I find it odd that both Roman Catholics and Evangelical opportunists who are – you should pardon the pun – crawling into bed with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops are much more concerned about my penis than I am. After all, I am far too old to be an altar boy, which should rule out the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Evangelicals are only anti-birth control when they think it will help them win the Presidency. All of a sudden, though, for whatever reason, both groups want me to be fruitful and multiply – or at least play Russian roulette with women’s bodies using my penis as the gun. To tell you the truth, it has probably been a very long time since I thought about my penis as much as the Catholic Church currently is – somewhere in the neighborhood of just over thirty years.
I have already written about the specifics of the birth control issue in light of heath insurance requirements, and have no desire to rehash the argument here. Rather, I would like to point out a few absurdities for you to contemplate.
It turns out that twenty-eight States already require Church affiliated institutions to provide birth control coverage in their employee’s health insurance policies and the Catholic Church has complied with those laws without putting up much of a fuss. Apparently it’s ok to provide birth control coverage in 56% of America, but somewhere between 56% and 100% the issue changes dramatically.
Jesus hardly ever talked about my penis, or anyone else’s for that matter. He didn’t talk about birth control, either. You may be thinking that there weren’t any birth control options in Jesus day, but there was at least the withdrawal method – which the Catholic Church opposes. About the only things Jesus had to say about human sexuality were in the context of marital infidelity. Jesus didn’t speak about over-population because it wasn’t a problem in his day, but he did speak about the importance of caring for the poor, hungry, needy, and the homeless. Responsible family planning is an important part of addressing over-population, but apparently the Catholic Church isn’t nearly as concerned about the consequences of over-population as they are about my penis. I suppose I should be flattered, but in truth it all seems more than a little creepy to me.
There was a time not so very long ago when I had a great deal of respect for the Catholic Church. They were leaders in the social justice movement, had a strong concern for the poor and disenfranchised, championed workers’ rights, worked for peace in the world, marched in the Civil Rights movement, and worked to change the world. Now they seem only to be concerned about my penis, and while I have at intervals found my penis to be quite amazing honesty compels me to confess that I find it very unlikely indeed that it will ever change the world.
Is there any wonder why people today find the Church hard to take seriously? It’s not just the Catholic Church, either, although they do take some of the most absurd stances (even wide stances in airports) and so are among the easiest to lampoon. In this case, the fact that the Evangelicals have jumped into bed with the Catholics – despite the fact that many of them have an anti-Catholic bias – in the name of political expedience adds to the bizarre dance they Church is doing. It also makes it harder to take any part of institutional Christianity seriously.
I remember when I realized that if circumcision was the symbol of your covenant with God, that you couldn’t have a covenant with God if you didn’t have a penis. Then you have St. Paul going on and on about circumcision, sometimes grouping his followers as those with foreskins and those without. So obsession with the penis seems like a long standing tradition in the Judeo-Christian faith. It’s just the nature of the obsession that has changed.
In some cases the Catholic Church still fights the good fight despite itself, thanks to the tireless efforts of delightfully subversive orders of nuns who persistently go about their work, organizing and rabble-rousing in the cause of social justice. May they long fly low enough under the Vatican radar and continue to bring about positive changes, great and small. They embody the true spirit of Christ in ways that the Church itself has long since forgotten.
It’s really not that spectacular, after all, though I am rather fond of it…and if ever there was proof needed that institutional religion as a whole is rather twisted about not only sexuality but what the purpose of religion is we need only to look to the strange collection of people who are the talking heads for such organizations who have even less clarity than the population at large despite the fact that they (allegedly) adhere to the teachings of whatever their religion might be. Who would, for example, go to a college the graduates of which were unemployable? Yet human beings stream to self-proclaimed authorities on any number of subjects because they dress in a rather odd way while ignoring those within the institutions who do actually accomplish something because, after all, they’re only women…