Courtesy of Mr. Otto Hiss' elegant blog, the "Otto da Fe," we learn that the Most Reverend Reginal Cawcutt has been assigned as pastor to St. Patrick's parish in Mowbray, South Africa. Bishop Cawcutt was involved in the "St. Sebastian's Angels" website a few years back. Some of his comments from that involvement are available on line. Many of them are just scatalogical/sacriligeous drivel like these emails:
. . . . I went to Paris two years ago wit the kids from Cape Town = the heat and just everything else was totally impossible. At the last minute they told the bishops we did not have to wear our cassocks (but of course we could be on the platform with JP only if we wore cassocks) - so the smart guys without cassock were "merely" in the front row of the 2 million kids. I went in jeans and T-shirt ! and had some gasps from my fellow episcopals. Of course all that was just one week before Diana did her thing [i.e., died in a car wreck]. Mebbe Ratz will "do his thing" after al those screaming millions of kids will be fornicating in the Vatican gardens - as they bonked [yes, that's what it means] in the night in Paris - damnit man they spent the night before the papal mass sleeping in the park in sleeping bags! . . . .And every once in a while they're even funny, like this confused entreaty: ". . . Would someone please tell me what "Call to Action" is. Has to be interesting. . . . ."
. . . . Companions? I got a few - two dogs a cat and sum tropical fish - UGH!!! Do the boys in the Vat have companions? c*m c*um now boys - I just cannot believe they don't. with all those cute secretaries around? how else do they survive. I was at a meeting in Namibia a few yrs ago addressed by that idiot [Cardinal Alfonse Lopez] Trujillo (boss of the family dept) [i.e., Chairman of the Pontifical Commission on the Child and Family] and heard him screaming about gays - you should have seen his secretary! Holy God, ......we praise thy name!!!! Indeed if I could find a secretary like that I would praise His name all day long! . . . .
Mostly, however, they display an utter and cold contempt for the Catholic Church produced by an extreme sense of alienation:
. . . Then this week we have a three day regional bishops meeting - holy hell - these things never end - like John said - f**k the bishops! Yeah I seem to be allergic to them or summing! . . . .Reading these messages I can see something to the argument that by treating homosexuality as a plague of evil, the Church drives homosexuals into a kind of twisted anti-Church subculture. The sore, rather than being lanced and treated, is merely covered and left to fester. (We all have "sores" by the way, there's nothing particularly special about homosexuality in that regard). I'm no expert, and anyone who knows better is free to tell me where I'm wrong, but it seems as if the Church can properly handle seminarians who suffer with everything from alcoholism and oedipal complexes to stuttering, yet when it comes to homosexuality (i.e., the amorous attraction to another of the same sex), a seminarian or priest has two choices. He can hide in isolated fear, or he can figuratively leap into the arms of "St. Sebastian's angels" who have, for lack of any other solace, remade an entire religion in the image of their own lusts. They call it the "lavender mafia," and maybe there's something in that besides a reference to unsavory methods and unholy aims. After all, didn't the modern mafia begin as a self-protection society for outcasts in a strange and inhospitable land?
. . . Before I get down to writing yet another f***king talk [i.e., a homily] . . . (hey gosh man u think u guys got it tuff with sermons every week - talks c*m about 3 times a week) . . . .
. . . I see the major fear of bishops being that they will get their arses kicked by uncle Ratz [i.e. - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith] I have been under their scrutiny for over a year now and expect to get my "profession" to sign real soon. I hope I will have the courage then not to sign it - but if I don't - I get the boot Quandary.... and that is what I think most bishops are in. All fine and well to say f**k Rome - but then you are out - and then what good can you do? I decided long ago that it would be best to work within the system. Can I also turn the tables a bit and ask why the "simple" priests also do not cause more sh*t??? You also could you know! . . . .
. . . . Evan, thanks for your thing on gay love - how very true it all is - and I do believe we have to encourage gays and lesbians to go that way despite wot holy mother church says. . . .
. . . . I repeat my prophecy for those who were not here when I made it a while back: JPII will die on January 2 [2000] - once he sees he has nothing more to live for having led us all into the new millenium. Ratz [i.e., Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger] will take poison on Jan 3 cos he knows that if he doesn't someone will give him poison on Jan 4! . . .
. . . Of course we need a new church - of course we need always to be updating - is that not wot we as a little bunch in here are busy doing all the time - maybe not as radically as we would like or as fast - but nevertheless. . . .
. . . kill him ? pray for him? why not just f**k him??? any volunteers - ugh!!! Martin, you told us ages ago about the possibility of a letter from him [Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger] - can YOU give us any update? Certainly bishops of the world have not yet received anything like this - certainly not anything to do with gay students or whatever. I do not see how he can possibly do this - but... If he does, lemme repeat my statement earlier - that I will cause lotsa sh*t for him and the Vatican. . . . .
