Fresh Meat-Slim Pickin's

Have you ever wondered how many little Catholic boys have grapefruit sized assholes? Probably more than the church would want you to know about. Quite a lot, I'd bet, if you consider the ones who are by now adults. Still, I would also be willing to wager there will eventually be more.

Still, mordern day Catholic boys should count their blessings-pun intended. Having a preists cock up your ass, or in your mouth, as degrading as this might seem, would hardly be as bad as having your balls cut off in order for you to sing in a choir, and thus retain your angelic, childish voice way past the onset of what would ordinarily be termed "puberty".

Let's just hope the present day Pope, Benedict, is not your typical catholic clergyman, seeing as how it is now "Youth Day", in Cologne, Germany, at which the Pope is now in attendance. Being surrounded by potentially hundreds of thousands of bright eyed, cherub faced pre-pubescent boys might be otherwise too much for him.

After all, he should keep his mind on the important spiritual matter of refurbishing and replenishing the church. He has his work cut out for him. Especially in Europe, including his native Germany. The same in America. In both places, church attendance is down, and so are donations. Yet, donations from both places, especially America, is the only thing that is really keeping the church afloat. Yet, there are signs that the decline continues. There is also a serious shortage of priests and seminarians.

People are, believe it or not, more intelligent and sophisticated now than they were two thousand years ago, when the Church by way of the Roman Imperial Hierarchy, imposed itself on the western world-and ushered it straight into the Dark Ages. Now they want to romanticize that abominable era, claiming that they were in fact responsible for the preservation of knowledge, which they insist they safeguarded and protected.

Yeah, sure, right. They "guarded" it all right, and "protected" it from being utilized by anybody in Europe except for their sorry asses. Thankfuly, this sorry state of affairs could never have lasted. A watch pot never boils, but if you leave it untended for too long it will definitely boil over, and if by chance you leave the lid on,it might just blow up in your face. And thus it was that, eight centuries, one schism, a Protestant Reformation, and a Rennaissance and an Age of Reason later, the church found itself beseiged.

They reacted by persecuting and executing "heretics" everywhere. People were persecuted for the simple act of pondering hidden msteries of the universe-for example, the notion that the earth revolves around the sun, instead of the other way around. Just one example of a kind of thought that would be considered to be "of the devil". Yet, they saw their grip on power weakening. After all, people crave knowledge, and do so quite naturally. They crave freedom. They crave prosperity. They dare to want to actually live their lives to suit their desires, to follow their dreans, for themselves and their prosperity.

Of course, they retained their share of devoted adherents, who as well wanted their children to remain faithful to the "one true church", with it's glorification of poverty, sufferring, self-denial. Thus, it became a kind of fad for some families in the more devout areas to have their young sons castrated, and sent to monasteries. They would never then be inclined to follow their sinful desires, in fact would never develop them, and thus would stay devoted to the church. The more "fortunate" ones would be classically trained as singers, and would retain their angelic voices longer than is normally the case, and would thus devote their lives and their talents singing for the greater glory of God. They would never be lead astray by their carnal lusts.

Luckily, this state of affairs as well did not last,though truthfully there is no way of knowing exactly how long practices like this went on, or for how far back, for first one reason or another. Nor is there any way of knowing exactly how long children were sexually abused, and how manyof them were done so. Recent events could indeed be yet another example of a pot just now beginning to boil over. But then again the Chruch has a history of cleaning up it's messes with quickness and efficiency. Denial has also been an all too common tool over the centuries.

I almost feel sorry for Benedict as he goes about his appointed task of rebuilding the Church. He has his work cut out for him, all right. And he might be fighting a loosing battle. He has followed in the footsteps of a universally loved and admired predecessor who was himself nevertherless not quite up to the task, for all his much vaunted accomplishments. Now, as Benedict looks out over the sea of bright and eager youth, he must know that only a small percentage will in the long run measure up to church standards, out of the ones that become and/or remain catholic. Very few of these will become priests. Very few will be monks, or theologians, or nuns. Very few will even be what the church would consider good catholics.

The most he can really hope for in any sizeable percentage is future monetary donors to the church, and some degree of political allignment. And even this is becomming more and more tenous. Because this is the church's major problem. It is a rigid,authoritarian, top down structure that has no ability, or desire, to adjust or conform to a changing world. Now will the world adjust and conform to the church. It is all a part of the evolutionary process.

Mankind is growing, evolving. And as they do so, again, they want real freedom, security, prosperity, and to lives their lives for their dreams, for the benefit of themselves and their posterity-free of pain, and fear, and sickness, and poverty, and misery, and sufferring. Free to finally live their lives the way they want to live it, with or without the church or anyone else's permission.

And hopefully, this time, there is not a goddamned thing the church can do about it. But you can damn well bet they'll try.