Men in Dresses
As regulars around here know, I have had my share (and yours too) of disagreements with priests for a while now. It’s never been an isolated incident for me.
Here’s the rule: the only man in a dress you should trust is RuPaul.
Now here comes a man in a dress AND a funny hat, who says —
According to a Catholic bishop in Springfield, Illinois, Satan was behind his state’s recent legalization of same-sex marriage.
So, next Wednesday, at about the same time Gov. Pat Quinn signs the gay marriage bill into law, Bishop Thomas Paprocki will hold an exorcism ceremony “in reparation for the sin of same-sex marriage.”
He’s doing an exorcism on gay marriage?
Ho boy, that just had the opposite reaction on me that is the usual cause of a exorcism – my head started spinning around.
Bishop Paprocki, you don’t have anything productive to do on Wednesday? Are all the hungry children in Illinois fed? Are all the sick healed? Are all the poor clothed? Have you visited everybody in jail? If so, dude, go right ahead. If not, shame on you.
Thanks to Aggieland Liz for the head up.
This is crazy. And I don’t have a thing about priests in general (Episcopalians, and I are one, have them too, though we don’t force them to be celibate until they lose all awareness of normal human sexuality and do stupid things like “exorcise gay marriage.”)
On the other hand, if he exorcises gay marriage, and if exorcism is supposed to take the evilness out of a person…that would mean taking the evilness out of gay marriage and making it, you know…not evil. Wouldn’t it? (My understanding of the theology of exorcism ended with all those demons kicked out of a guy’s head, getting into a herd of pigs, run off a cliff, and drowned. None of it involved gay marriage.)
I’m with you on the thought processes that should have gone on here: Are all the hungry fed? All the naked clothed? All the homeless housed? All the sick and in prison visited and comforted? And I’d add: are all the people willing to work employed at jobs that a) pay a living wage and b) aren’t soul-killing work?
1The silver lining is that at least the current Pope does not seem to agree with this guy. The last one would have.
2Right there with you, LynnN. The Boss may have something to say on the subject.
3A better object for the exorcism might be the pedophile priests still rampant in the Church.
Amen and glory hallelujah. Focus on the real problems.
4Methinks his miter is on too tight.
5Oh, the power of Google ! This story was just SO outrageous I had to find out more about Bishop Paprocki and …. WOooOW!
Back in the fall of 2002, Bishop Paprocki’s former secretary, Mary Stachowicza (“a pious, 51-year-old Catholic mother of four”), was brutally murdered by 19-year-old Nicholas Gutierrez because she publicly confronted him about being gay. (“Why do you sleep with boys?”)
His attack was nauseatingly fierce: “Gutierrez stabbed the mother of four 11 times in the head, face and neck and strangled her, prosecutors said. She had 10 fractured ribs. Days after the murder, authorities found the woman’s body beneath the floorboards of Gutierrez’s apartment, wrapped in plastic and sheets.”
Since her death, Bishop Paprocki has called Ms. Stachowicza “a martyr for the faith” who was “murdered by a homosexual fanatic.” He’s also repeatedly decried how — in contrast to the media attention focused on gay hate crimes like Matthew Shephard’s murder — Ms. Stachowicza’s case has been “ignored.”
But get THIS: Gutierrez the “homosexual fanatic” is currently serving life in prison after being convicted of murdering — AND SEXUALLY ASSAULTING — Ms. Stachowicza.
“Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, describing Gutierrez as a man who sexually abused a female relative and another young girl when he still was a child. Gutierrez’s attorneys argued that the killer did not deserve death because he was himself abused physically, emotionally and sexually as a child. Before being placed in the state’s custody at about 10, he was raised by a mother who was addicted to alcohol and cocaine, they said.”
Considering how he’s co-opted an innocent woman’s horrible murder in order to support his virulent homophobia, Bishop Paprocki’s pre-announced “exorcism” seems motivated far more by publicity than piety.
6Oh, Good Grief.
This guy apparently didn’t get the memo.
Someone should call him late tonight (AM Italy time) & tell him he’s been called to The Vatican – Pope Frank would like to have a few words with him.
That’ll make his mitre spin.
7Maybe this Priest should hike up his robe, take off his hat and go out to the areas in Illinois that have been demolished from the recent tornados. Geeze Louise
8In my experience, the more extreme the homophobia, the more likely that there is some monkey business hiding under the cassock.
9Aw, c’mon everybody! Give Paprocki a break! he’s just getting in tune to exorcise all these guys!
http://bishop-accountability.org/member/
10I bet there are a heck of a lot of gays, married or otherwise, who are better Christians than this jackwagon. I’m with JJ on where his priorities ought to be. Dang, these people need to READ their Bibles.
11You’ve got it exactly right, JJ. And I know several Muslims who are better “Christians” in the way they live and treat other people than this costumed ignorant twit. And if I weren’t so timid, I’d tell you what I REALLY think.
12This guy is an example why the RC church is losing members. Mrs Dokey is Catholic down to her DNA. The last time she went to mass they had a speaker address the congregation on the evils of abortion. Mrs Dokie and several others walked out. I don’t expect her to return to a Catholic church except for funerals and weddings in the future.
The new Pope seems to be breathing normally. He is a Jesuit and they have a different mentality.
I don’t think this whacko conservative dogma is exclusive to the RC church either.
13There seems to be one revelation after another about Priest pedophilia and the subsequent cover ups. I wonder about Catholic condemnations of the ACA. The Church ought to do the same due diligence on their indiscretions and but out of matters that affect me. Most, not all of my Catholic friends agree.
14As a recovering catholic, NOTHING irks my hide more than to read about another ignorant, pious poopy-head using GOD to further his hate. Way to tell him, JJ!!!!!
15The whole ‘because of Satan’ thing is such BS! Their own silly gawd inspired book of BS, states that ALL things (this includes evil) are created by gawd. So the Illinois thing is caused by gawd! Reread LOT and a few other places Satan appears and you will find tat Satan did not do most of the crap, it was gawd, and when Satan did do something he had to have gawd permit to do so. So in Illinois it was gawd that caused the people there to be less bigoted to others.
16Ten to one this guy got a tweet from Paco telling him to pack his ditty bag and report to the office. I honestly would hazard such a guess on this incident cuz His Holiness has hired a “gasp” very well known secular accounting outfit to audit the church finances. Now its all up to Paprocki to respond per orders. The U.S. church has a reputation of being totally Sinatra as in “I did it my way.” Gonna keep an eye on this. Christmas is coming and I know where St. Nick and his sidekick Pete can get a load of coal for His Eminence’s stocking.
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