Fixing the unfixable

I was listening to a New Orleans radio station while driving to the store today and heard something startling. A Cardinal just sent a letter to the Vatican stating in essence that allowing priests to marry would help fix the attraction of pedophiles to the priesthood. Since I am all about solutions, I applaud him for suggesting a “fix” for this tragic situation in the Church. But his fix is no fix at all.

I’ll be straight with you here. I’m not sure that anything can be done to fix pedophilia. No one is. Simply put, pedophilia is a fixation on children as the preferred sexual partner. There ain’t no fixing that. And marriage certainly won't. Pedophiles by nature gravitate to any occupation that allows them access to children, such as the priesthood.

Perhaps the answer is in fixing the process by which candidates are selected for the priesthood. Is there a checklist for hiring priests somewhere in the Vatican?  If not, there should be. Here’s mine:

Love God? Check.Love the Church? Check. Love people? Check. Love children? Check. How do you love children? Wait a minute. Houston we have a problem.

That thing about confession being good for the soul doesn't work in this case. Were it only that easy. But, wait it is that easy...

There are psychological assessments that can help the Church identify pedophiles trying to get into the priesthood. I figure if companies can use the Myers-Briggs assessment to help determine if someone is a good fit in the office, surely the Church could do this one crucial thing. Use the assessment as a tool to get the answer to that last question on my checklist. You know they aren't going to tell you they fantasize about children. If the assessment throws up red flags don't bring them into the priesthood.Will it catch all of them? No, but you have got to do better than you are now.

Marriage affixes your paycheck to your family, fixes your regular sleeping partner (unless he or she snores like me), and fixes your spouse to the TV when a game is on, but fix this? I think not...

Just my opinion on viral emails

We all know the saying about opinions, and what they're like. That said, I have opinions, you have opinions, we all have opinions, and for the most part they all stink just like their metaphorical counterparts. I think most of us can agree on that line of reasoning.

But,  some of us cross the line and consider their opinion to be just shy of divine revelation. This is the Gospel  According to the Viral Emailer, straight from the mouth of the Almighty to the pen of the Village Idiot. Their mission: To deliver us from the evil of our ways, be they Republican, Democratic , supportive of the Limbless Latina Lesbian String Quartet, or the wisdom of the 1st,2nd, and/or 14th Amendment. Or all of the above. Or as they're neither fish nor fowl politically, especially…(gasp!) Libertarian heresy. Libertarians somehow manage to offend all sides of the American political spectrum, which is an impressive feat in and of itself. But that's a tale for another day.

As an aside Libertarians DO exist, though they be so rare as to qualify as a cryptozoological species only seen at night by one or a few witnesses through the haze of several beers after fishing and backlit by a bright light from the sky. But I digress…

The Village Idiot spews his vitriolic list of ills as fact, sprinkles in a few  supportive misquotes from historical figures, and issues dire warnings of doom. This bizarre concatenation of ideas is then emailed to like-minded people (what a frightening thought there), who forward it along, and so on, and so on. Even Chicken Little could do no better.

What amazes me even more than the ignorance of the Village Idiot - and his ignorance is awe-inspiring in it's immensity -  is the willingness of the general public to read it and accept it as fact before forwarding it to their unsuspecting friends.

Just one short search online will show the 'logic' of each particular Gospel missive to be buggier than a Roach Motel. I want to blame the American educational system for the asininity spouted in these missives, but I can't.  We, the American people, are the most anti-intellectual society in the world. We don't need to bog ourselves down with facts, and we don't need to think on our own. All we need is for someone to tell us what we want to hear. Voila! Instant Truth.

 In lieu of us taking the time to research just a tiny bit before forwarding a steaming pile of sociopolitical turds to the unwary, may I suggest that computer programmers do a tremendous social good and eliminate the forwarding option for email?