Clinton vs. The Catholics

Given that pride is one of the seven deadly sins, I’m not usually one to take religious convictions to any sort of obscene level of feverish extreme. But I must confess that after reading the story in this morning’s paper of the stink surrounding President Clinton’s taking communion at a Roman Catholic Church in South Africa, I felt as though I’d never been more proud to be a genuine, baptized Lutheran.

Normally, NOT being a Catholic should be relief enough; being a resident Protestant even more satisfying. But being a Lutheran is the ultimate stab at the demented bubble which has always been and remains the Catholic Church. Martin Luther - a Man of God, himself - was the first to tell the Catholics to take their isolationistic, antiquated practices and shove them where reflections off the Vatican never shine. That was almost five centuries ago. Sadly, things haven’t changed much within the hallowed, prejudiced confines of Catholicism.

I experienced this prejudice first hand some ten years ago when I walked into a Catholic Church, for the first time with a girl I was seeing at the time. When I rose to join her in the communion line, she gave me an uncomfortable look, and said, "You can't; I mean, you're not supposed to go."

"Go where?" I asked.

"Up to the front ..... to take communion. Not unless you're Catholic. It's the church rules."
I sat there alone and pondered this revelation, not really letting it get to me until a couple of weeks later when it came time for communion back in my Lutheran Church.

I got up to approach the rail for communion, but this girl - this same girl - didn't move a muscle.

"Come on. It's okay for you to take communion here."

"No, I can't. We're not allowed."

That was enough. It was one thing for the Catholic Church to say to me, "You're not good enough for us." But it took on a whole new meaning when they said to me, "And by the way, we're too good to commune with the likes of you."

That relationship lasted about six more months and, come to think of it, I haven't the slightest notion why.

But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that some local Priest had the audacity to blame Clinton's staff for this seeming faux pas.

I've got to tell you - if I'm in a foreign land and find myself in need of a little forgiveness and salvation, and someone offers the proverbial bread and wine to me – especially if I'm in Bill Clinton's moccasins these days – I'm gonna take it. And if that violates some ancient rite of the Catholic doctrine, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

They say it pissed them off because it violated their code of unity. But the last time I checked, the Catholic faith was grouped in with those god-awful Methodists and Lutherans and Baptist and Presbyterian and Episcopalian......it's known as Christianity and it's high time the Catholic Church got a grasp on that.

I guess the most entertaining part of this entire escapade was the cry from divorced Catholics who were moaning because they - as divorcees - couldn't take Communion, but some stinkin' Baptist President could! They obviously fail to realize that they, indeed, have broken a covenant with the Catholic Church which they hold most holy. However, by never making such a covenant (by being possessed of the luck of not being born Catholic), Bill Clinton broke no covenant at all.

Ah yes, another classic case of the Catholics eating their own, so to speak. Of course, therein, lays the subservient, even Orwellian nature of Catholicism. They even find ways to piss off their own. But they’re just not smart enough to stay out of politics.