Catholic Logic

There's been a push for a while to replace masculine language with non-gender-specific language in the Catholic Mass. It throws me off sometimes because I say the prayers in mass by rote, as I learned them in Catholic School, and when they've gone and changed the words it makes my sporadic attendance obvious.

Anyway, one recent change in North America was for the priest to say at baptisms, "I baptize you in the name of the Creator, Liberator and Sustainer," instead of "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." They were trying to get away from masculine language.

Oh no no no. Pope says you can't say that. The new phrase doesn't emphasize the trinity enough, and after all, the whole trinity thing is what separates us from other Christians.

Fine. Words matter. BUT....not only do we have to change the words back to the original....every baptism that was performed using the renegade phrase is INVALID and needs to be re-performed. And, of course, if you have an invalid baptism, any other sacraments that came afterward, like, say, marriage, would be invalid too.

Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Give me a break. It's like the Pope is stomping his feet, yelling, "You wanna go and do your own thing? Well, ha ha, none of those baptisms count! You have to do 'em all over! :P~~~~!"

This is what makes me crazy about the Vatican. Do they really think that God is keeping a list of what phrase was used? Are they going to withhold Holy Communion because someone may have an invalid baptismal sacrament? Am I going to organize a re-baptism for my sons because I don't remember which phrase was used? We had a ceremony, the babies were anointed and welcomed into the church, that's what happened and that was the point.

This is all about a church being authoritarian and concerned with earthly power. They're afraid that if they say, "Naw, you don't have to re-baptize everyone," that could subvert the idea that they are all powerful and always right about everything. Arrrgh. C'mon guys, this is why people think Catholics are crazy.

Chocolate-covered holy wafers to anyone who reads this rant. But only if you've been baptized correctly.

ETA: Oh, and by the way, those who get re-baptized are dammed anyway because they get water sprinkled on them instead of a full bath. Bummer.

Oh, BTW, no leprechauns were caught yesterday. But Larry Leprechaun took A.'s money and left a note saying, "Better luck next time, lads."