If forced to watch boxing for any reason , I always resented the delivery of a knock-out punch, to be followed by another punch as the opponent went down, already finished.
But we all know the feeling, as after so many years of clerical paedophily, we now get a second wave with the appalling McCarrick case.
Now just before the opponent touches the canvas, we get a Benedictine boot put in . We had always felt that the triple vows of chastity, poverty and obedience added ballast to their version of the priesthood, and were always much more impressive and convincing than clerical golf club membership or the ownership of the newest model cat. We still believe this and are prepared to hope that the combination of helpless little boys , a monastic order and a boarding school was simply looking for trouble, which the Benedictines have certainly found in their schools .
At the lowest level, the difficult triple vows certainly seem to make it easier for those who take them to keep their minds off sex. Which makes one wonder how sex got into providing the Eucharist in any case. The answer as we realise after a minute’s thought, is big lumps of stone and acres of land .
Many of those ordained to provide the Eucharist were often married. And had families. This was sometimes an excuse to sell bits and pieces of Church property without permission.
No one is going to give the Middle Ages high marks for intelligence. Burning senile old women as witches and sentencing cows to death for accidentally trampling on babies left down while the mother worked are only two of innumerable examples. So in 1139 a low IQ pope decided that if those providing the Eucharist were forbidden to marry, then they would not have any children, and the Church’s property collection would remain intact. You can imagine clerics surrounding him and saying,`’Quite right, your holiness …well done…only you could have thought of this..etc, etc.’ And that was it. The Council of Trent, on one of its off-days confirmed this.
You may ask if I am trying to tell my readers that this has something to do with the widespread betrayal of the Flock and more importantly the reason why hundreds of thousands of them cannot bear to receive the Eucharist from a secular priest, then I say I am.
Sex has no more to do with providing the Eucharist than jam-making or deep sea diving.
Future generations of historians and theologians- who will hopefully be Chinese- will regard the situation with the same distaste as we regard Gibbon’s revelations about the early Popes. And they will also wonder where the Church might be just now if this obsession with Church property had been dealt with sensibly.
Over the last few weeks, the ’Tablet’ magazine has devoted a remarkable number of pages over two editions to an article by a James Alison , who argues that ‘gay priests should be honest about their sexuality’. This article does several things, but it certainly reveals that the secular or Tridentine priesthood is very much concerned with sex. Alison tells us of gay priests, gay priests with partners, and high up gay priests , and of course we know of celibate priests, ultra-celibate priests, priests with mistresses, and of course paedophile priests. I am open to correction here , since I am possibly too stupid, as a layman ,to understand Alison’s vision of sentence structure, but I don’t think the word ‘Christ’ or ‘Eucharist’ appears in his article .
I give you the last two sentences of his article : ‘The alternative, as Francis surely knows, is to continue with liars inducting liars into a game, the closet forming and enforcing the closet. And all of us finding that the Lord’s vineyard is being very properly being taken away from us, its terrified tenants, and put into the hands of others, determined neither by sexual orientation, marital status or gender, who will produce its fruit.’
All complex stuff , and well above me. Especially the ,last sentence. I just say- well, let them get on with it.
I also say- and not for the first time- can the rest of us not just get on with ordaining parishioners and providing the Sacraments for the Flock ?