Fallen Catholics (continued)


By the way, Catholics use Communion as a way to shame people.  In the old days, we knew that if you had a mortal sin on your soul, you dare not go to Communion.  It was the moral equivalent of shitting in the pool and asking Jesus to go for a swim.  Every Catholic knew, you had to have a clean soul to get Communion.  That meant that if you could not go to Communion, you would have to sit out the ceremony.  So while everybody else was making their way to the altar for some Jesus bread, you sat in the pew and watched everyone climb around you and over you.  And as they wiggled past, you could almost hear what they were thinking.  “Sinful bastard.  He needs to get control of himself.”

This was something you wanted to avoid at all cost.  So you made sure you got to confession on Friday so that you could look down on the sinners as you climbed over them on Sunday.  No other religious denomination uses Communion in this way.  Guilt, with Catholics is inexorably tied to what Jesus meant to be a celebration of his relationship with the human race.  The very thing Catholics are most proud of is a cudgel for self-righteousness.  

Which brings us to the most magical nonsense in all of Christianity.

Sex.

To a Catholic, sex is supposed to be sacred.  It is supposed to be between a man and a woman and it is supposed to be magical and spiritual.  It is also supposed to be performed purely and exclusively for reproductive purposes.  Anyone who has sex outside of marriage is committing a mortal sin.  A mortal sin sends you to hell.  Do not pass go etc.  I suppose if the Pope could have written a book on sex, it would read something like this:


In order to have pure and blessed copulation with your wife, you must remain fully clothed.  You must not look at each other in a lustful way.  You must turn off the lights and pray for guidance from God.  You must kiss and hug and make the sign of the cross and then you may proceed to second base.  Under no circumstances are you to proceed to second base until you have kissed reverently and without passion.  You must remove only enough clothes to make copulation successful.  You may use holy oil to lubricate the blessed labia and then you may slowly present St Peter to the Basilica.  Try not to wiggle around too much while copulating.  Do not make unseemly animal noises.  Let nature take its course and then clean up the mess with wet naps.  

Since nobody can imagine God in the act of schtupping the blessed Virgin Mary, the Church leadership made it possible for us to ignore that bit of nastiness by inventing the Immaculate Conception.  This is undeniably one of the most popular kinds of magic in the religious world.  Before Mary, there were virgin births in Greek and Roman mythology.   As we all know, these magic ideas are the result of our cultural shame surrounding the sex act.  Okay, maybe not all of us know this.  But the smart ones do........ or should I say the honest ones?  

Any way you look at it, sex is a nasty business.  It is base and crude and deliciously primitive.  It is an act completely devoid of pretentiousness.  And it is as natural as breathing.  I am not going to get into all the particulars here.  But the sort of sex allowable in the Catholic Church is perversely unnatural.  In fact, the Church would rather not talk about sex at all.  But if you press the most conservative elements of any Christian sect, you will almost always find an unhealthy view of sexuality which borders on the perverse.  And of all those perverse ideas, I believe celibacy to be the most perverse.  It is a classic example of the corrupting influence of the backward thinking Neanderthals who have occupied the office of the Curia for centuries.