The current pope is a bit of a ‘rebel’. All terms being relative. He’s considering lifting the celibacy laws for priests. Which, as considerations go, is (no pun here) fucking humongous! Because its always been a given that priests of a Catholic flavour be celibate. At least outwardly. But in South America their church simply doesn’t have sufficient priests to match the ‘demand’. For all the prayer required for all those drug-lords, cartels, vigilante groups, militias and other murdering rabble. So something has to give. And that something would appear to be virginity. With the introduction of Shagger Priests. Married ministers, allowed to act in an un-celibate way whilst conducting their priestly stuff. Well, not at the same time exactly, like whilst giving a sermon, but in their private lives.

This is so ‘against the Church’ it has caused great anger among the more conservative people at the Vatican. Which is basically all of them. Other than, it would appear, Pope Francis.

From my own perspective, duly considered and all probabilities balanced, I really couldn’t give a shit. I’m a Jew. What do I know about the intricacies of the Catholic Church. Yet I do care. Firstly because I’m a caring individual. And secondly because if celibacy was lifted it would remove a great source of satire from my life. And with Jeremy Corbyn soon to be ‘GONE!’ I’m going to really have to search hard.

Yet also, speaking just as a ‘man’, albeit a rather special, handsome and dashing one, the whole celibacy thing not only was ridiculously stupid, but in fact even more ridiculously harmful. Mainly to children. Particularly those in close contact with that church. And I’m not saying all priests are bad, are paedophiles, are evil abusing motherfuckers, I’m really not saying that at all. But it doesn’t take Einstein (another bloody Jew) to work out that the proportion of men who are that wicked would appear to be way, way, WAY higher in the Catholic Church than in the general population. And just perhaps, this may have something profound to do with suppressing not just a ‘basic human urge’ but a basic urge of all animals. (Think that covers both me and you then). Add in the terrible cover-ups by churches and institutions going right up the Vatican itself and you have a pretty poor model for any kind of moral leadership.

Deprivation has long been seen as way to prove ‘closeness to Jesus’. Eat less, speak less, no sex please (we’re Catholic), bit of flagellation, lots of guilt, sorrow and self hatred. But as ever, in human terms, is pretty unworkable.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx