Tolerance.

My daughter and I recently attended a presentation by the family of the first victim of the Columbine High School shooting.  It was dedicated in memory of Rachel Joy Scott and entitled "Rachel's Challenge".  It's mission is to encourage tolerance and random acts of kindness - impacting the world through the power of humanitarian thinking and living.  It was a powerful message for these little middle schoolers to hear and I honestly believe it was delivered perfectly and heard completely.

Last Sunday the kids and I attended Mass as usual.  What you may not know is that the Vatican is implementing changes to the Roman Missal - one that offers a more precise English translation of the written Word.  Whatever.

"Pope John Paul II initiated the revisions to the Roman Missal in the year 2000. The well-traveled pontiff, who was fluent in many languages, offered Masses around the world and noticed the wording was different from country to country.

The new translation will use a more formal language and be closer to the original Latin version. Prior translations relied on a method that searched for the meaning of the text, while the new translation is a more literal one, Todd Williamson, director of the Chicago Archdiocese's office of divine worship said.



A major change is the translation of pro multis as “for many.” The narrative of the Last Supper, which currently reads, “which will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven,” will be changed to “which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

The new translation was a worldwide undertaking that took more than 10 years to implement. At the crux of it all was the English translation.

The English version of the new Roman Missal was prepared by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) with representatives from 11 countries that use English as their principal language."

I, unsurprisingly, have an issue with this.  I know you've read this here before, but I truly am grappling with Catholicism right now - have been for some time.  For starters, I've always had great difficulty with the Church's open level of INntolerance toward homosexuality, bisexuality, anything non-heterosexual as well as its historical protection of a raging epidemia of pedophilia and egregious criminal complicity ...Let's not get started either on the whole annulment thing and being divorced in the Church in general.  I know, this has nothing to do with the new changes to the Roman Missal.  But in addition to its already corrupted and majorly flawed existence, now we are finally hearing that's Jesus' blood was shed for the world and, oh yeah, the Kingdom of Heaven no longer has an open door policy - suckas!

As if Catholicism needed to be any more  exclusionary than it already is.  The Church, IMHO, should have invested its time, energy and effort in restoring the confidence of its faithful in the Church's leadership...should have revisited how to address our youth; tackled the big issues for them like masturbation, sexuality, love, human biology and how all these hormonal urges could be reconciled by the Church as something other than just sinful, corrupting and un-Godly.  Did you know, my daughter was told last year in religion/family life that masturbation was a sin? A sin. Haven't they outgrown this medieval dogma by now?  You see where I'm going here.  Instead it took them a decade to artfully interpret the Roman Missal in a way that is more literal to its Latin counterpart and all of a nanosecond to further alienate (yet again) an entire populace of Catholics.   Perhaps they should work on why they had such a huge attrition rate in the first place. Eh?

But last Sunday was the coup de grace.  We are revising words like "all" to "many", as in you be forgiven, but not "you," you, and maybe "you" and well, ok, "you" only if "you" are able to be forgiven.  Really?  And it took you 10 years.  I'm tired of all this shit. So tired.  These clergy need to get their priorities straight.

How about the Church first take responsibility for all the priests that abused helpless children under its watch? How about the ecclesiastical authority publicly list all the clergy names associated with credible allegations of sexual abuse?  How about we notify all the parishes that housed these massive f**kers who were being shuffled from parish to parish to avoid scandal.  No? When the Church articulates how it plans to backpedal its way out of an International Criminal Court investigation and prosecution for these crimes against humanity - you know the same Hague Court responsible for convicting animals like Slobadan Milosevic? - that one? - yeah well, lump them in there too because the ICC is starting to frame up the facts with a "crimes against humanity" theme - then maybe these artful linguistic corrections would actually make sense to me.  Bring it. 

I'd likely write pages and pages of where I stand on that issue, but suffice to say I have a generally hard time reconciling multiple facets about the Church I was raised with.  As for our young people, Catholicism still elects to stand on ancient ideology versus practicality in addressing the youth's issues of today.  In my humble opinion, the Church lops off its proverbial nose despite its face when it loudly sidesteps sexuality and how this actually impacts children; sidesteps the pedophilia issues; the criminal conduct of the people responsible for covering it all up - and how all this frames itself with the Church's cannons.  Yet throughout it all, the Church's position remains one of rigidity and seems to stifle conversation rather than promote it.  This is a mistake.  If the Church wanted followers of Christ, it needed to lead here.  Repetitively hammering away on the same chord or "Don't, don't, don't, avoid, avoid, avoid, sin, sin, sin," without more, doesn't help tie the word of God with what pre-teens and teens especially are addressing with their peers on a daily basis.  And that's just the hormonal related stuff.  And it barely limps along with affecting or radically inspiring its members to do more, think bigger, help. 

This is one of many reasons why I believed the Rachel's Challenge seminar did a great job.  It helped move those young minds toward a more global way of thinking.  It made me hopeful that one of the basic tenants of spirituality (kindness, love, respect, humanity) was heard.  Why did it take a lay person to do this?  Because the Church has lost touch with its flock  It no longer speaks a language that its followers are able to hear and does not deliver the message of God in a way that impacts them profoundly and deeply.  It fails because it is guided by men who prefer to protect criminals and lay waste to innocence.  It is led by men who believe themselves above recrimination.  And yet we show up every week for Mass chucking into the baskets our humble offerings.  For who? For what? 

When did I just casually accept all this disgrace and the ruination of innocent children like it was ok.  Perhaps the older generation like my parents believe it is ok. I don't.  And this  won't be my children's cross to bear.  The Catholic Church is destined to implode and cease because it has committed acts of terror and abuse against its most helpless and most undeserving. It is unforgivable because it lacks the very compassion that Jesus preached - and has gone so far off the reservation in not protecting those who needed it most.

I'm amazed at times how some devot "Catholics" still have no issue with the Catholic Church.  I often find myself arguing with them about useless and inapplicable Catholic dogma.  And I don't particularly appreciate how rampant pedophilia within the rankings of priests, all the way up to Holy See, was handled.  I never will.  

I am INtolerant of such things I guess.  And yet every Sunday I find myself there at Mass...like a drone, repeating phrases that barely hold meaning for me anymore and in reality won't much longer because they are changing everything anyway. It's time. I need to reevaluate what I am doing here.