Abandoned Altars

When reading up on celibacy, the Council of Elvira (c. 305, Spain) is always cited as the first one to say bishops and priests shouldn’t have sex with their wives. Having located them, I found a number of other interesting rules. Just imagine what the Church would be like if these were still in effect. However, they’ve all be superseded by a thousand later rules, all just as useless.

18. Bishops, presbyters, and deacons, once they have taken their place in the ministry, shall not be given communion even at the time of death if they are guilty of sexual immorality. Such scandal is a serious offense.
(No clerical hanky-panky allowed!)

24. Individuals shall not be admitted as clergy in a province other than the one where they were baptized. Otherwise their life would not be known by those who examine them.
(Even then, bad priests would seek other dioceses.)

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September 27th 2008 Posted to Heretic's Pulpit, Roman Circus

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During the Middle Ages, the Inquisition pushed many unacceptable clerical behaviors underground. Black magic in particular was an activity peculiarly suited to fallen priests because it mirrored the “white” magic of sacred liturgy. Plus, during the Middle Ages, only the clerical class had the education, free time, and most of the tools needed at hand. So there in the darkness, heresy, sex, and lingering pagan practices subversively combined into Satanism.

In fact, fallen priests were believed to be the only ones who could perform a Black Mass, the satanic mockery of the Catholic rite. For even defrocked, priests retained their power of transubstantiation given at ordination. Changing the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ thus allowed them to defile God himself.

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During the clergy sexual abuse crisis, the Roman Catholic Church was confronted with the one thing it dreads the most: scandals. Jesus himself had warned his followers that scandals involving children would inevitably come. It’s just really too bad the disciples only picked up on the part about how awful scandal was and not his sayings about honoring, protecting, and saving children. A little humility would also have been good.

When the Church finally realized that victims could no longer be intimidated by the prestige of the priesthood, threatened with hell, or placated by soothing but meaningless promises of the bishops, it became desperate. For in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, they had taught the faithful that:

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Courageous survivor and journalist Kay Ebeling, in her latest blog post at the excellent City of Angels blog, writes about how the priest mangled Matthew’s version of the Parable of the Sower when she went to her old parish recently. If you’ve ever seen a Catholic lectionary, you might notice that almost all the readings skip around. Very rare is it to find a reading without serious editing.

But there’s another version of the same parable that’s a little different, in Luke, chapter 8. It is much the same except there is no mention at all of the harvest, just that the seed sown on the good ground produced a crop “a hundred times more than was sown.”

The interesting thing is that it’s followed by one of the most enigmatic passages in the entire Bible. One that I’m sure is never quoted in church:

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