FRANTIC- Wilderness Cry- Hilary L Hunt MD

FRANTIC- Now here’s a word that describes precisely the demeanor of the current R C Church. It means panic stricken, wild with fear and anxiety, distraught, etc. There are a few of us  alive today who can attest to the irrational rules imposed on Catholic Christians years ago. Those rules were not just suggestions; they were enforced  by the “hand of God” sending us straight to hell if ignored and not confessed. A few examples are in order. Concerning the Eucharist: only the priest could handle the communion host; now most hosts are distributed by lay people. Additionally, one must fast from midnight until time of receiving Communion; now no fasting period is required. Furthermore, deliberately touching host with teeth was a dire mortal sin; now recipients take host in own hand and chew like steak. Concerning marriage: marriage to a non-catholic was highly discouraged, could not take place inside church building (was done in rectory), and the non-catholic had to promise to raise all children as Catholic. All Catholic weddings were obligated to be performed in church at a Catholic Mass. Now mixed marriages are common as flies, and many weddings take place outside church. Concerning sex: the church has always been deathly afraid of sex. It was a “necessary evil” but grossly evil nonetheless. Women carried all the enticements to sin and were thereby intrinsically evil. During the Inquisition, thousands, maybe millions, of people were burned at the stake on suspicion of enjoying sex; it was to be performed in the abstract. Later on the Church relinquished those idiotic rules, but refuses to this day to give up total control. Artificial birth control of any kind was unthinkable and punishable by condemnation to hell. Concerning food: Catholics were required to abstain from eating meat on all Fridays of the year, and every day of Lenten season except Sundays. In addition, all between ages of 16-65 were required to fast (only one full meal per day) every day during Lent except Sundays; now the abstinence rule applies to Ash Wednesday and Fridays of Lent only. All of those rules were imposed under the guise of “making us more Christ-like”. The fact is that the Judaeo-Christian tradition has always controlled “the herd”, by hurling an angry God at them; a God that would shower all sorts of torment including pestilence, famine, property loss, defeat in wars , and even death in the case of the Jews; an even angrier God would send Christians to eternal damnation in hell-fire. So what we have is a religious tradition that has controlled peoples minds, extorted their wealth, abused their labor building empires all by the mechanism of “FEAR”. The schizoid attitude preached about God has, in my opinion and observation, generated a world filled with guilt-ridden, anxious, uncertain, fearful people. Schizoid in the sense that God loves you one minute, but would torture you forever the next because of an infraction. As is usual, homo sapiens will not be entrapped forever; like the fox, he’ll gnaw off a leg to escape a trap. By that I mean, people escape the torment very simply; they quit attending church services. That, of course, diminishes the money flow creating a FRANTIC PANIC TIME. A dramatic tug-of-war is evident. The hard-nosed conservative inner sanctum is unwilling to relinquish any control, while the liberal, in this case common sense, group wisely see moderation of rules more in line with human nature as desirable. It seems rather obvious to me that Pope Francis belongs to the liberal group. He senses that the flock is bolting; they no longer are afraid of “the big bad wolf”. So he has issued some rather astonishing statements and edicts. For instance, he has proclaimed that divorced people who remarry outside the Church may receive Holy Communion whereas before that was unthinkable. He has also proclaimed that couples should co-habitate for a year or two before getting married in order to ascertain their compatibility, thereby hopefully reducing divorce rate with its negative effect on children; a common sense, humanistic approach, but totally unthinkable before his papacy. He has also brought into question a part of the Lord’s Prayer, which has always seemed irrational to me. While the rule is “still on the books”, I haven’t heard the words birth control mentioned from any pulpit for the last 20-30 years. Why? Everyone is doing it, and demeaning them from the altar is certain to cause further bolting; less money. My observation is a very concerned Pope who is making a frantic attempt to keep the flock intact. Will it work? He has a lot of resistance. Observing all of this mess over a seventy five year span compelled me to find a solution to a seemingly very irrational problem. The problem was the obvious splintering of Christianity. There are 33,000 so-called Christian denominations in the world. That means there are at least 33,000 versions of Jesus and God alone in the Christian tradition. What about all the other people; Jews, Muslims, Buddhist Hindus etc? My reasoning tells me that there can be only one Supreme Being, and that all worship the same; call it by whatever name you will. My philosophy dictates an understanding  that each human who ever lived or ever will live is imprinted with the image of its maker, that singular Supreme being.  Universal acceptance of that understanding would eliminate the frantic activity seen in religion. We would come to an understanding that our Maker loves us with a Perfect Love, meaning It accepts us as we are without conditions. The frantic panic would disappear. Our guilt and shame would disappear; we would be free to be human without fear if reprisal. We could then be a universal loving society rather than a constantly warring one. With that in mind, I have called for recognition of the “WORLD-WIDE COMMUNION OF SPIRITUALITY”: our only way to world peace. My philosophy is laid out very precisely and concisely in my powerful little book Wilderness Cry. It is a “must read” for your peace of mind. Amazon, Kindle, ET AL  All comments welcomed and encouraged.  handg@comcast.net