The Issue is Religion Itself

It is good for us to share. When the voices we hear are more often than not the same old, same old, the ring of familiarity to their tones muffles the clarity of their thoughts. I speak for myself, alone, whose name pops up with a certain regularity in such a way that it isn’t necessary to read the words to hear what is being said. So, too, for other “regulars”, the talking folk.

Back in the beginning, which I guess is 2002, after the Boston Globe exposed the sordid scandal of sexual abuse of minors by clergy, the issues demanding room for outbursting were sexuality by celibates; authority out of Rome which invaded the bathroom as well as the bedrooms of all Catholics, celibate, lay, undecided, available; some dogmas that seemed as far out now as when first promulgated; doctrines spun out of half-cloth; decrees which sounded as if the decreer was fascinated by the sound of his voice; and other nonsensities. We who had not been tarnished by the scandal, whether as parents of minors so debauched, or as stern adults without desires to screw kids, thought we could walk the high road and demand that others pick themselves up out of the gutter, all by their onesies, to act with a dignity expected of a clergy fellow or sister.

We held our breaths, hoping that civilian authorities would continue to look the other way, after a bit of flustering to salve their consciences, and leave the investigations, uncoverings, and disposal of those who failed to act as if they were human beings with normal appetites and recreational pursuits. We weren’t so easy on bishops who covered up out of fear the church would lose some glitter from its reputation hard earned over two thousand years. Privately, a lot of us felt like throwing the bums out and starting all over with a new crew of men at the top for spectacular liturgies, commencement addresses, and regular appearances with pectoral cross chains in gold discreetly displayed between black lapels in a tasteful way to let others brushing by become aware that here stood a man of God, a Vir Ecclesiasticus.

To me, none of that. I fretted, of course, at the conspiracy to keep things quiet as the word was passed on from chancery to chancery throughout the world, with a Curia nodding assent, if not with a “Hurry up, get the word out. Look concerned. Cover up. Pretend you’re in control and are repairing the damage. Watch those bank balances carefully.” We saw through that, even as we had accepted similar conduct from the hierarchy at almost every scandalous outburst during two thousand years of slow growth from a mission church of Saints James, Thomas, Peter and Paul, spreading slowly around the Mediterranean.

We even felt a little glow of pride for the unbelievable powerful boys of Rome who sat above and talked with emperors and kings and their underlings, telling them precisely what they could and could not do, as Popes toppled the highest and the mightiest of the most powerful rulers of civilization, in the name of Jesus Christ the King. God help us, we even honored the name by which our church came to be known, not simply Catholic, but Roman Catholic Church, the one, true Church of God Himself.

No, none of that, but the tinges of those tassels out of history brushed by from time to time. Some of us, myself included, saw a startling, frightening, awesome issue that would obliterate humanity itself. We saw Religion as the issue. Religion itself. In whatever format, custom, language, church by any name. Lurking deadly beneath the whimpers of a boy being raped was not the degradation of the act of love into release of tension through orgasm with any living flesh of another. It was the emptiness of Religion itself, its colors and music and sacred literature and holy men and women notwithstanding. Would, no, could Religion survive, once the people saw that it and it alone was being challenged as the binding glue of civilization?

People who had gone beyond bishops in the extent and superiority of higher education beyond grammar school were beginning to think with their minds rather than their Baltimore Catechisms, 10 cents a copy in paperback, fits in the rear hip pocket. Trusting that such education could not possibly lead lay people to question themselves, bishops even allowed Catholics to buy and read and study and discuss the New Testament in the 1930s, for the very first time, even without a clergyman being present to define the funny words being used like incarnation, annunciation, assumption, virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, infallibility, papacy.

Now that enough clergymen were being laid bare as profligate sex machines, not merely with attractive, seductive women or equally attractive, seductive men, but with little boys and girls, terms like resurrection and ascension came to be expected of illiterate apostles and disciples who took upon themselves the inhuman and impossible task of carrying the message of the Lord, whom they hardly knew or understood. We ourselves, gifted as we are, expected as much of early Christians, who, in our glorification of our church’s early years and later history were nothing less than miraculous. We had heard of slaughters in the election of popes in the first few hundred years.

We even read about the crusades as if we were reading books on the NFL and its string of Super Bowls, and cheered our troops on for their bravery in going to war for Jesus, disregarding the obvious sad ending that they lost the wars. We thought, I guess, that Super Bowls and World Series were memorable only for the winners and their fans. So much so that we couldn’t even remember with much accuracy which teams were the losers, coming in second best overall.

And so, now, today, ten whole long years after the Boston Globe’s first story about priests and kids, we’re beginning to focus on the issue of our times, bar none.

· Does Religion have a place in our world?

· Do we need an organized church at all?

· Must we submit to hierarchs as leaders whom we must obey?

· Did Jesus himself found any church?

· Did Jesus himself found a religion?

· Were the founders of Catholicism just a couple of apostles?

· Could a Paul of Tarsus, who never saw, heard or met Jesus be his principal spokesperson?

· Has Religion, in any formal form, passed its time?

· Are we not spiritual beings, as well as human?

· Is spirituality, whatever it may be, the successor to organized religions?

· Is religion a discarded term of the early years with A.D. after the number?

· Are we growing up now as people, ready and able to become one world?

· Is the Paraclete close by, urging us on?

It’s hard to stop adding up the questions, isn’t it? Religion has been, perhaps, the most powerful and dominating force in the history of the human race, has it not? For those who love and live in the past with memories, can we shuck off a church and all its panoply and culture and kind and loving servants of the servants of God? So, let the questions roll:

· Can we go it alone?

· Must we have a great big bunch of communities to hold us together?

· What would we call them, if the term ‘church’ is no longer meaningful?

· Do we hunt for what might soon be called a synonym for Religion?

· Should we get bogged down in what we decide to call ourselves?

· Has anyone of us asked the Paraclete for help?

· Do we remember Dan’s question: “God, where in the world are you?”

Paul,

· Wondering

· Asking

· I have no answers