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Egan’s Law Revisited The Catholic Church has been preaching tolerance for years. Now we finally know what they mean—tolerance for child molesters. How can we call ourselves truly human until we understand how a child molester looks at the world? Until we walk a mile as a pedophile? Tolerance toward the child molester means tolerance toward that little, tiny part of ourselves that wants to reach in and destroy a young life. Is that too much to ask? The April conclave of church leaders has to be considered more of a flop than Ishtar. They get more done at a Star Trek convention. Three full days in the Vatican, and all they could come up with was “once isn’t enough.” Pardon—is that one molestation where you’re caught or one molestation, period? Which begs an important philosophical question—if a priest gropes a boy in the woods and there is no cardinal to hear it, does it make a sound? One has to wonder what the real purpose of the meeting was. A bunch of old coots in frocks standing around talking about getting it on with children? Sounds pretty creepy to me. The scene back at the Vatican Holiday Inn wasn’t much better. Dozens of single, middle-aged white men loitering in the hallway, flashing wallet photos of their kids. Overheard at the front desk: “Room service, could you send up something in a pair of size 6 Air Jordans? Now, post-convention, the American wing of church top brass has returned stateside with the cockiness of a Fuller Brush salesman on Prozac. No one upstairs has so much as flinched at the recent revelation that a few years back, in Bridgeport, CT, Cardinal Egan refused to accept the resignation of one of his priests who admitted to molesting one of the children in his care. That must have been one hell of a pep talk. Cardinal Egan is truly the Knute Rockne of pederasty. “You call yourself a child molester? In my day, we felt up a hundred or more boys before we even dared call ourselves a child molester. Back in the day, we had to earn our rosaries. We started small with a cheap feel in choir practice and worked our way up to a full-fledged hand job in confession. Today’s crop shows up wet behind the ears, grabs a couple butts, and all of a sudden you think you can hang with the big boys. Well guess again, fellas. We have here what you might call a pecking order. Now drop down and give me twenty.” How long before these geezers start claiming they never inhaled? All of this is heading in a very scary direction. If once is okay, a fairly good argument can be made that twice really ain’t that bad. The Vatican-sanctioned manage-a-trois can’t be far off. The logical end is a voucher system, to be voted on in the 2005 conclave. Five acts of sodomy a year, and that’s it. We mean it. You get a coupon for each one. And if you’re caught fondling boy number six, you’ll wish you were back in catechism. Unless of course, you’ve traded for an extra voucher or acquired it some other creative way. Looks like those poker games in the rectory basement are about to get a wee bit more interesting. Click here to rant back. |