New Vatican Guidelines

Well, it’s not surprising, but a Catholic church in Melbourne Australia has embraced a Vatican recommendation to test potential priests for sexual orientation.

Under the guidelines, potential priests who "appear" to be gay must be banned.

I have just two words for Pope Benedict:

Glass Houses . . .

Can you believe that? Now I wonder what this “test” would involve. I envision that it might look something like this:

VATICAN SEXUALITY TEST

1. Salmon and champagne are:

a. food items
b. brunch items
c. The new color scheme of your guest bedroom.

2. You keep abreast of current events from which of the following:

a. Fox News
b. CNN
c. Lifetime Television and the Style Network

3. Here is a video of Michael Phelps and Anderson Cooper together in a pool. Do you:

a. ignore it
b. click on the link out of curiosity
c. email it to twenty friends and place it on your Facebook page.

4. A cardinal is:

a. a baseball player in St. Louis
b. a red bird
c. a senior church official who wears Prada and gold lamè

5. When dining out, what beverage do you usually request?

a. Beer
b. Merlot
c. A dirty martini at the waiter’s apartment

6. What is your position on same-sex marriage?

a. it should be banned in every country
b. it should be left to the states to decide
c. mine would need to be annulled before entering the seminary

7. With whom did you have your first sexual encounter?

a. a prostitute my dad paid for
b. myself
c. a senior church official wearing Prada and gold lamè

8. With whom did you prefer to have had your first sexual encounter?

a. the head cheerleader in high school
b. anyone but myself
c. a baseball player in St. Louis

EVALUATING THE RESULTS:

If you answered “A” to more than six questions, you would clearly not fit in to the Roman Catholic priesthood but your contact information will be kept on file by each priest in your diocese.

If you answered “B” to more than six questions, your suitability would be questionable and your contact information will be kept on file by each priest in your diocese.

If you answered “C” to more than six questions, congratulations! Welcome to the priesthood! Please limit yourself to no more than one dozen hat boxes when moving into the seminary.

Latin

I see that Pope Benedict just paved the way for the Latin Mass to return.
Yeah, like we didn't see that coming.

I'm sure all the Opus Dei and anti-abortion folks are just purring over this. This is the sort of thing they live for. Latin Mass equals "conservative agenda." I can just see it now -- the Latin Mass taking place and all these neo-conservatives just kicking back their heads and leaving wet spots in the pews . . .
. . . and not understanding a freaking word that's said. Typical.

Frankly, I'm all for it. Surprise.

I converted to Roman Catholicism in my early thirties and "guitar Masses" always bugged me. Here's a typical scene. You have this glorious cathedral with a giant pipe organ, unused. Up front is a lone guitarist strumming the chords to "On Eagle's Wings" or some other vomit-inducing song. How the hell are a thousand people supposed to sing to that?

So yes, I'm all for a little dignity placed back in the Mass. Hell, I'll even convert to Islam or become an Episcopalian if I encounter many more guitar-accompanied Masses.

But the main reason I'd like to attend a Latin Mass is because I was forced to take three years of Latin while in the seminary. And I hated every minute of it. Three years of suffering through Beginning Latin, Intermediate Latin and Advanced Latin. Damn it, I want to use it!

Beginning Latin: Basic vocabulary, noun declensions, verbs. I thought I was through after that. But no. They made me take
Intermediate Latin: Translating Cicero, etc., where you have one sentence a whole paragraph long and one little bitty verb at the end that applies to two different subjects in the sentence. Oh, okay. I thought, whew! I'm done, but noooo, they made me take
Advanced Latin: Comprised of translating Latin poetry where ALL the grammatical rules I'd learned so far didn't apply. It's poetry after all. By then, an understanding of Latin was supposed to be innate. Yeah, right. Rub a lamp.

Unlike these neo-conservatives who won't understand a single word or be able to keep up with the phrases, I'll know every word and their grammatical forms. Ha!

Three years of torturous Latin classes and I'll finally be able to use it!

So, when the priest says, "Dominus vobiscum," I'll be the one shrieking, "Et cum spiritu tua!"
"Pssst! That was the ablative form of 'you'."

Maybe I should just stay home and sleep late instead. . .