Arrivedecci Part II

You were right to suspect that I would have more opining to do about this new Pope situation.

"Give us liberty or give us schism." That should be the rallying cry for at least 25 million liberal American Catholics. But I doubt that anything will change. Why? First of all, they're American liberals, known for lots of whining but little effective action (see: Bush, the two elections of).

Second, they like being attached to the gigantic teat of Rome -- which comes with many riches -- especially big churches and annual subsidies. As for the churches, an American Catholic schism could have some legal legs to stand on to gain control of what they've built, had possession of and maintained. At worst they could lease the churches from Rome. As for income, I think the majority of parishes are mostly or entirely self sufficient. The ones that need more money can get it the old fashioned way (No, not bingo.) They could encourage tithing, like the Protestants do.

And then there's this whole question of self-pleasuring. I couldn't find anything in the Jesus quotations about it, so I wrote the Vatican several letters, one of them even in Italian. I wanted to know what their basis was for telling a billion people that if they made themselves go ah-h-h, then they were terrible sinners. I asked for the transcript, if one existed, of the channelling or automatic writing that pipelined in from the Almighty on this being a transgression. Or if it was a handed down in a vision, could I get a general recapping? I mean, did some holy saint or pope feel transported to a heavenly field, where they saw someone touching themself, then saw Jesus run up to him with a big stick to smite the eveldoer? But Rome never answered me back.


An interesting historical note is that the first great Catholic schism, the Eastern Schism, occurred in the 11th century, the second (Protestants) occurred 5 centuries later in the 16th. Wouldn't you know that the clock has rolled around again to a passage of 5 centuries. In both previous cases, the reason for the formation of a new movement was the obdurate intransigence of a Roman Church unwilling to change. Ditto this time. Time to move forward, indeed!