Talk politics.

The party of Caesar was parading in the streets of San Francisco this past Saturday to voice their opinion in opposition to women's rights. The monthly topic got me ruminating on the issue from a position of class interest. Before the Supreme Court ruling that Caesareans detest, there was a significant discrepancy in the availability of feminine health services depending on financial income. Although the gap has been narrowed somewhat, it still heavily favors women of higher income brackets.

The women served most by community family planning clinics are those with the fewest resources to spend on medical treatment. They are also the women most likely to experience an unplanned pregnancy and the least able to provide for an addition to the household. Attacks on these kinds of health care services constitute attacks on those who need them the most. The march this past Saturday manifested a form of class warfare disguised as support for "life."

You might say that the Romans have always stood up for the poor. They have a tradition of collecting alms for the needy. They live lives of poverty and chastity in order to cultivate compassion for those in need. Why would such generous people act in a way that impacts negatively on women in need? It simply makes no logical sense. This war against the poor must be a figment of the imagination.

One might even point out that the Roman Church is bleeding property as a result of law suits over child molestation. The poor padres are not nearly as affluent as they were back when the Roe v. Wade decision was made. Vatican finances are on the decline. They are a mere shadow of their former opulent glory.

The Roman Church has a long tradition of diverting a hefty fraction of its alms income to administrative overhead. The fact that top members of its organizational hierarchy are housed in palatial splendor testifies to the bogus nature of clerical poverty. Few of the Romans I talk with see anything wrong in paying exorbitant salaries to executives of Catholic Charities. The Church can do no wrong in the eyes of the faithful.

What do you think about the attitude of an opulent Church towards the trials and tribulations of women in need? Is this claim of class attack without merit? (I have linked to an article about a recent investigation into Roman charitable activities.)

Links: Nikki Schwab on Boehner's boost after coming out against women's rights. Kendall Taggart and Kris Hundley report on how the Roman Order of Malta benefits from alms.

Liberals who have been oohing and aahing over the new vicar of Caesar Jesus, the Ignatian Pontifex Maximus named after the monk of Assisi, now have reason to check their emotional optimism at the cathedral vestibule. Frank encouraged a Maltese prelate to speak out on his own opposition to adoptions by same-sex couples. Is this based on a sociological study of adoption outcomes depending on parent gender, or is it based on the medieval custom of clerical despotism and the perception of homosexual activity as the moral equivalent of the rapists of Sodom? For some reason the former seems unlikely.

The reactionary cleric, Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna, made the dangerous connection to the family status of the prophet from Nazareth. If we are to take that as a pattern of family life for the entire planet, everyone would need to be raised by a biological mother and an adoptive father. That is as practical as the ban on contraceptives. The important aspect of this drama is the way that sacred texts are abused in order to rationalize vicious and brutal policy positions that are more in the spirit of a Kaiser or a Czar than that of an ancient sage.

An advocate of Rome's position might point out that the Roman clergy know more about homosexual relations than anyone else. The priesthood and the monastery were traditional sanctuaries for men and women who felt attraction for their own gender rather than for the opposite gender. They know the absurdity of the medieval practice of referring to a priest as a "father" when he is actually more like a tax collector or a pharisee. We should trust the opinion of Roman clerics on such matters just as we trusted them when they insisted that there could not possibly be people on the other side of the Earth. (On a more serious note, conservative innovators have now come up with a new right for a child to have a parent of each gender.)

In response to such sympathy we need only point to the predatory practices of the corrupt and despotic clerics as an example of what to avoid. Rather than channeling sexuality into a priesthood of political domination, same sex marriage and parenting channels it into a more natural condition, despite what the material Creator of the flat and immobile Earth might think.

Do you suppose that Frank agrees with Scicluna's position on adoption, or do you suspect that by encouraging him to speak out he was throwing the poor guy under the bus? What is your take on the conservative effort to deny rights to adults by creating new rights for children?

Links: Ariadne Massa on the meeting between the pope and Scicluna. A conservative Catholic, Nick Donnelly, advocates protecting the "right" of children to a parent of each gender by opposing same-sex adoption.

