Rambling on a half-decent Sunday

A little equal time clause demands that I balance the rather grim message of my last with the news that I seem to be home to a remission struggling to get out. I bloody well hope so: it's much easier to contemplate questions of medical philosophy when you're feeling good and the weather is nice.

Speaking of philosophy, I've been following the pope's road show with detached amusement. I mean, really, Benny the Hitler Youth is a stiff, not a rock star. If just one broadcast journalist would open up and admit what a bad act this is, I'd feel better about broadcast journalism.

I loved the bit about how had the church is going to work to be sure no more pedophiles get into the priesthood. Sure. When last I looked, the problem is mainly not one of pedophiles getting into the priesthood: it is that the system of creating a celibate clergy, vested with considerable power over their flocks, creates pedophiles. It virtually guarantees that an unusual proportion of priests, stuck in a system that worships arrested sexual development, will express their sexuality through pedophilia sooner or later.

These pious pronouncements say nothing about a recent finding--might have been international, I don't recall--that about half of the church's seminarians are gay and were gay before they entered the seminary. So, will this "keeping out" eventually boil down to keeping out anyone who is gay, faithful, prepared to take on the rigours of celibacy, and just as horrified as straight people about pedophilia? Well: won't that be a conventional bit of witch hunting?

Why not lose celibacy for the secular clergy and be done with it?

Note: Previous readers may recall my status as an atheist in matters of faith, Catholic in matters of socialisation, and be tempted to comment on it. Bite me.