Just in time for Halloween, a true horror story, dressed up as a rather bland bit of religious news:
Ah yes. Anglican homophobia and misogyny, oppressed by all this modern progress, now have a new home. And their adherents will be paying tithes directly into the coffers of the same Vatican that kept sweeping under the rug all the priests that either buggered boys or molested and impregnated teenage girls. The same that is now letting dioceses go broke so it will never have to sell off its own golden toilet seats to pay reparations to the victims of all those priests who proved that forced celibacy does not work! Don’t you love that logic?It’s theological inanities like this that make me glad I’m a pagan.Thousands of Anglicans could defect to the Roman Catholic church after the pope today approved a new global institution to receive them.It will be the first time since the Reformation in the 16th century that entire Protestant communities have reunited with Rome. The first group likely to take advantage of the new rules is the Traditional Anglican Community (TAC), which broke off from the rest of the community in 1991 and claims to have more than 500,000 members worldwide.Other groups unhappy with developments in the Anglican Communion are also expected to accept the invitation from the Vatican. Traditionalists, including thousands in the Church of England, have long threatened to defect to Rome over issues such as the ordination of women and gay people.
And one of the ultimate hypocrisies here is that the ‘conservative’ pope is going to let the Anglican priests stay married. How nice of him. The traditional Catholic priests must be celibate whilst the new Catholic priest just down the road can make whoopee with his wife. I am getting so disgusted that it almost makes me wish that God would hurry up and get us a new Pope. A REAL one this time. I know, that is wishing something terrible, but this guy is just revealing a more terrible side everyday, it seems. If Obama is not the Anti-Christ, maybe the wingnuts just got the wrong guy. This is the one, hmmm?
Yep, it looks as though this one is just sticking his foot in it everywhere.
Meanwhile, there are a number of logical responses to the “traditionalists” that I can think of, off the top of my own little red head:
1. Abolish all mandatory celibacy. Clergy can choose to be asexual and unmarried if they feel like it, but it should not be a requirement.
2. Ordain women priests.
3. Ordain married priests of either gender.
4. Ordain priests of any sexual orientation, marital status and/or gender, provided that they have no criminal records and/or pedophilic tendencies.
5. Stop wringing hands and clutching pearls about same-sex marriage, already. There are worse things in the world, and one of them happens to be “celibate” priests who go around having affairs with female parishioners. Another is pedophiles who bugger little boys and/or girls. “Traditionalism” provides a perfect smokescreen for all that and more.
6. Shit, just abolish traditionalism. After all these centuries, it hasn’t done a lick of good. Why keep repeating the same mistake over and over and over again?