When I was about 12, my mom decided we needed to go to church. I think it was because she saw The Exorcist and was afraid I’d be possessed if I kept playing with my Ouija board. Fortunately, it only lasted a year, because we had to move to Guam.
We got to Guam and Mom appeared to forget about church, but maybe she just figured it was covered when they put me in an Episcopal school (the public schools were in bad shape).
While at the Episcopal school (from the ages of 13 to 15), I was an altar girl, because it meant you were allowed to be late to your next class since you had to put away the wafers and wine and so on. It also meant you could take a few extra hits off the bottle while you were cleaning up. We already had wine breath from communion on those days, so we figured it was safe.
What got me thinking of these things was this page from a new coloring book, Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic, which was just published by the Archdiocese of New York. Newsweek says:
[It's] what you’d expect from a Christian handout: lessons in loving thy neighbor and knowing we’re all special in God’s eyes, plus a fun word search with names of people whom kids can trust (parents, counselors, teachers). Many of the book’s cartoon-sketch drawings, which were created by a church volunteer, are light in tone and narrated by an angel looming overhead. But on one page, the angel warns of an online predator—with chest hair exposed—who attempts to chat with a child; on another, the angel implies that children should make sure they’re never alone in a room with a priest.
I won’t even go into how I feel about religious brainwashing of kids here. Maybe I’ll discuss that special brand of child abuse another day.
But how sad is it that a church has to publish a cartoon that tells them not to be alone with its own “holy” men?
This does look a lot like the room where they stashed all the priestly paraphernalia back when I was an altar girl. However, we didn’t have any big (phallic) gardening tools in the room (is that a post holer?). Or floating, nubile, Disney-heroine-faced angels. Nor did the priest stand nervously in the doorway leering hungrily at us while snapping on his latex examination gloves, anxiously awaiting said angels’ departure. Or maybe he’s looking up the teen angel’s robe…
A volunteer drew this. Couldn’t the Catholic church, the richest single institution on the planet (with the poorest followers), afford an artist? And didn’t they think to have anybody look at this first to check for, I don’t know, double entendre? They had to know people like me would go there… Why are those tools there?
If anybody can tell me where to get a copy of this coloring book, I’d appreciate it. In the meantime, read what Mark Morford had to say about it.
Thanks for the SFgate article Pam.
Loved the ironic tone set by the writer:
“There he is, right there in the doorway, a grinning priest, waving to you as the angels go on and seem to imply, “And remember boys, when we say ‘adult,’ we actually mean ‘priest,’ and you should never be alone with one unless the door is wide open or some other adults know where you are or there is a giant window in the room through which other wary adults or perhaps police officers can see if said priest begins to give the holy sacrament to your crotch. Next up: God loves bunnies!”
If anyone was running this ‘organisation’ as a private entity, (“after more than 4,400 priests who have been accused of sexual abuse”), the Feds would have closed down this freakshow years ago.
But as it’s a “religion”, they just publish a new coloring book…
You can get a free copy of this great work in pdf at
http://www.adnyfiles.org/English.pdf
(“Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic”)
I’m a former Catholic. Being a cute little boy once, my priest “indecently” touched me too as a child.
The only men in long robes I allow near me these days are drag queens :-)
Hi Peter. I love reading Mark Morford and subscribe to his column. Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for the link! That was amusing. The bad language thing–in the big picture, how important is that? Compared to the sexual predator message, it really pales. The overall message is so mixed. Just about every page is about fearing adults and trusting them too. How are kids supposed to parse that message?
I’m reading this John Irving book right now called “Until I Find You.” It is about the worst piece of crap I’ve ever read. The entire thing centers around this kid who was molested his whole life by various people. I’m still reading it in the hope that there’s some point. The other day I did read, finally, something meaningful, which was the author’s observation via the protagonist that we all have part of our childhood stolen from us in one way or another.
I’ve known several people who had part of their childhood stolen in the same way you did and who’ve suffered for it their whole lives. I will never understand how people can do that to kids. And so many of them…
Yeah, you can get away with anything in the name of religion in the US. And you don’t have to pay taxes either.
Why do I get the distinct impression that the man in the door is leering??
Raised Catholic, I’ll have to admit (Jesus block you ears) to having indecently touching a fellow bible study student. OK, well, he touched me too. Alright, alright…we….
Oh.
Damn.
I’m going to hell, aren’t I??
Sex an religion. ;) Pam, your blog is my dream come true.