A couple thoughts on the Catholic Church. As a married minister, I'm obviously not a huge fan of celibacy.

That said, the Catholic Church is free to make its own determination on this issue. Indeed, one thing that can be observed from the Randall Terry incident is that there is a lack of cross-denominational respect in America. Terry, rightly disciplined by his church in upstate New York, merely joined himself to the Charismatic Episcopal Church which welcomed him in with open arms despite his awful personal conduct.

I view the "ending celibacy requirement" as a simplistic solution to a much larger problem. The first question we must ask ourselves is, "Do we see this same rash of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church worldwide?" The answer is no. Then, if we don't see the same epidemic worldwide, the American Catholic Church's problem isn't celibacy rather it is a cultural problem.

We have seen a huge cultural decline and a growing coldness of many in the Catholic Church. Despite repeated admonitions from the pontiff, American Catholics continue to vote for politicians who are pro-abortion and disregard church teachings on numerous issues of morality. Nancy Pelosi, Edward Kennedy, and Joseph Biden can comfortably call themselves Catholics despite their far positions on the moral issues.

Catholics find themselves involved in a country that is filled with pornography and sexually explicit movies where the homosexual lifestyle is constantly pushed.

Will "ending celibacy" solve such a complex problem? No. We may have forgotten this but all pedophiles are not priests. Some are coaches, teachers, protestant ministers, and camp counsellers. Indeed, a primary reason for becoming involved in the priesthood for many pedophiles is the opportunity to get close to children.

The Catholic Church's problem is not that they have celibacy but that the church at the level of the pew from which every priest comes has suffered an ever-increasing corruption. It must solve its most dire moral problems and seek to revive its members from the point of spiritual death. I agree that Fabian Bruskewicz would be a good choice (isn't he the one who began excommunicating pro-aborts)?

The Greatest Generation

They’ve all been liars,

Thieves, and murderers,

But don’t you know,

We’re better in the 21st Century,

We’ve got it all figured out,

We’re the most moral,

Most righteous Generation

That has ever been

Columbus slaughtered the Indians,

The Pilgrims held the Salem witch trials,

Washington and Jefferson owned slaves,

America went and fought imperialist wars

Of invasion in Mexico and Cuba,

They persecuted Germans during World War I,

And the Japanese during World War II,

And until the 1960s women and blacks

Were treated as second class citizens

Now we know better,

Our generation is pure and holy,

And those from the past are guilty of

The most horrible sins

That can never be pardoned,

And from their lives and sacrifices

We can learn nothing

As we are holy and perfect

We may eviscerate our unborn children,

But that’s just a matter of choice,

We may stop public prayers,

But that’s just to protect religious freedom,

We may create poverty plantations that

People never escape,

But that’s just to help the poor,

We may trample on the constitution every day,

But we’re just doing what’s best for the country

Future generations will look upon us with

Gratitude for achieving the moral perfection

Of humanity,

Something that no generation before has done.

--Adam Graham

Firing Squad of the Future

By Adam Graham

The Senate Majority Leader stood in the oval office.

Senator Susan Johnson had dark shadows under her eye. The President looked at her with pity in his eyes. Thirty years of public service had to come to an end. After sixteen years in the house and fourteen in the Senate, she had disqualified herself from political leadership.

"You've got to go," said the president.

"I made a few mistakes when I was younger," she said. "And I was just trying to be nice at Senator Bergin's retirement."

The president snapped.

"Nice!" said the president angrily. "I don't call what you did nice. I call it suicidal! You said that Senator Bergin won your state's primary and that you were proud of it. You said that America would have been better off with Senator Bergin!"

"He's a great man," she said.

"That doesn't matter," said the president. "When this guy was a Democrat, he voted for Clinton for crying out loud! Worst yet, when he was running for President, his primary issue was getting Roe v. Wade reinstated."

"Look," she said. "He's sorry about all that, and since then he's been a great Senator with knowledge on a number of issues."

The president shook his head.

"We both know it doesn't matter," said the president. "All that matters is the media and they refuse to forgive him, no matter how much he repents, nor how much he gives to crisis pregnancy centers. They still won't forgive him for one simple reason. He's a Republican."

"But, I was just paying him a compliment," said Senator Johnson.

"If it were just that," said the president, "it could be forgiven. But Time just uncovered the fact that when you were in college, you were an organizer for a NOW rally."

"I was young," pleaded the senator. "I was raised up in New York. It was what I was taught. I've been good since then."

"No," said the president. "I'm sorry that's not enough for the media. There's no room to understand you or forgive any of your past transgressions. You see in order to be successful in politics, you must have perfect moral insight at all times and instantly rid yourself of any beliefs that may sometime in the future become politically damaging."

"But Democrats get away with this all the time," said the senator.

"Yes, but they have the media on their side so the rules don't apply to them," said the president.

With that the senator left to write her resignation speech.

How the Lott Falls

I've never been a big fan of Trent Lott. Indeed, the one word that comes to my mind when I think of the Mississippi Senator's four and a half years as Majority Leader is "squandered". Simply put Lott wasted dozens of opportunities and was easily outmanuvered by Slick Willy. Despite my serious and severe problems with Senator Lott, I have to stand up when he is being attacked unfairly as a racist for suggesting that America would be better off if Strom Thurmond had won the 1948 presidential election.

There are a couple of key facts, everyone seems to miss. First, how would America have been different had Thurmond won in 1948 instead of Truman? What great Civil Rights laws were passed during the Truman administration that Strom Thurmond would have prevented? Logically, if Thurmond had won the 1948 presidential election, he would have done most things little different from what Harry Truman had done. American Blacks would be no worse off if Truman'd lost the 1948 election. Period. End of story.

What Lott was talking about was the character of Strom Thurmond and the type of person he was. He wasn't talking about a desire for the reversal of the progress of Civil Rights (which wasn't made in the Truman Administration). Here's a good question for open-minded liberals. Was Thurmond a virulent racist or simply fighting for a principle of States rights? Remember it was this man who was the first employer of Armstrong Williams, the black syndicated talk show host.

Second, Time Magazine has run a nice little hit piece on Lott for his role as a Southern leader of a college fraternity who opposed integration of his fraternity. This attack on Senator Lott is quite interesting as the media is being doubly hypocritical.

First, Lott was little more than a boy who was adhering to cultural norms during the Civil Rights debate. Two democrats, Senators Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-SC) and Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) were men. The former raised the Confederate flag over the South Carolina statehouse in defiance of integration while the latter was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Where's the outrage over these far more egregious transgressions?

The media has also told us that it doesn't matter what our political leaders did in college or while they were young. If Al Gore smoked pot for ten years. Who cares? (non-story). If Bill Clinton dodged the draft, boys will be boys. The only exception to that rule is if you're a Republican.

George Bush was rumored to have used Cocaine. And now Trent Lott held politically incorrect views while in college. These sins are different because they were committed by Republicans.

As I look at the Democratic Party, I see a party that has no moral standing to make it's attacks on the leader of the United States Senate. Trent Lott (who was six years old at the time) may have voted for Strom Thurmond, but each and every Senate Democrat who was serving in 1999 voted to acquit someone that the distinguished Senator Byrd admitted was guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors". They voted for a man who betrayed America's natural security in order to win a second term. They voted for a man who history will repudiate as one of America's worst Presidents.

While we don't know what Strom Thurmond would have done as President, we do know what Bill Clinton did and for that reason every Democrat in the Senate should resign in utter shame.