Land of Rape and Honey

It's the secret that everyone knows but doesn't dare bring up over Easter ham.

While growing up, I noticed some distinct anti-Catholic tendencies in my very Catholic family. The old women went to mass, bought St. Joseph's bread and put Virgin Mary statues on their front lawns. The young girls went to CCD and made communion. The young boys went to CCD and made communion, but -- well, none from my generation were altar boys.

As a kid, I didn't understand why. My parents were lax in promoting religion, morals and values, but from observation, I knew that it was a big deal to be an altar boy. It was an honor, a privilege. My family participated in all of the other traditions of Catholicism. Why not this one?

About ten years ago, the priest who married my parents quietly left the church and found a bride for himself. I'd met him once or twice, and he seemed a nice enough man. When I asked my parents why he chose to leave the priesthood, they said it wasn't a choice. He simply had nowhere else to go. Transfers can take one only so far, and there were rumblings that one parent had threatened to go to the police about an incident.

It all made sense. That's why no one in the family had a kind word to say about the Catholic institution, that's why none of my male contemporaries were altar boys, and damn it if that wasn't why Uncle Sean is a rip-roaring drunk.

I never learned the specifics. I'm not sure I want to learn the specifics. All I know is that Uncle Sean was touched by God in places that turn men into bitter alcoholics with sexual dysfunctions.

And he wasn't alone.

Newspaper headlines blare that the Catholic Church is "rocked" by scandal, but who wasn't aware of the action going on behind the altar? What's catching our attention is that the Catholic Church is backed into corner and is forced to admit that proclaiming one's devotion to God isn't enough to kill the human urge to screw.

Celibacy is unnatural. People want to fuck. That's why babies are created. That's why STDs are spread. That's why Eve Ensler has a career. People are obsessed with their genitals, they live by their hormones, and if a certain profession requires celibacy, there should be no surprise when those who apply are slightly off.

Normal people don't want to give up an inherent part of their humanity, not even in return for the privilege of serving a supreme being. Praise Allah, Jesus and Yahweh, but pass the Astroglide, please. They crave the intimacy and pleasure that come with sex, even if their chances of finding a playmate are almost non-existent. Those people turn to Everquest or hacking until they can find that elusive partner, but they don't kill the dream.

Those who choose a profession that has a strict no-sex clause have either serious psychological problems that they hope "forced" celibacy can hide or they're quietly getting some on the side. And no one's going to begrudge Father Michael a hot piece of widowed ass because at least he's sticking to his age group.

A person who denies his sexuality to increase his perceived spirituality likely is not a noble, pure-hearted, virginal individual in search of the meaning of life and his place in His universe. That priests have been held up as paragons of virtue is why this problem occurred for so long without a Boston Globe exposé.

Someone who cuts himself off from one of the most basic, vital aspects of life can't expect to understand and counsel humanity, but for generations of Catholic Americans, the clergy has been where to turn for solutions to life's ills. Confess and Father Bruno will make it all better. Because Father Bruno is a good man. Who does God's work on Earth. And selflessly helps you navigate this earthly purgatory.

So, if he diddles your dangly, keep your mouth, you heathen brat. Because Father Bruno would never do something like that because he is godly, and you are a flawed sinner. And if he did do anything, it's because you were asking for it and you deserved it.

Grow up thinking that the man in the white collar is infallible, that sex is an inherently dirty part of the life cycle and any accusation you make about sexual acts involving a priest will mar the name of such a wonderful man, and it's no wonder you've got a boatload of grown men who put their Loss of Innocence memory on a loop as they down another round.

The priesthood doesn't create pedophiles, though. At least not in the United States. Catholicism creates sexual hang-ups and bumper stick humor -- rest assured, there are no recovering Unitarian Universalists -- but it doesn't cause a previously age-appropriate heterosexual or homosexual man to redirect his sexual appetite toward pre-pubescent cock.

Afghani men allegedly take up with young boys on a frequent and customary basis, and this is understandable. The women are covered, so he has no idea if the woman under the veil is a gorgeous Pashtun or a buck-toothed, cross-eyed Uzbek. A woman's chastity is her most prized possession, so deflowering her brings shame to the family and causes her stock to dip. And most importantly: getting married in a country like Afghanistan costs you a pretty Afghani. Few men can afford the dowery, so to get off, they take up with the sweetest young thing in the Mosque.

American priests have no such problem. The women are half-naked, horny and free, and if they needed some, there would be no shortage of women in which to partake.

And some priests do choose the older lasses from the congregation. This has given the Catholic Church some leverage against allegations. A 15-year-old girl isn't in the same league as an eight-year-old boy. A 15-year-old girl has tits and a burgeoning sexual desire that can be fed only by the cock of a homely middle-aged priest who can exert power over her because her parents led her to believe that priests can do no wrong.

