an all boys club. Because Jesus, as the story goes, only had male disciples.

Mary Magdalene's significance has been written out of history like she was some hanger-on whore (a moniker given to any woman who gets too close to clergy-generally by old really jealous women who treat priests like their favorite pet).

   Catholicism is not democratic, it is not egalitarian. It doesn't pretend to be. The Pope recently admitted the priesthood isn't a perfect group- like anyone had to remind us given the recent conviction of a Monsignor in Philadelphia who took the fall for a Cardinal who mysteriously died after being deemed well enough and competent to testify at trial.

   I sometimes think the Catholic church is heaven on earth. Then I get a whiff of something so deceitful,  mean spirited and vicious I can't believe I keep coming back.

   The Catholic church is a bit like New York; it has the best and worst of all possible worlds in the same place. Some parish priests are angels. Others are smug arrogant mean spirited women hating pseudo intellectual idiots with SAT scores of 300 who went to Catholic U. because they couldn't get in anywhere else. Some are in jail. Some really good ones left because they found God in a conjugal lifestyle with a holy wife.  Those are the smart ones you want back. They know a thing or two of which they speak.

I keep meeting Catholics who are now Buddhists or Presbyterians. For every Catholic I meet I meet two x-catholics who can't stand it any more. Something has to give.

   The lack of regard for the health of women in the priesthood is staggering. It is a direct consequence of the fact that the power structure is all men, who know nothing about childbearing or rearing. Nothing . Not one of them gets a monthly period or worries about uterine or breast cancer. Not one of them worries about endometriosis or menstrual bleeding. Not one of them is supporting anyone who does or they get kicked out.

   This is not a group of people who should get five seconds of air time or anything to say about women's health. My mother has a saying- "don't go looking for flowers in a hardware store."