If You Want To Play Politics, Pay Taxes

To Churches, Bishops, Priests, And Ministers:

I see bishops and ministers are making political endorsements and pronouncements from pulpit and office, backing candidates by name or by big wink.
Listen, boys. Play by the rules. Churches are tax-exempt because you have promised not to endorse candidates. If you want to play, you have to pay.
There’s nothing wrong with churches paying taxes.

The good people of the United States decided some time ago that if churches would stick to things of the spirit, we needed that, and for the common good, we would pay your taxes. We would cover the expenses of providing fire and police protection for your property and the thousand other things a secular government provides.

Although 48 million Americans are atheists, I have never heard them complain too much about having their tax dollars supporting holy rollers, snake handlers, or people who believe a snake conversed with the first couple among the asparagus.

But churches and church leaders are now going over the line. Attitudes change when priests and ministers start preaching politics and supporting specific candidates.

Two cartoons help to make my point. There’s the cartoon of Moses carrying the heavy stone tablets staring incredulously at Heaven and saying: “Now, let me get this straight! The Arabs get the oil, and we have to cut off the ends of our what?”

The Miracle Of The 18 Foreskins

I realize now I was never a very good student of Roman Catholic thought during my 27 years in the church. I didn’t know until just a few months ago that Catholics celebrated the Feast of The Holy Circumcision on January 1.

The story is that Emperor Charlemagne of the Franks received Jesus Christ’s foreskin from an angel, then presented it to Pope Leo III in 800 A.D.

The “Holy Prepuce” evidently remained in the Vatican until the 16th century when a German soldier liberated the relic and brought it to Calcata, Italy.

So for 400 years the Holy Prepuce was kept on the altar of the Church of The Most Holy Name of Jesus and displayed every year. Pilgrims received a ten-year indulgence for viewing it. Ten years off hard time in Purgatory was a big deal in those days. Normally one had to pay big money for such a reduction in sentence.

In a story in Religious News Service, Francis Rocca writes that at one time in the Middle Ages there were as many as 18 “Holy Foreskins” in monasteries, towns, and churches scattered throughout Europe.
Well, heck, we had the miracle of the loaves and fishes, so why not the miracle of 18 foreskins? To believers, that’s the only part of the body that could have been possibly left behind anyway.

Rocca writes that somebody swiped the holy relic in 1983 and David Farley, a New York writer, is trying to track it down.

Farley says the Vatican does not want to talk about the Holy Foreskin to discourage “irreverent curiosity.” In fact, Vatican decrees of 1900 and 1954 threatened excommunication to anyone who writes or speaks about it. Farley’s book is to be published in the spring of 2009. I can’t wait.

This whole foreskin story tests the credibility of the Catholic Church and its bishops. Was the ownership of the foreskin traced and researched? Can we believe everything churches have done for 2,000 years?

The word “abortion” cannot be found in the Bible, nor is there a specific reference to the practice. So can we believe Catholic bishops when they make the statement the church has been against abortion since Mary?

“Before I Formed You In The Womb I Knew You”

The other cartoon I wish to cite is of a pompous Vatican cardinal or bishop declaring in a two-part scene: (1) “Who better to declare the role of females to be young married women in maternity dresses…(2) than old unmarried men in clerical robes?”

Recently Bishop Samuel Aquila of the Fargo Diocese put out a letter about the “misinformed” comments of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, both Catholics, about the Roman Catholic Church’s position on abortion.

Aquila says, “One cannot be Catholic and be pro-choice.”

Therefore, a Catholic in good standing cannot vote for a pro-choice candidate.

But Aquila said he was not endorsing any candidate! Well, Holy Foreskins!

Another bishop who chastized Pelosi said the church has had the same position on abortion for 2,000 years. Oh?

On good authority, the most authoritative, comprehensive recipe book on contraception was written by Pope John XXI, elected in 1276. As Peter of Spain he published “Thesaurus Pauperam” (Treasure Of The Poor) containing abortion recipes that have proven to be effective even by contemporary research.

The current Catholic thought is that human life begins at conception. Pro-life groups in several states are trying to convince their legislatures that “personhood” begins at conception.

Sure, life begins at conception for humans—and also for orangutans, pit bulls, mice, and hyenas. Perhaps that represents a reverence for life, but does a fertilized speck become human immediately upon conception?

