In Which I Am Offended by Rome
Well, okay, maybe it wasn't Rome. Maybe it was really one Italian priest who grew up in small-town Iowa.
My in-laws are quite Catholic. They're really good people. They go to church every Saturday, and even though I'm not now Catholic, nor have I ever been Catholic or wanted to be Catholic (no offense to Catholics - it just ain't for me), I wanted to be a good daughter-in-law. We were in small-town Iowa this weekend for my father-in-law's 70th birthday party. All eight kids, their spouses, and the grandkids. All told, there were 18 adults and 14 children. On Saturday, most of us brushed our hair and straightened our t-shirts and went to church.
My beloved was not thrilled in the least to be dragged to church. He is a reformed Catholic - the guilt of it all sort of ruined him on church for a long time. After our nondenominational wedding, I convinced him that attending a Lutheran church with me when we wanted to hang out with other (we hoped) open-minded-but-God-fearing folk would not be painful after I found a church that featured a sports-allegory-quoting pastor. The pastor left two months ago, and it's been difficult at best to get him anywhere near a church since then. Especially near a Catholic church. Ahem.
But we went, because I could tell it was really important to his parents. So did all but three of the other families. We. Are. Such. Suckers.
This particular priest grew up in Iowa but is currently living in Rome. It was some sort of children's week - I think bible school had just ended or something. During the sermon, the priest picked up a sword made by the adorable children and started talking about the sword of the spirit, the belt of truth and other armor-of-God-type stuff. We smiled and nodded. Then, out of nowhere, he launched into a diatribe about how contraception has caused the war in Iraq (a modern Babylon, I tell you). He also said contraception caused homosexuality, which in his book is the same as having sex with animals or robots. ???
At this point, I found myself gagging a bit and trying to cover the little angel's ears without appearing obvious. The priest went on to quote a sermon made by Pope John Paul in 1968 in which he denounced the sexual revolution. That all makes sense - I understand why the pope wouldn't be part of the Summer of Love. Where he went from there was bizarre and hateful. He said all people who use contraception consider abortion to be the next step in birth control. He said "plugs and drugs" have brought about the downfall of society.
During communion, which I couldn't take anyway, I took the little angel outside. I pretended she was fussy, but really, I needed some air. I encountered my Catholic sister-in-law with her one-year-old cavorting about the church lawn. She looked mad enough to spit nails. "Please tell me it ended better than it started," she said.
"Uh, no."
We looked at each other, and I felt a surge of love for her, dear Catholic K., who is able to love her three kids and still realize that homosexuality and bestiality are so totally not the same.
When we got home, we sat around and discussed the sermon. Every person in the family is religious in their own way, and most of them are still Catholic. Not one person that I talked to agreed with what was preached that day. Not one person could fathom being so quick to judge in the name of a God who said first "love your neighbor as yourself."
I'm sure there are many Catholic churches out there that wouldn't have let this priest get three words past "robot," but there were many people who thanked the priest after the sermon and told him how much they had enjoyed it. As much as that made me sad, I also respect the fact that this is a free country, and part of what makes that pretty great is that everyone has a right to believe what they want and say it out loud in a church or on a street corner if they want to.
Sometimes freedom of speech is a hard cross to bear, you might say.