To Advertise Call 781-585-0037

(November 1 4) When I was a kid we had two Catholic churches in town, one Irish and one Polish. It was rumored that the priests had women on the side, a fact that led to one act of violence I was made aware of when the husband of the lady in dispute shot a hole through the offending priest’s windshield. My own pastor retired to a cottage at the seashore with his housekeeper. No one thought a thing of it because all the adults seemed to agree that priests live an unnatural life. Would anyone dispute that?

The priests I knew as a child drank pretty heavily, too, but they fulfilled their duties within the church. They came to our house to bless our Easter meals, and they went wherever they had to in order to bestow the Sacrament of the Dying. They had a sense of humor, and in those days, they stayed in the confessional for hours listening to school kids tell them how many times they’d said bad words or sassed their mothers.

Everyone was always slipping them a little cash because priests, unlike nuns, do not take a vow of poverty.

They did have to tow the party line, however, and when some mother who already had eight children, for example, came in to seek permission to use birth control, she’d be told abstinence was the only answer, a dreadful admonition that probably destroyed some previously happy marriages. Or one could use the "rhythm” method of birth control, a Russian roulette type of arrangement that restricted intercourse to times other than ovulation. When it came to having more children, the church always came down on the side of limitless procreation while not offering to feed any of the families it helped to create.

The church’s rituals have changed through the years, and some little rules have been relaxed, but the hypocrisy grows worse. Now the church is considering banning gay men from the priesthood, a thought that must make the dedicated gay priests already serving us well feel really special.

Does the church really believe that red blooded American males are going to jump at the chance to become celibate in this day and age. Those who are particularly determined to serve the Catholic Church will, in some cases, marry, have children, become priests in the Anglican Church, and then "convert” and become priests in the Catholic Church. This happens, I’ve been told.

The Church fails to make one critical distinction, and that is between men who are good and men who are not. Bernard Cardinal Law is not one of the good ones. He knowingly allowed Paul Shanley, a despicable man to enter into parishes to assault the children of good people and scar them for life. Now he’s sorry. Too little too late. We’re taught to forgive, and I believe that is the sound basis for Catholic theology, but leaving the faithful in this man’s care is tossing caution to the wind. Criminals on death row are sorry, too, but we don’t release them from prison on the basis of contrition. We all pay for our sins in one way or another.

There are good gay people and bad gay people just as there are good heterosexual people and bad ones. But even really good men of whatever sexual persuasion are going to burst into flames emotionally having no intimate companionship and the ability to act upon normal sexual urges. So if gay men are in danger of being shunned at the seminary gates, I guess women won’t even be allowed on the grounds.
The only thing that the old men in Rome will understand perfectly is a serious reduction in American revenue. They may even have to sell a priceless art work or two, many of which should already have been let go in order to feed the people in this world who starve and suffer and die without ever having lived. The men at the top enjoy wealth and prestige and privilege in Rome, and they’re desperately trying to hang onto their power base at any cost, but the tragedy for them is that too many have suffered at their hands to allow their inane policies to prevail much longer.

I love the Catholic Church. I always have, and when I die, I will want a priest to be with me. I know I won’t care whether or not he’s gay or straight. I will just want to know that he believes in Jesus Christ and all that He taught, not what some old men in Rome think is best for their job security.

There’s a wonderful story in the Bible about a widow who gives all the money she has, about the equivalent of two cents, for the work of God. It’s called "the widow’s mite”. Catholics should realize that their donations, derived from their hard work, are their "might”.

There is a scene in Scripture, too, in which Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the time, and He tells them, "For you crush men beneath impossible religious demands-demands that you yourselves would never think of trying to keep Woe to you!”

Amen..