Why Don't We All Just Dance Around A Skull In The
Sand?
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Dan Stone - 5/2/02
As someone who actually attended eight years of Catholic school, I think
my views on the recent 'scandal' in the church offer at least the advantage
of an insider's perspective. First, I want to state emphatically that I
was never abused sexually by any representative of the church; but that
in itself makes an interesting story.
I was, even in that day, a bit of a revolutionary, and wore my hair long
for the time, ala The Beatles. I was the only kid doing this at the time,
and it caused me no end of trouble; from second grade on, I had to go see
the head priest once a week, where I endured lecture after lecture, all
basically designed to get me to go get a haircut like everyone else, which
I resisted for some seven years. Even at the tender age of seven, when this
first began, I could not understand this obsession, this great need on the
part of these supposedly benign authority figures to get me to look the
way they so desperately seemed to want me to look; the similar behaviour
of my peers was just as mysterious, if not moreso. In all cases, it only
made me more determined to wear my hair in whatever way I wished.
Now I think perhaps this is what saved me. Cute kid that I was (and I
was a very cute kid, doggone it, just like now!), this may have been
the only thing that spared me from years of sexual abuse; cuz as
the priests complained, over and over, I "looked like a girl."
Thank you, John, Paul, George and Ringo, wherever you are... in all likelihood,
you guys really saved my butt.
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Back then they still did the Mass in Latin, so nobody, not even the priests
and nuns themselves, could understand a word of what they were saying. Nowadays
they tend to communicate in a living language from time to time, and this
tends to get them in a lot of trouble.
The idea that these moral and spiritual leaders needed to sit down together
for several days to get their stories straight and come up with a statement
on the sexual abuse of children is really sad, but not all that surprising.
These guys have a hard time with the greyer areas of morality. They never
seem to know whether to condone or condemn genocide or war or rape or rampant
destruction of the environment and the insane inequities of wealth and opportunity
that make up this phony system of ours; they always have to hold a conference,
put their holy hats together and think real hard on these extremely
nuanced subjects. After all such efforts have failed miserably, they toss
a coin. Then we all have to wait til after naptime for Pope Mumbles the
19th to trot his ancient carcass out to the balcony to tell us all to go
home and pray and sin no more, all is forgiven.
I'm not a Catholic anymore; I was dispossessed long ago, y'see (though
they'd probably tell ya the exact opposite)... but at this point, I don't
understand why anyone even mildly concerned with morals or ethics
would go back to that church anymore... ever.
I am, however, still a person of deep spiritual feeling and convictions...
and given the statement that finally came forth, it seems obvious to me
that the Catholic hierarchy is comprised of creatures of pure evil, and
one Pope so old and feeble that he probably had no idea what it was he was
making a statement about... perhaps they told him it was a new edict denouncing
the evils of bell-bottomed pants.
They promised reforms. The man they've chosen to head up these vague
new policies?: none other than Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, the cleric
best-known for having shuffled many of these repeat-offending priests from
one parish to another, hushing up the scandals and thus enabling them to
victimize fresh batches of children again and again over the course of some
twenty years at least... instead of calling for his immediate resignation
and issuing orders to have his name and visage struck from every statue
and obelisk in the land, they annointed him with oil and are probably planning
to name an airport after him in a coupla years.
The Cardinal Law of the Catholic Church: Cover thy brother's ass.
Which is why I say to all those Catholics out there still standing: Why
don't we all just dance around a skull in the sand? Why don't we worship
a dead squirrel on the side of the road, confess our sins to a glossy picture
of a protein molecule, give up eating shit on weekends and wear little heart-shaped
I Love Lucy pendants at all times to show our devotion to the Holy Roadkill?
Why don't we mutilate ourselves with sandblasters and sit on golf balls
two hours daily to demonstrate our faith in the salvation of the Immaculate
Rutabaga? Why don't we do that bibble-bibble-bibble thing with the finger
on the lips and call that praying? Why don't we get together on mountaintops
once a year and all simultaneously flick our Bics for world peace while
wearing big plastic pickles on our heads?
To my mind, none of these things would be as ridiculous, as pointless,
as utterly irrelevant as modern Catholicism has just proven itself to be. | 