Shit, maybe that's not the best argument to make, Pope John Paul.

She may be old enough to breed, but I don't see a large contingent of teen girls crying out to be ravished by socially stunted men who use their (until now) unquestioned position of authority to get the girls' kits off after CCD.

What Catholicism's celibacy policy succeeds at is attracting those with something to hide -- men and women who pray that the sanctity of the Church will save them from their thoughts and deeds.

If you know that you're attracted to young boys and you believe that being attracted to young boys is wrong and you want to ensure that you don't act on your attraction to young boys, you might think you'll find safety in the sexual void of Catholicism. Then the Church elders give you a baptism by fire and put you in charge of the spiritual guidance of young boys.

Fuck.

At least you tried, buddy.

But it's not the child-molesting priests who are at the heart of the problem. Their sexuality isn't of their choosing and can't be changed. If given the choice, they'd probably prefer being attracted to Mrs. O'Leary's sweet, well-developed 17-year-old daughter. She's legal, and hey, a hole's a hole.

No one wants to be the priest who gets his jollies by having 8-year-old boys fellate him in the rectory basement. When the other priests are bragging about the fine pussy they're getting -- "You know Mary-Catherine in Sister Benedicta's Latin class? Man, that girl could give St. Paul a hard-on!" -- the pedophile priest feebly tries to join in with his own made-up escapades, knowing that even if his fellow priests would help cover up his sexual hijinx, they don't want to hear about that awesome hummer Kody gave after last Sunday's mass. He's a sexual freak among sexual freaks.

Have a little sympathy for Padre Pedophile. Life would be much easier for him if he toed the party line. He can't, and that's why someone has to hold his hand, among other things.

The real culprits are the church administrators who hide the deeds, lest the church coffers start shrinking. Yes, church administrators will argue, the majority of men who molest children are not of the cloth and we should stop focusing all of our attention on those who are, but the expectations for priests are such that there should be no incidents of underage hanky-panky. We know priests are human and susceptible to sins of the flesh, but the bill of goods being sold by the Church puts priests on a higher pedestal than the rest of us.

They can't tell us that priests are God's representatives on Earth, adhering to a strict regiment of prayer, religious study and celibacy in order to guide us lesser creatures to salvation, only to tell us in the next breath that priests are just like you and me, and they should be forgiven and rehabilitated for their trespasses because everyone deserves a 15th chance.

Where's that level of compassion and understanding for women who seek abortions or gays?

After all, a large segment of the priestly population is homosexual. Homosexuality is greatly frowned upon in the Catholic church, but the official stance is that as long as one isn't an active homosexual, one can spend his Thursday nights yukking it up to Will and Grace. So, what better place for a guilt-ridden Catholic homosexual to attempt to hide his feelings and find a solid excuse to not act on his desires?

But the Church is backing away from their policy of hating the sin and loving the sinner. It's the gays, don't you know, who are polluting the Church with their immoral thoughts -- immoral thoughts, naturally, being perpetuated by the godless, immoral atmosphere of modern American culture. No, it couldn't be that the Church's two-thousand year existence has created an insulated bubble in which holy sinning is ignored with the help of threats or payouts, thus allowing priests to rightly believe their behavior will go unpunished. It has to be all of the sinnin' and funnin' that Americans enjoy in abundance.

Msgr. Eugene Clark of the NY Archdiocese claims that priests who molest children are, in fact, the victims of a society that barrages its citizens with sinful images of, uh, grown women's tits and asses:

"Liberated sex is offered to people all day long, all evening long," he said. "There is nothing quite like it."

Except in Amsterdam, Rome, Paris, London, Tokyo...

"We know — we won't mention it outside the cathedral — we are probably the most immoral country certainly in the Western hemisphere and maybe the larger circle because of the entertainment we suffer and what it's done to our [country's] morals ..."

In recent years, ABC showed Dennis Franz's bare ass, and the Italian version of "Big Brother" showed two contestants screwing after knowing each other for only a few days. Msgr. Clark, obviously, has never been outside of the country because there are many nations whose forms of entertainment contain more debauchery and tomfoolery than Cardinal Egan can shake a stick at. Sex is not the problem. Viewing sex as something dirty and a necessary evil is. When an hour-long lingerie ad on network television causes more uproar than a showing of "True Lies," it's obvious that there's no great conspiracy in the United States to encourage sexual openness.

As long as the Catholic Church searches for a scapegoat for its ills -- queers, enjoyable sex, abortion, Victoria's Secret, Jews -- it'll continue to sink further into irrelevance.

And that's exactly where it should be.

Providing jack-off material for white misogynists since 1997.

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