2002-04-12 - 11:12 a.m.

OKay...it's been a week...time for part three, I guess.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, hit previous a couple of times and read the backstory...trust me, this will make a heck of a lot more sense if you do.

Anyhow. There I was, in Illinois, as a reasonably average Roman Catholic type person. I was a lector, and generally happy with things.

I was also concerned, along with several of my fellow Catholics, that there were some issues that the Church just needed desparately to consider it's position on. One was the entire Birth Control/Abortion/etc issue (I'm sorry, but banning any use of birth control other than abstinence and cycle charting is just plain silly...and actually, i'm not sorry about it at all. I agree that abortion is morally an uncool thing for pure family planning purposes. However, I can see where in cases of rape, incest, or the life and health of the mother, it might be the more moral good.

(And, for the record, I think that the government needs to be so very very much out of that decision it isn't funny. It's a matter between the woman, the man, their consciences, and whatever deity there may or may not be. Government has a role to make sure it's a properly performed medical procedure, but that's it. Government has no place enforcing morality.)

The other issue I disagreed with the Church on was female Ministry. See...the Catholic Church pretty much treats women as second class citizens. They can't become Priests. They can barely become anything beyond nuns and Sunday School teachers.

I'm not saying the Church necessarily has to turn around tonight and say that Women can become Priests...but I do belive the question should be examined.

So, I was a member of a somewhat informal group of Catholics who was working to change people's opinions on these topics. I was more concerned with the Female Ministry aspect than the other one, to be honest, but I was working on both.

I was in pretty darned good company too. Several Priests in the diocese were also attending meetings. HEck, the Bishop wasn't a formal member, but he had stated that the issue probably deserved consideration at some point in the not so distant future.

Then I moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and entered the territory ruled by the Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska.

I rapidly discovered things were different. The newspaper wasn't as interesting, and services were a lot less fluid, and everyone didn't seem as happy about being where they were.

But, I was coping with all that...for a while.

Then came the announcement. You might have heard about it, in Nebraska it was a big deal.

The Bishop sent a letter to be read at all of the Churches one Sunday. It said that if you were a member of one of a laundry list of organizations, your beliefs were incompatible with "True Catholicism", and you had 30 days to resign from those groups or not be able to be involved in the lay Ministry any longer.

Some of the groups on the list made sense. The Satanic Church of America was on there, various anti-Catholic hate groups were on there, the KKK was on there, etc.

A few were marginal, but I guess they were okay. The Masons, as an example, were founded to be anti-Catholic. But they've moved beyond that I believe (dunno, I don't know that I know any Masons).

Then there were the ones that hit me. PLanned Parenthood was on there. The ACLU was on there, and "Any group challenging the supremacy of Church Doctrine on matters of the membership of the Clergy", which was explained, included female ordination.

This urked me. He basically said that I was in the same boat as a Cross burning Satanist.

There was a local flap about this, and he wrote a guest editorial in the local massmedia newspaper defending his letter, basically saying that these folks were trying to destroy the Church and he had the authority to do this.

So, I did what I thought was best, and wrote to that same paper a letter basically saying that although I agreed that he had the authority to do that, that he painted with too wide of a brush, and there were many issues that the Church should consider, and that his requiring folks to resign from groups that only wanted to discuss issues was an infringement on freedom of belief and expression.

This, apparently, is heresy...or so I was informed in a lovely letter addressed to me, signed by the Bishop.

In fact, it was apparently such a severe heresy that I was given 15 days to recant, confess, and retract publically these heretical views I had expressed improperly, or I would be barred from any sacraments of the Church.

How, exactly, I was supposed to retract the statement was beyond me. I couldn't exactly force the paper to print a retraction letter, even had I wanted to retract it.

But that wasn't terribly important, as I was now officially mad. I wrote the Bishop back telling him that I would not retract, and if I was excommunicated, I would consider myself in Good Company.

And that, friends and neighbors is how I became an excommunicated Roman Catholic.

And it's been about 6 years now since then, and truly, I don't feel any sense of loss. I miss the Church as I knew it in Illinois, but I don't miss it as I knew it in Omaha.

And truly, what I miss from Illinois isn't the religiousness, it was the feeling of being part of a group that was caring and supportive and open. Kind of like the SCA, but without the rattan and duct tape.

I never bothered to check and see if an excommunication declared by a Bishop applied across Diocese lines or not...since I now live in Virginia, I might not be under that ruling anymore...or I might be damned to Hell...who knows?

And, of course...if I was banned from *all* sacraments...I guess that means I couldn't confess and recant now anyhow...since Confession *is* a sacrament.

Plus, I guess I'm not married to Rhiannon. Of course, were I a practicing Catholic I couldn't be married to her easily anyhow, since she was divorced.

Ya know...I hate rules like that, so I'm not missing it.

I've developed my own view on me and God and all that. I'll tell that to you all later (next week sometime).

So, that's my story. That's why I don't really feel all that happy for the folks who have "found" religion. I found it once, then it tossed me out. Guess I found the wrong one.

Ooops...it's the "One true Church"...hmmm...so much for that overriding saving grace bit.

Okay...it's lunch. laters.

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