Those of you who have followed my career know that I have spent my full time in study and in contemplation of the great theological works. In spite of the fact that I have spent nearly 88 years in the study of theological works, I was astounded to find that there was a religious word to which I was thoroughly unaccustomed. This is a Roman Catholic word which is used almost exclusively in Vatican circles. The word is “delict.” How I could have spent the better part of eight decades in the study of theological works and contemplation and have missed “delict” is a mystery to me. But apparently that word describes a very grave condition in the Roman Catholic faith.
If a person is convicted of committing a delict, he can be excommunicated or, if he wears the robes of a priest, he can be unfrocked. As best as I can determine it, unfrocking a priest includes removing his clerical collar and perhaps making him turn in his black suit. There is no reason to suspect that the unfrocked priest will be reduced to his skivvies. I know very little about unfrocked priests because there have been so few of them in recent years. But I suspect that the Church will permit the unfrocked priest to keep his tee shirt and his jockey shorts.
All of this came to light in a dispatch from Rome dated June 17, a Saturday. The Roman Catholics are catching on to American reading habits; they know that bad news is to be conveyed in time to reach the Saturday newspapers. This was an art, mastered by the Nixon administration and carried forward by all of the succeeding administrations, which reserves bad news for release on Friday afternoon and evening.
As most of you know at this late date, the Roman Catholic Church has been embroiled in scandals having to do with pedophilia. Pedophilia is a fancy word. What it really comes down to is that the priests were buggering altar boys and other youngsters placed in their care. Buggering is nothing more than a form of rape. This is no laughing matter in that the Church teaches that the priest speaks with the authority of God. Therefore, when a ten-year-old or a younger person is told to disrobe before the buggering takes place, he assumes that it is a function of piety. In short order he will learn that piety has not a damn thing to do with it.
On July 15th, the correspondent for The New York Times has offered us these lines to cover the change in Church law. It reads:
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia.
The decision to link the issues appears to reflect the determination of embattled Vatican leaders to resist any suggestion that pedophilia within the priesthood can be addressed by ending the celibacy requirement or by allowing women to become priests.
Excerpted from:
Vatican Revises Abuse Process, but Causes Stir
By RACHEL DONADIO
What all of this boils down to is that if someone wishes to ordain women in the Roman Catholic Church, he will find massive resistance from the Vatican. I think that it is thoroughly astounding that a Church equates the ordination of women with the rape of young boys.
Other religions, such as the Protestants and the Jews, seem to have no trouble with the ordination of females. If I were a Catholic – which I am not – I would have no trouble whatsoever in receiving the final rites of the Church or communion from a female priest. I must ask Joseph Ratzinger, who now styles himself as the Pope, “What is wrong with the mysteries of the Church being explained by a female rather than a male?”
There is a curious fact here that may need some more explanation. The New York Times has also discovered in earlier dispatches that when Ratzinger was the Cardinal in Munich, it was alleged that he covered up priestly misconduct of this sort. Curiously, there seems to be no denial of that accusation. Now, a few weeks later, here we have a new set of bylaws that say that the ordination of women and the buggering of little boys are delicts.
If someone were to go through my writings, he would discover that for many years, I have been a staunch defender of females. I think that they get the short end of the stick, whether they are in the clergy or in everyday business. To equate their fate with rape of little boys is to me a thorough insult. I must say at this point that I am not a Catholic nor do I propose that I would ever become one. However, it seems to me that the coupling of buggering and ordination of women is a strained construction and an insult. If the Church is opposed to the ordination of women, as it has been for 900 years, let that fact stand on its own feet. To tie it to the buggering of little boys is demeaning to the females in the faith and, I should think, to the Vatican in its entirety.
That is my sermon for this week. I got off on this subject because of my failure to understand the word “delict.” Now that I have a full explanation of what delict means, I can tell you that, in spite of my years of study of theological matters, I am still repulsed by the idea of delicts being used to equate the ordination of women with the rape of little boys.
So now, as we say in the preaching business, go now in peace.
E. E. CARR
July 17, 2010
Essay 474
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Kevin’s commentary: Well, I suppose that makes two of us who have recently become aware of that word, because I certainly didn’t know it. More importantly though, the fact that there is even a remote comparison between the ordaining of women and the molestation of children is mind boggling. What century are these people living in?