Anarchist Catholic

Used to be, if someone like me was going on and on about issues they had with the Catholic Church, they would fit me for a nice oak backbone before they burned me at the stake. Now, they can't even be bothered to know who I am long enough to excommunicate me.

It's not that I'm not religous, or don't believe in the Big Guy. I just have a real problem with his adminstration. I mean, I don't get to choose who my pope is. I don't get to choose my representatives. The Vatican is not a democratic state! So I'm left to trust that the leader of my faith is appropriately chosen by some really old, right wing guys in funny hats who don't seem to know what is going on the world today. Guys who still think that a woman's best place is either a: by her husbands side churning out hoardes of Catholic kids or b: wearing a habit dedicating her life to the Guy Upstairs.

And we're all waiting for the second coming, but let's be honest, if Jesus did come back, we'd probably look him up in an insane asylum because we wouldn't believe him.

Like I said, I believe. I pray. St. Anthony (patron saint of lost stuff) has never let me down! But it's the organized in organized religion that I have a problem with. Where do these guys get their decisions from? It's not like they have a special red phone in the Vatican that links them directly to God, like Commissioner Gordon had for Batman. And the truth is, alot of our cornerstones are choices that were made for political and financial reasons in days gone by but now we're stuck with them. No marriages for priests? - Financial decision by the Church so that they would not lose incomes to any potentials heirs that may arise from the union. No women in the higher echelons of the Church? - Well I don't recall that being in the Bible (although I may be wrong). That's because we have traditionally lived in a patriarchal society.

I mean, the used to make you pay for forgiveness for crying out loud. If you had a government like this, you would be outraged!! Forming underground movements! Calling on other leaders to pressure your government for change!

But you're Catholic, so you sit down quiety and feel guilty about it.

So, what's a girl who wants to believe to do? Overthrow the administration? Form an anarchist Catholic state? The other uber-catholics would most likely be the ones to burn me at the stake then (or send me hate mail - What is with that? The ones who claim to be most religious always end up to be whack jobs. - God save me from religious zealots!), but I still doubt that Benedict XVI would even know or care who I am.

So I put my faith in the Big Guy upstairs and hope that when I finally do croak, St. Peter doesn't meet me at the gates and inform me there is a GOD-Phone identical to the Batphone and God has been phonings his decisions in (or voting by proxy) for the last couple hundred years.