Catholic biblical scholar John Meier denigrated the notion that modern thinkers do not believe in miracles. He cited statistics on the number of people who professed to believe in miracles toward the end of the previous century. To claim that modern thinkers do not believe in miracles is to ignore such statistics. Or is it? Perhaps the statistics demonstrate the inadequacy of modern thought to penetrate the depths of medieval thinking extant in a supposedly modern society.

Children are indoctrinated into a mental prison by institutions that achieved their peak power in the centuries between Constantine and Copernicus. These people have extraordinary difficulty making the transition to freedom of conscience. They can hardly be considered to be part of modernity. These people blame the tribulations of our time on a fall from medieval ideals rather than on their own confined way of approaching the world.

One of the key phrases used by these medieval prisoners is "the kingdom of God." What do they mean by this? Is it a return to the way things were done before the coming of Copernicus? Does it imply putting people to death for denying the Truth of the Party line? Does it mean brutally treating those with knowledge of herbal remedies? Perhaps not explicitly.

One of the difficulties that these prisoners face is the use of the word "God." It is not spelled the same way as the more generic word "god" because it is considered to be unique. Anything that challenges uniqueness must be rejected as diabolical. Perhaps the true diabolism resides in the rejection of challenge. Perhaps that rejection constitutes the mental bondage that these folks endure.

This is a serious political problem because these prisoners continually seek to outlaw modernity. They seek to entrap the children of free thinkers into their own confined way of seeing life. They went so far as to outlaw the Communist Party and place the name of their medieval deity in a declaration of political loyalty to be chanted by all children in public school. As beleaguered human beings these folks deserve political representation, but not a monopoly on political representation.

There is validity to the notion that medieval religious institutions serve to intoxicate a significant portion of the populace. That intoxication is not merely a benign placation into the acceptance of despotic governance. When the intoxicated have their way, it becomes the source of despotic governance.

What do you suppose can be done to solve the problem of medieval mental incarceration?

John Meier criticizes academic approaches to Christian literature. Lee Canipe on the loyalty oath for kids.

When a person has been drawn into the depths of hellish governance his every action leads to additional degradation. It is similar to the way that struggling in quicksand only leads to a faster submersion. We can see this process at work in that magnificent bastion of outer darkness that goes by the name of the Vatican.

The latest news from that cavernous domain is that Roman practice is intolerant. Before this bit of "so what" insight, priestly celibacy was put on the table for discussion. It may seem that the newest Pontifex Maximus is open to reform in order to correct the wayward sexual tendencies that have plagued the Roman priesthood through the period of full-blown flat-Earth worship to the present day. As with American military intelligence, things within the Vatican are not what they seem to the outside world.

The official argument in favor of the celibacy requirement is that Roman priests need to dedicate their lives to the despotic kingdom of the material Creator. Raising a family will distract them from the task at hand. According to legend, Jesus and his followers had to forgo family life in their campaign against despotism. It makes sense that despotic priests must do the same in order to counter the opposition.

Now the tables have turned and it may be more to the advantage of Roman despotism to emulate the Protestant practice of allowing priests to wed. This is especially an issue now that Rome is trying to attract reactionary Anglican clerics to rejoin the Roman hierarchy. Anglican reforms have gone through a progression of abandoning the celibacy requirement, abandoning the gender requirement, and abandoning the homophobia requirement. Retrograde Anglican clerics accepted the first reforms but have been alienated by the relaxation of homophobia. It went too far too fast. By changing its policy on celibacy, Rome may be hoping to staunch the flux of rebellion and pick up some of Caesar's wayward sheep.

Even before the recent attempt to attract Anglican reactionaries there was a push to allow celibacy in order to promote Roman despotism in Africa. Advocates of clerical marriage observed that many Africans treat men better when they have a wife or more. This recent move to discuss relaxation of the celibacy rule may also be aimed at expansion in Africa.

Will this dialog on a change in the rules at the Vatican help the cause of Rome or will it lead to additional departures from Caesar's flock?

Links: Elliot Hannon on the Vatican's willingness to discuss priestly celibacy. Tracy Connor on some of the issues involved with priestly marriage. Tom Kington on plans to re-write the Vatican constitution.