Jonathan Kieran

In 2023, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Diocese of Oakland, and the Franciscan Friars of Oakland, CA, all filed bankruptcy to protect their institutions from paying settlements to well over 600 sexual abuse claimants. And this is happening with alarming frequency across the globe, not just in California.

As a former active Roman Catholic who has known an amazing number of outstanding and admirable fellow Catholic lay persons in my lifetime, I can say that I have known only a handful of equally admirable priests. The disparity has been staggering. The entire institution is systemically derelict and the fish rots from the head downward. Forced celibacy attracts losers and other socially maladjusted, mediocre characters to the “job” of the Roman Catholic priesthood … all firmly regulated so the Vatican can maintain its precious, centuries-long stranglehold on clerical property and personal autonomy that would otherwise belong to a married priest’s wife and children, etc., by extension. No amount of theological casuistry and doctrinal dodgeball will ever suffice to justify such a fundamental and colossal tragedy.

You see, priests of the Western (Roman) Rite were once allowed to marry, up until early Medieval times, when the Vatican really got cooking in the Worldly Greed Department. To this very day, Eastern Orthodox priests are encouraged to have families and children at the parish level, with the priest’s wife holding a special role of spiritual guidance in every parish as a presbytera.

Dante Alighieri was right: the streets of Hell are paved with the skulls of wicked bishops and priests. And he wasn’t waxing poetic about the East. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. The ruined and damaged lives of millions of children throughout history are on the Vatican’s institutionally rancid hands. And yet the fawning “cult of priests and prelates” goes on and on among an otherwise well-intentioned laity. Most simply won’t give-up the excessive reverence and wonderlit devotion accorded to Roman priests like so many shamans and witch-doctors. Pedestals for all. What a world.

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[ Delightful new work by Jonathan Kieran is slated for major release in 2024 so brace yourselves and think of England. This stuff is built for speed. Stay tuned for more … ]

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