I Don't Get It

Volume XI
Issue 8
August 2008

I Don't Get It

By M. Hutton
Reality Reporter

After a somewhat lengthy and unexplained absence, M. Hutton returns with questions without answers. Could it be that she is confusing common sense with reality again? Did she forget once again that Reality truly does Byte?

I will be the first to admit that I'm not terribly political. I voted in the last presidential election more because I knew that it was my responsibility as an American than because I'm staunch Democrat or Republican. I can't say that I liked either candidate much and made my decision the night before the election based more upon a gut feel than anything I had read, heard or been exposed to. After it was all said and done, I didn't really care one way or the other who had won. I knew I had done my duty and I just wanted the damn thing over.

I'm also not extremely worldly. I can't figure out why those Israelis and Palestinians keep killing each other anymore than I could figure out why the Serbs and Bosnians thought that is was a good idea to kill one another rather than sit down over a beer and talk it out. I don't know why Osama bin Laden wants to kill innocent Americans. What did a bunch of dishwashers in a restaurant in the World Trade Center do to irritate a filthy rich zealot in the Middle East?

Another thing I'm not is overly religious. I have a faith in a superior being because I know that nature is too incredibly overwhelming to have just happened. I believe that man is more than just an evolved ape because why else would we still have apes? Wouldn't we all just be people then? I have been a member of three organized religions in my life and in the end, it's not the religion per se that brings people to God, it's the people that make up the particular religion.

Thus today's topic. What's up with hierarchy of the Catholic Church? I won't profess to knowing much about Catholicism or how its doctrine differs from say Methodists or Lutherans or any other of a multitude of religions out there. My guess is we all believe that killing, hurting, maiming, raping other people is a bad thing. In fact, if I recall correctly, there are 10 basic rules set up by the Big Guy himself that kind of gave us some pretty major do's and don'ts to live our lives by. They all dealt with honor and respect and not taking what doesn't belong to us which I have to think includes the innocence of young people.

You've probably figured out by now that I'm referring to the big scandal in the Catholic Church over priests who have sexually abused young children. There has been a plethora of discussions over why priests seek out and abuse young altar boys. Reasons range from devotion to a non-physical being to lack of companionship to a life without sex. I have friends who argue that until priests are allowed to marry and live a "normal" sexual life, this will continue.

That, in my opinion, would be all well and fine if priests had no choices. However, aren't we all free thinking individuals with the right to make career and life changes at any point in our lives? If this is really a case of sexual frustration, isn't it just time to find a spouse, fill up a house in the suburbs with a brood of youngens, get a job selling insurance and coach a church-sponsored dartball team on Friday nights? Isn't it time to get out of the priesthood and begin to live the American dream?

See, this is where I get really confused -- I'm sure due to my lack of political correctness or shortfall on worldliness or certainly because of my weakness in the religious arena. I don't understand why priests can hide behind their black cloaks of purity and perceived godliness and not be accountable for their sins. What I don't understand even more, though, is how the Catholic Church, including all its bishops, and cardinals and revered royalty can protect priests but fail so miserably to protect innocent children from their own kind. I don't get it.

I know its faux pas to discuss politics and religion in social settings so I guess I'll continue to ponder and digest all the latest of the greatest that the media has to offer in ways of explanation. I'd love to look to the world leaders for explanations, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of wisdom coming from that direction lately. I could email the Pope and ask him what the heck is going on, but I thought I heard that all this revealing of dirty laundry has him a little out of sorts . It's a possibility that I could go to my corner Catholic Church and pose the question to a local priest, but he's laying low these days. Heck, he even missed Wednesday night bingo.

It seems simple to me. Keep your promises. Don't hurt others. If you get yourself in a situation that you can't handle, get out. But then again, maybe I'm not worldly enough to understand this one.

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