Government vs. Catholics

The news of the day has found its way into my usually unbreakable bubble of resistance against any unpleasant emanations from Washington, New York City or the West Coast. Most days, most weeks actually, I can meander through my days without any political conflict or dopey bureaucratic pronouncements marring the pleasant landscape of my life. But once in a while I look at stuff on the Yahoo! (such an appropriate name) news page which sends me into either fits of rage or spasms of disbelief. Before you know it I’m at the keyboard banging out a blog that will tick off at least eighty percent of my eight readers. And here I am again.

And what I’ve been reading today has to do with the battle between the Obama administration and the Catholic Church. What the heck is the president thinking about by picking this fight? I’m not talking about the moral issues. I’m not talking about the Affordable Health Care act. I’m not even talking about how dweeby Harry Reid sounds when he talks. No, I’m talking about nuns. And to a lesser degree I’m talking about other kinds of clergy.

I went to Catholic schools for a few years. It’s true that when I went to those schools things were tougher. Fear was part of the curriculum. A lot of that has been toned down over the years but I’ve got a feeling that if you rile those folks up too much then there’s no telling what can happen. The nuns might get back into those ninja looking outfits they used to wear. New strings of beads may appear and they may be made out of heavy ball bearings that could crack a skull before you could offer up a “Hail Mary”.

And if the male clergy starts wearing cassocks again you never know what they’ll be carrying under those skirts. Sawed off shotguns or even assault rifles would be easy to hide.

Back in my school days the nuns could intimidate with stares and glares. In the lunchroom I saw those brown metal trays (plastic ones hadn’t been invented yet) smacked on the heads of unruly boys with speed and accuracy. Even our parents knew enough to fear the authority of the Church.

It’s been a long time since Catholics have lined up behind the hierarchy and set off on a crusade. But Mr. Obama has rattled a lot of cages with his latest silly idea. I read some of the stuff his press secretary was spouting off today. It seems, and maybe I’m simplifying things just a little, that the administration really does think that religious folks who don’t believe in abortion are ignorant dullards. And maybe they do believe that a large percentage of Catholics don’t care at all about the Church tenets regarding that issue. But there’s a crowd of folks who do care and there are a lot of members of other churches that see a constitutional problem with the policies that are being pushed into practice. Those government geniuses better watch out. The knuckle beating rulers are coming out of storage and they’ll have sharp edges this time.

Now have a fine day and leave me alone.