By now I’m sure that you’ve heard about the Catholic priest who has resigned in shame after the Church declared all of his baptisms invalid because he used the word “we” insted of the liturgical “I” as in, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  It blew up last week, after the Diocese of Phoenix announced on its website that everyone  baptized during the career of Phoenix priest Father Andres Arango has had their baptisms invalidated by the Church.  What that means is that their subsequent first communions, marriages, and all other liturgical events in their lives are also invalid.  The announcement even included a form to fill out to get a corrective baptism done.

To a post-christian infidel like me, the entire issue seems absurd, but this judgment by the Church has thrown thousands of people’s lives into serious uncertainly, and only God knows how many of those people who had died since Arango’s invalid baptisms are now burning in hell because of one wrong word.  I’m sorry, but this “scandal” is complete bullshit.

So what’s really going on here?  Well, as explained by another priest, actually former priest, Father Nathan Monk, it’s a diversion from an actual scandal in the Church.  In a Facebook post a few days ago, Monk explained the absurdity of the Phoenix Diocese’s claim that the baptisms are invalid, noting that the only requirement is that the baptism should be in the name of the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”, the traditional Trinity in Christianity.  He explained further that even laypersons (not ordained) can baptize a person in an emergency, and those baptisms are considered valid.

In that same post, though, Monk drops the bombshell, which actually should have been obvious….The Diocese of Phoenix invalidated these thousands of baptisms on the orders of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, which is the enforcer of rules in the Catholic Church.  So why would this agency inside the Vatican do such a thing to a local priest way out in Phoenix?  Monk explains it this way –

“Because the decision came down from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and this absurd story broke right after Joey Ratz aka Pope Emeritus Benedict the 16th was called to the carpet for how he handled another scandal within the Church. And guess where he was in leadership before being appointed pope? The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith! And guess which story we are talking about instead of that? The one about a priest saying ‘we’ instead of ‘I.'”

Now we get it.  Monk contends, and it makes more sense than any of us would like, that the Roman Catholic Church willfully and knowingly destroyed the life long career of a devoted bilingual priest and turned the lives of thousands of people on their heads to distract church attention away from the actual villain, who is Ratzinger, in an effort to protect his corruption.

This sordid tale explains perfectly how, and more why, the Church as we know it is dying. And that death can’t come soon enough.