Who's Your Daddy?

Tim Cavanaugh | November 29, 2005

Celebrate the new no-homo priesthood, mark the end of the Catholic Church's homosexual crisis, or just get nostalgic for the golden age of Rachel Ward and/or Kelly LeBrock, with Mary Beth Crain's weird, witty, and oddly touching account of her affair with Father Joseph Scanagatta, SDB. I make no claims for Crain's kissing and telling, but her story has the ring of truth, even if she does ask you to believe a Catholic priest would have a sexual relationship with an adult human female.

Clarification:Double dumbass on me. Gillespie points out an obvious tell: that the odds of a Jew's being named Mary Beth are even lower than the odds of my receiving the marks of stigmata. I must have been hoodwinked by the author's verisimilitude: Barry Fitzgerald's nephew—who would make up a detail like that?

Comments

|11.30.05 @ 1:07AM|#

Free e-books are worth the paper they're printed on. For crying out loud, would someone put Mr. Depperman back in the insane asylum and delete that post?

Sandy|11.30.05 @ 1:10AM|#

No, no, no. Global warming is caused by the Sun reacting to the distress waves of planet Earth, which is sending them because of the global warming we caused, so the answer is...more global warming. Or something. Coast to Coast AM has more and is right up Mr. Depperman's alley.

|11.30.05 @ 1:14AM|#

Oh, shit... did I miss a Depperman post?

Time Cube!

|11.30.05 @ 8:00AM|#

but her story has the ring of truth, even if she does ask you to believe a Catholic priest would have a sexual relationship with an adult human female.

Hey! I'll have you know that when I was a kid my pastor did the right thing and had an affair with a divorced adult female! OK, he counseled her to get the divorce, but still!

And my archbishop had an affair with a fully grown adult male! OK, he was a student of the archbishop's, but still!

They aren't all pedophiles, you know.

|11.30.05 @ 8:31AM|#

I though the Catholic church had a pedophila problem.

Warren|11.30.05 @ 8:37AM|#

Any chance that the purging of faggots will result in a shortage of priests, thus hastening the ordination of female priests?

|11.30.05 @ 9:21AM|#

I suppose it was the wrong time for Herrick to enter the seminary.

|11.30.05 @ 10:17AM|#

Any chance that the purging of faggots will result in a shortage of priests, thus hastening the ordination of female priests?

Nope because along with the faggots go the lesbos, which disqualifies most of the nuns.

|11.30.05 @ 11:16AM|#

Any chance that the purging of faggots will result in a shortage of priests, thus hastening the ordination of female priests?

It's a very good question... We Catholics bar married men, gay men, and all women (straight or gay) from the priesthood. That doesn't leave a very large pool of people from which to draw. As much as I agree with the concept of only chaste/celibate/single men entering the priesthood, we've got a huge demographic problem on our hands... especially since Roman Catholicism is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. A classic case of "if I only ignore the problem..."

|11.30.05 @ 11:32AM|#

What I don't get about the new policy is why they won't allow men who have homosexual feelings but are willing to take a vow of celibacy. I mean, if they promise not to have sex and they don't have sex, well, then they're fulfilling the job requirements, right?

bb|11.30.05 @ 12:36PM|#

As much as a creep as that priest might be, the writer doesn't sound like much of a catch either. Calling the guy every year for what, 15 years? Sounded like she had issues of her own.

|11.30.05 @ 12:54PM|#

I mean, if they promise not to have sex and they don't have sex, well, then they're fulfilling the job requirements, right?

There are people in the church trying to push the line that all the sexual abuse by priests was committed by gay priests, and that gay priest=molested kids. They really expect people to believe that purging gays will eliminate the stigma priests have gotten.

|11.30.05 @ 1:07PM|#

I forget, but when did the church start requiring people to be celibate to become priests? Cuz it wasn't always like that, I know for sure.

'Course, as an athiest, I could care less, but it sure would be a good idea to go back to where you could also be married and be a priest. And isn't it a deacon who can be married but still give sermons and whatnot?

Goddamn the Catholic church is fucked. No wonder I decided not to get confirmed and then just went the straight atheist route!

Larry A|11.30.05 @ 1:45PM|#

The Catholic problem with pedophiles doesn't come from priests, gay or straight. It comes from a church leadership that reassigns pedophilic priests into new feeding grounds.

Any organization where adults have an authority relationship to children is going to draw those who would abuse that relationship. The one effective treatment of that problem is to immediately refer anyone caught molesting a child to law enforcement and help them nail his hide to the barn door. The resulting publicity is, of course, embarrasing. But the benefit is enormous. Besides solving the immediate problem the mess-with-our-kids-and-you-pay policy warns other pedophiles that they won't be safe in that organization, and helps discourage their presence.

OTOH the Catholic reassignment policy, besides perpetuating the abuse, was an engraved invitation for other pedophiles looking for an opportunity.

|11.30.05 @ 5:24PM|#

Warren,

Priest shortages as bad as or worse than today's have been fairly common in church history. In 17th century Mexico, for instance, priests were so scarce that a village was lucky to have one visit once every six months. The current priest shortage is much less of a threat to the survival of the church than the temptation to "modernize" its basic teachings.

In short, you'll see the Vatican moved to Tehran, the pope elected via a call-in vote on a TV talent show, and the Mass celebrated in Klingon throughout the world, before you'll see the Catholic Church ordain women to the priesthood.

|11.30.05 @ 5:38PM|#

Also, on the subject of gay priests, the problem is not with their sexual orientation, but with behavior. There have almost certainly been numerous homosexual saints in the history of the church. A homosexual who vows to remain celibate faces no greater challenge than a heterosexual who does: to remain true to the promise in the face of sexual desire.

Thus, I have no problem with gays in the priesthood per se; the problem arises when seminaries are run by predatory, actively gay priests who care nothing for their vows, and work to phase out seminarians who aren't willing to engage in such activities. This is indeed the situation in many liberal dioceses, including my own, which is one reason why such dioceses tend to have the worst priest shortages.

|11.30.05 @ 9:40PM|#

the Mass celebrated in Klingon throughout the world

Is there a direct Klingon translation for "Go in peace"? Or would we have to settle for approximations such as, "Flee the battlefield, cowardly worm! You have no honor!"

|12.1.05 @ 3:21AM|#

I forget, but when did the church start requiring people to be celibate to become priests? Cuz it wasn't always like that, I know for sure.

It was around 1060. Prior to that, marriage was frowned upon but ultimately accepted. The practice became unacceptable when it became clear that more and more Priests were leaving items and land donated to the Priest, ostensibly church property, to their children after their death. So, the Church banned marriage to solve the problem. It's worth noting, however, that Priests continued to have "wives" with the tacit approval of the Church well into the 16th century. As long as nobody made a big deal about inheritance or any paternal responsibilities, the children of such a union were considered to be, if not exactly legitimate, then close enough to not be considered bastards.

Additionally, Deacons can perform the sacrements of Baptism and Matrimony without a Priest. They can also proclaim the Gospel and distribute Communion under the supervision of a Priest. Transitional Deacons, who will become Priests at some point in the future are allowed to give homilies, but permanent Deacons, who hold an office created after Vatican II and who are allowed to be married, cannot without the permission of the Bishop.

Finally, all that God study from childhood is useful.

|12.1.05 @ 1:51PM|#

Is there a direct Klingon translation for "Go in peace"? Or would we have to settle for approximations such as, "Flee the battlefield, cowardly worm! You have no honor!"

Just based on this, probably not.

Though I distrust the design of a naturalistic conlang that conflates the terms "the sun" and "star".