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.

---

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?

Nilly says it better.

---

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."

---

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?

See, if Nilly were the Pope, everything would be perfect.

I'm thoroughly disheartened and revolted by all the wrongheaded, un-Christian edicts coming from the Vatican and all the news coming from, well, everywhere. On Monday night my mom and I had to go to a completely stupid hour-long meeting, during which we learned that Child Abuse Is Bad, No, Really! And We Should All Report It If We Suspect It! During which meeting we also learned that a priest my mom knew long ago, who was smart and kind and passionate about his vocation, had just quit because he was too revolted by the arrogance of the US bishops and by the Vatican's refusal to even consider the questions of celibacy and of women in the priesthood. So now, having been a priest all his life and having no savings and basically no retirement, he's living with his mother again, trying to figure out what happens next. Good, good man, gone.

I've already decided that as long as I'm in the Bay Area, I'm sticking with my parish, and if it splits, I split with it. And if we ever move, I'll be...something else. I don't know what. Which I hate. This is part of the core of me, and they're shitting all over me and all over so many people I love and destroying something that's beautiful and true, and they're doing it on purpose, with the conscious intent of driving us all away. I don't hate them, but only just barely.

t /rant

---

My only big button on this is the idea that "all gay priests are molesting little boys."

Or, "Only gay priests are molesting children."

Even, for me, "Most Catholic priests are molesters," even aside from the bullshit "gay = pedophile = molester." Come ON now.

I think Brenda makes a good point about some people (especially in earlier generations) entering the priesthood not because of a real calling, but in order to try to avoid their own sexuality issues.

Anyway.

---

Longstanding Puzzle of Honeybee Flight Solved at Last

Unlike other flying insects, honeybees use short wing strokes of less than 90 degrees and a high number of flaps every second to stay aloft. The researchers found that when challenged to fly in difficult conditions, such as a mixture of oxygen and helium that mimicked air density at more than five miles up in the atmosphere, the bees resorted to wider strokes, but maintained the same high flapping frequency.

I wanna be the person who says, "Gee, let's put honeybees in a mixture of oxygen and helium and see what happens."

---