I took today off yesterday because I felt like crap, and I suppose it was a good thing, because according to my work e-mail, there was a severe attack of stupid yesterday.
Today I'm finding e-mails from people who are screaming because I haven't sent them the files they requested. Via e-mail. Which they aren't supposed to do. And since I have ten million requests pouring into my inbox from all over the world every day, is it unreasonable for me to want people to use the website (which they are supposed to do) for requests, or to contact one of our account executives (which they also should do), instead of trying to get stuff from me and bypassing all of the very necessary red tape?
Ooh. I'm feeling lightheaded. I need a new job.
But if a priest goes into confession and confesses to lustful homosexual thoughts, can't that get him pretty much expelled from the priesthood?
Confessions are confidential. A friend was telling us at dinner the other night about a young boy who told him, during confession, that another priest had acused him and the poor kid wouldn't let him go to any authorities about it. He was still upset about it. Forty years later.
Even if he doesn't act on them?
The theory is that if you don't act gay or shag gay (which goes against that whole celibate commitment too), you can still be ordained.
OK, I don't understand the problem in this. I mean, if you have lusts and desires, and your religion forbids you to follow them, and you try to follow this religion by fighting them and trying to avoid them and it's a very difficult daily struggle which you face every day - what's not religious about that? There are plenty of lusts and forbidden-by-religion desires that I have to fight every day. That's part of being religious, in my eyes, having that inner conflict.
Insightful as ever, Nilly.
Confessions are confidential. A friend was telling us at dinner the other night about a young boy who told him, during confession, that another priest had acused him and the poor kid wouldn't let him go to any authorities about it. He was still upset about it. Forty years later
I was under the impression that this is how they planned to smoke out closeted gays in the seminary. I may have been misinformed.
My thing is, I'm not sure their problem is fixable.
Deep breath
Not through recruitment strategies, anyway. What it comes down to is: if you want to attract sexual deviants, start with policies that require deviant sexual behavior.
Now, I'm not saying in any way that all or a majority or even a significant minority of priests fall under this, or that celibacy isn't a perfectly valid and non-deviant choice. But mandatory celibacy is a different matter. My hunch is you've got a fair number of people out there with sexual tendencies that appall them - and rather than dealing with things upfront, they find what they think is a haven where the whole issue is carpeted over. And there are also those for whom celibacy is not a natural or meaninful choice, and who perhaps reach a point where they can't do it anymore, and somehow preying on the vulnerable seems like less of a breach than honestly accepting that your life path isn't working out. Or any number of other issues - I don't pretend to understand how pedophiles think. But it's a dynamic that I don't think has a solution, other than watchfulness and scrupulously honest response. And this is one more attempt on the part of the Vatican to avoid doing that.
It's certainly not a gay/straight issue, though studies have demonstated pretty emphatically that by far the majority of child sexual abuse is commited by straight people.
Rant over, and hopefully I haven't alienated too many.
I could not love my Education half so much, loved I not Math as well
I love Emily.
As do I. I adore that poem.
There are several rules in the bible (and therefore in Judaism, which are the only ones I'm familiar with) that have to do with what's inside a person's soul. Most of the rules are about what a person does, how he chooses to face those inner struggles. At least, that's how I understand it.
I also love Nilly.
Ooh. I'm feeling lightheaded. I need a new job.
I do NOT, however, love Shrift's job.
Well, somewhere in the Bible (dunno if it's Old or New Testament) there's something about how if you have lustfull thougths in your heart for someone you're not married to, you've still committed adultry. Anyone remember the controversy when Jimmy Carter said that he had committed "adultry in my heart" many times?
Foucault had some interesting things to say about how Christianity makes people try to censor their lustfull thoughts - how the thoughts themselves are considered wrong. He also said that the early Crhistian church didn't do this. (I'm totally not doing this line of thought justice.)
My thing is, I'm not sure their problem is fixable.
I'm honestly not sure it is either.
and hopefully I haven't alienated too many.
Certainly not me. My only big button on this is the idea that "all gay priests are molesting little boys." That one is pretty definitive line in the sand for me.
My only big button on this is the idea that "all gay priests are molesting little boys." That one is pretty definitive line in the sand for me.
Or, "Only gay priests are molesting children."