. . . . Martin - do have a p*ss next time you cross the Tiber for me! and thanks for the update on the new ratz [i.e. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger] document . . .
. . . Talking about the Vatican - JP is in Poland at the mo - mebbe he will die there? I shall listen to the news broadcasts in hope! . . . .
I really don't care if my parish priest is a homosexual. I really don't care if, when he falls from grace, his mind turns to images of teenagers "bonking" in the Vatican gardens. Men need a Redeemer, and our Redeemer died on a Cross while we were yet sinners; we should expect men caught in sin to look grotesque and pathetic, their thoughts to be twisted and violently contorted. Didn't our Redeemer look that way when He died? Didn't He bear our stripes? No, none of that fundamentally bothers me. In fact it seems rather ordinary and shabby, made all the more pathetic by its appearance in public on the Bishop's pornographic little website. Anyone who would really be shocked to his foundation to hear of thoughts and desires like those flitting through the mind of a cleric hasn't spent much time examining his own conscience. Or spent much time in a lawyer's office, for that matter. Spend enough time with men "as they are" and you start realizing that the truly disgusting people are the ones who believe sin's ugliness only disfigures their neighbors.
What I can't abide is Bishop Cawcutt's hatred of the Church, a hatred so unreserved and cold that it's almost unbearable to read:
. . . f**k the bishops! . . . another f***king talk [i.e., a homily] . . . prayers tomorrow as I confirm yet another bunch of little b*st*rds . . . f**k Rome . . . the "simple" priests [ought to] cause more sh*t??? . . . despite wot holy mother church says. . . . we need a new church . . . kill him ? pray for him? why not just f**k him??? any volunteers - ugh!!! . . . I will cause lotsa sh*t for him and the Vatican. . . do have a p*ss next time you cross the Tiber for me! . . .JP is in Poland at the mo - mebbe he will die there? I shall listen to the news broadcasts in hope! . . . .Bishop Cawcutt is screaming at the Church. His images are frightful, violent, and usurious. The man's so dried up and angry he couldn't nuture a fern, let alone a soul. No one hates like this in an instant. It takes years for this kind of pathological loathing to grow. How much of it is self-loathing transferred onto the immovable source of Bishop Cawcutt's condemnation? Not much, at least not much any more --- that kind of hatred always changes, eventually emerging like some dark and venomous butterfly from its cocoon, full in itself, its own reason for existing.
On the whole, I think these emails show us there's an entire area of priestly (and lay) life which is being studiously unattended to by the Church, and that this numbness ends up producing Cawcutts by the dozen. Cawcutt is a bishop -- with the stroke of a pen he could be made a Cardinal, and vote on the election of a Pope. Would he "only" use his vote to elect a pope with the best chance of creating "a new church"? Is that all he'd really do? Hatred brings its own inertia, its own priorities. I doubt very much whether a Reginald Cardinal Cawcutt could remain untempted by the chance to hurt the Church in any possible way rather than vote for his own "beneficent" intentions. By this time, and by his words, I doubt he could tell the difference. His emails show us his view of a Church that was once beautiful, then the hateful cause of his own suffering, and which is now abominable in her own right. No, I don't think a conclave would be safe in Cawcutt's hands. For that matter, I don't think any other ecclesiastical function would be safe in his hands: What does he tell "the little b*st*rds" in the confessional? That's not because he's a homosexual, or even because he's capable of imagining bishops' mitres hung on parts of the male anatomy. It's because he's filled himself with an angry impulse to smash, destroy, and ruin the Church which has (he thinks) been responsible for his own suffering, for the ruination of his priestly life. Like a father's abuse or a cop's brutality, Cawcutt's calling has become an instrument of vengeance. That's a tragedy in a man, but it's a catastrophe in a priest.
A Church -- or any institution -- which allows men in this condition to exercise significant authority and influence in its work is doomed, usually to its own destruction. The Church can't be doomed to destruction -- alone among all institutions, she has been given a divine guarantee that the gates of Hell will not prevail against her. But the Church can be doomed to just about anything short of destruction, and "just about anything short of destruction" is pretty darn bad. No, the Church can't remove every bad priest, every errant bishop. In fact the Church shouldn't try -- we should leave the eradication of sin by the republic of godliness as a project fit for wild-eyed Calvinists and other chiliastic adventurers. But there comes a time when malicious self-love causes more than the weakness of Peter, when it becomes the violent antagonism of Judas. A Church concerned for its survival ought to know when that time is and, when it has come, act without hesitation.
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