My wife, Ms. Judith Chicka, says that the title of this piece is a non-sequitur. And she is a descendent of the Serbian royal family so she should know what she is talking about. On the other hand, it is my belief that the title is nothing more than an oxymoron.
The Bishops of the American Catholic faith are meeting in Washington this week. Their annual meeting has been held in Washington for many years. When I worked as a lobbyist for AT&T in the last half of the 1960’s, the meetings were covered in great detail by religious reporters from the Washington Post and the Washington Star. I have always been an avid reader of newspapers so I followed the developments at the Bishops conference with some interest. In spite of the fact that I am not a member of the Catholic faith, it was interesting for me to read about the dialog that took place at the conference.
Several years after I left Washington, I began a long standing wrestling match with an ailment called aphasia. That ailment makes it very difficult to call people’s names to mind. It seems to affect other nouns as well. To recall certain names to mind, I am obliged to use other references. For example, the word persimmon did not register easily in my brain for more than three years. I finally connected it with Simmons mattresses, so I can now recall persimmons to mind. Recently I had a problem with the words “inferiority complex.” In that case, I remembered Sherwin-Williams paint which said that their paints were superior. The opposite of superiority is inferiority and from that I have been able to figure out the term inferiority complex.
Now to go back a few years, my reading of the Bishops conference led me to believe that they had an active interest in purgatory. Purgatory gave me fits trying to recall that name recently. I am now able to do that by thinking of the Black Draught purgative, now called laxative, which then leads me into the word purgatory. I know this is a long way to get from here to there, but that’s the way it has to be done for those of us who have lesions in the brain resulting from a stroke and seizures. For those with long memories, Black Draught came in a small yellow package and a small amount was mixed into a glass of warm water. My recollection is that the purgative produced almost immediate results.
Now that I can remember some of the words that have to work in this essay, we can proceed to discuss celibate sex.
In the Bishop’s conference this year, there seemed to be extensive debate on sexual matters. The first had to do with homosexuals and the second had to do with contraceptives.
It took a long time, perhaps centuries, for the church to acknowledge that homosexuals existed. It took them another eon to admit that some of them were Catholic. In my own view, I find this amusing because some of the most creative people known to me were homosexuals.
In any case, the Bishops debated about homosexuals again this year and decided, by a vote of about two to one, that homosexuals were acceptable provided that they did not have homosexual relations. In other words, gay and lesbian folks are accepted by the Bishops so long as they don’t engage in the relations of their sexual desires. I do not know what the Bishops would conclude if a homosexual person set out to enjoy heterosexual sex. That aspect apparently did not occur to the Bishops.
This is a little like inviting a fat man to a banquet and telling him that it is okay to stand around or perhaps even to sit at the table, but please don’t eat the food. Homosexuals are moved by the same desire for relations with other like-minded people, much as heterosexual people are also moved.
I wonder what the Bishops would say to a young heterosexual who engages in what we call normal sexual relations. Is he less sinful than the homosexual who engages in gay or lesbian sex?. I am a bit confused by the Bishop’s vote which turned out to have a substantial minority. Were the minority voters simply saying that homosexuals had no right to be in the church or were they saying that it is permissible to have homosexual relations? It is probably well that no Americans of Irish descent such as myself should be a pope because we would say that it is hard to find the sin. Folks of our sort would say, “Be happy” and come to church every Sunday and don’t miss the Parish bingo games each week.
Now we turn to the second part of the Bishop’s discussion this week which had to do with the use of artificial contraceptive devices. As expected, the Bishops came down foursquare against the use of those instruments to prevent pregnancies. My inquiring mind would turn to a question of whether a heterosexual male would have sexual relations with a heterosexual female and use one of those dreaded and evil contraceptive devices. The question would seem to be how many violations of the Church rule are involved.
Does having sexual relations outside of marriage constitute a sin?. Secondly, if the couple were to use the devices, would that constitute a second sin?
The Bishops conceded that only 4% of married Catholics actually use the approved natural birth control methods which rely upon relations outside the females fertile period. It seems to me that the natural method works best when one or both parties are sterile. But whether this is the case or not, I am amazed at the amount of time that the aged celibate Bishops spend on sexual matters. I would have thought these things would have been furthest from their minds. In my own view, the Bishops should return to debating about purgatory. What is it? How long do people have to stay there? Do some sins keep you in purgatory longer than others?
I am intrigued by all of these matters when I think of Monsignor William Clarke, the former Rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, who had a so-called “secretary” who worked for him over a period of more than 20 years. In the divorce proceedings involving his secretary and her husband, it was agreed that the woman spent weekends with the Monsignor and often took vacations with him. There was no claim that Monsignor Clarke and the secretary refrained from sexual relations. We simply don’t know what happened. On these long weekends and vacations, are we to understand that the Monsignor and his secretary were only discussing details of life in purgatory? In the final analysis, I suspect that she was guilty of adultery, but is that where it ends?
If the Monsignor and his secretary engaged in relations using an artificial birth control device, does that constitute two sins? Would it have been better for them to produce a child outside of marriage? Or several children?
Monsignor Clarke, the former Rector, also had a home on Long Island where he spent his weekends. I assume that any children that he might have had would be given a parochial education and would grow up to be good citizens. But now we have the question of whether his secretary was guilty of adultery and was he guilty of violating his vow of celibacy?
I am, at this late date in life, longing for the Bishops to go back to discussing all the aspects of purgatory. I think that they are out of their depth and in over their heads when they begin to discuss matters of a sexual nature. I am at a loss to know why they do this but I suspect that the director of the annual Bishops conference must use the sexual matters as fillers. In other words, if he has a gap in the proceedings, the director of the Bishops can call for a discussion of gays and lesbians and those who are intent on lovemaking among heterosexuals.
What the Bishops conference should address is whether Msgr. Clarke ever eventually made an honest woman out of his alleged secretary or did he send her out on her own to pursue her skills at shorthand and typing. Ahh, but the Bishops are hung up on gays and lesbians and those evil, wicked condoms. But no matter how you cut it, the Bishops have provided me with excellent entertainment for the past 40 years. For that I am truly grateful.
E. E. CARR
November 16, 2006
Essay 217
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Kevin’s commentary: The way I see it, the purgatory question and the contraceptives question have a lot to do with one another. If a sin is a sin, then for instance lesbian sex which doesn’t involve contraceptives would be just as bad as heterosexual sex with protection, right? I get that the ten commandments and other such sins would have a certain weight to them, but once you get past those then how do you compare the gravity of one sin to another? Thankfully, the answer is whatever you want it to be because the concept of sin is bullshit. Phew.
On a different note, I read somewhere that when stroke victims regain things like speech and mobility, the process of doing so necessitates the brain to form brand new cognitive pathways around disabled tissue. So I think that in a way, connecting persimmon to mattresses in order to recall it is an example of this reformed pathway in action. The part of Pop’s brain that used to let him access that word is dead/disabled/fused, but now he can get to it through a different route. That route may have one more step but at the speed of neurotransmitters that difference is imperceptible.