With the election of the new Pope and the speculations on his stance on several issues being faced by the church I am reminded of an essay I wrote and would like to share. Below is the little essay:


Of all the words in the English language one would think that the word penis is the last word to be associated with the church. Yet here we are in the year 2002 with the Catholic Church dealing with two problems which, more or less, involve this part of the male genitalia. Their first problem is that some members of their congregation who want to become priests cannot be ordained because they don't have one. The second problem came from priests, members with this particular body part, who cannot seem to keep it where it belongs which is in their pants. Yes folks, I am talking about the excommunication of women priests and the very controversial child molestation cover up case in the United States.

At first glance the two cases are very different. The similarity is in the approach of the church in solving both cases. Their solution is tinged with injustice and hypocrisy. I mean come on! Those women who were excommunicated just wanted to become priests. They wanted to serve the church, nay, the Lord on a higher level. They wanted to stand in front of a church during mass and preach the word of God. What's wrong with that aspiration? If they were to excommunicate anybody it should be the pedophile priests. But instead of kicking them out like they so rightly deserve they were just transferred to a different parish and continued to have access to children.

Having spent all 15 years of my educational career in Catholic schools I have learned a thing or two about the church. I was taught that the Holy Mass is the reenactment of the last supper of Jesus Christ where he is represented by the priest and the disciples by the churchgoers. Now we all know that in the Catholic faith Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and God are one and the same, forming the Holy Trinity. We also know that God created the human race in his image and likeness which leads us to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is in both men and women and can be represented by either gender.

Many ask why women would want to become priests when they could serve the church and God by entering the convent and becoming nuns. The answer to that is the same one presented to the question on why women want to become doctors when they can be nurses or the question on why women want to become policewomen when they can be the clerks who type up the police reports. They want to go to another level in the field they chose. It's not discounting the importance of the other levels in this case the nuns; but one has to admit that there are facets in the work of priests and nuns that are different. And if women can prove that they can cope with the challenges entailed by the job then I see no logical reason on why we should stand in the way of them obtaining the job they can clearly competently perform.



Author's Note:

I wrote this just after I graduated from college and was taking a much needed break. It was actually the one and only summer break I had since I started college because I volunteered as a lab assistant during the summer after my freshman and sophomore years. Then I advanced 2 courses over the summer before my Senior year. The pedophile priest controversy was sizzling at that time and the church just excommunicated several women priests. I was unused to not being productive during my break and was bored to tears. Writing this piece helped me pass the time.