Unbaptized Babies Roaming Like Dust Mites In Purgatory Forever

So why has the Vatican taken the position that innocent little babies who have not been baptized must circle Purgatory forever like perpetual dust mites?
If human life begins at conception, shouldn’t all of these babies go to Heaven instead of whirling through endless space?

The Reverend Luis Ladaria, appointed by Pope Benedict to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as The Inquisition, that burned thousands of “heretics” at the stake), says there was some “hope” that the babies would find salvation.

It took the Catholic Church 400 years to apologize for the treatment of Galileo for his idea that the earth actually revolved around the sun. The Church never did apologize for its treatment of Giordano Bruno, Italy’s second most famous heretic. Galileo was not burned for his beliefs because he had powerful friends outside the Vatican—and he did recant to some extent.

But Bruno was of tougher mettle. He was tried for heresy by The Inquisition for supporting Galileo. Refusing to recant, Bruno’s tongue was cut out (or pierced) to keep him from speaking. He was defrocked because he was a Dominican priest, excommunicated, stripped naked, and burned at the stake in Campo de’ Fiori, a Rome marketplace.

A statue of Bruno was consecrated in 1889 in the same place he was burned at the stake, 289 years after he was killed. The statue was donated by scientists who believed in reason and progress. The pope at the time, trying to protect the reputation of the church, hid all of the records of Bruno’s trial. The records were discovered in a remote section of the Vatican after a 15-year search—in 1940.

The Vatican certainly knows it’s wrong to have millions of unbaptized babies circling Purgatory forever. Why not just lift the ban and say they have attained salvation? Why not admit the Vatican has been wrong all these years?

After all, there are no divorces in the Catholic Church either—but it averages over 60,000 “annulments” a year, and makes a pretty good income doing it. I know people who have been married for 30 years but have gotten annulments for money that would make a good divorce lawyer blush.

A Record Number Of Appendicitis Operations For The Female Gender

I still remember the snickering in my hometown of Little Falls 60 years ago about how so many good, young Catholic girls had “appendicitis” operations at the Catholic hospital.

But now being pro-life is a growth industry, filling the coffers of political parties and action groups. We tend to forget the back alley abortions and the instruments of destruction used when women could not afford even an illegal one. Coat hangers, knives, knitting needles, rubber suction tubes, pieces of wood and metal, and exotic abortive “medicines” were often used to end pregnancies.

Contrary to what churches and pro-life groups say, the Bible doesn’t say anything specifically about abortions. Of course, one can find verses in the Bible that will support anything, including treason, murder, and mayhem if one stretches a line a bit.

So before humans were formed in the womb God was busy checking them out, according to Jeremiah in the Bible. So if we analyze this, God approved the formation of homosexuals, transgenders, lesbians and all creatures of that ilk—even freethinkers.

Checked out the eggs, did He? If not, didn’t He have the power to bring on a miscarriage or change the egg or fetus right in the womb before birth?

Perhaps the good bishop could work on other momentous questions. Why in Leviticus 27.6 was no monetary value placed on children until they were one month old? Now religious fundamentalists want to charge a “mother” with a 10-second old pregnancy with murder if she kills “it” accidentally or on purpose.

In Genesis 38:24 a pregnant woman is condemned to death by burning. Weren’t those guys with the torches guilty of murder because there was a “personhood” in the womb at the moment of conception? Should a fetus die for the crimes of the mother?

In Numbers 3:15 a census was taken but only those a month old or more were counted. Wouldn’t God have commanded a recount if He considered a fertilized egg a “person?”

Has the Catholic Church taken a position on in-vitro fertilization? After the selection of the best fertilized eggs, the rest are dumped in the dumpster. Didn’t all of the eggs in the petri dish gain “life” at the moment of conception?

In the 13th Century St. Thomas Aquinas said that abortion was not homicide because the soul entered the body 40 days after conception for a male and 80 days for a female. It wasn’t until 1869 that Pope Pius IX “decided” that abortion was a sin equal to murder. Was that decision “infallible” or “human”?

According to Catholic doctrine the body of bishops as a whole are infallible if they agree with the pope. A few bishops have banned pro-choice Catholic politicians from communion, while others remain silent on the issue.

Who is right, the Fargo bishop or the Crookston bishop?