Well, the last blog was like the anime series finale, so imagine that between that and this blog there was an epicly long filler series involving some new characters we don’t care about and a plot twist and storyline taking place in a nondescript time frame apparently in the middle of a giant battle (between me and… uh… the Paperwork Monster) that is apparently forgotten entirely as we rejoin the main plot. Which is NOW.

Sixth Form arc: Restart!

So yesterday was a tad sucky. It started off with Nico on the bus being questioning, then when I arrived at school I had to queue with the unwashed masses to hand in a form that I’d filled out the night before that half the year seemed to have forgotten/mislaid/not known the existence of. I found that I was in Mr Peter’s form, along with Nico (gah) Adam, John, Albert, Mia, Aless, Rosy Barker, Evie S and… Lydia. If you don’t know (and let’s face it, why would you) this is just a re-hash of half of my form last year with no new people whatsoever. This is good, but at the same time, geez… the most interesting person I have to talk to is NICO. Talking of Re-Hash… (plays Gorillaz)

After the basic introduction by Mr Peters and the handing out of moar paperwork we received one of the most boring assemblies I think I’ve EVER had from Mr Hirst. In it, he talked about a New Scientist article on smartphones (I have that issue) and said perfectly boringly that he had heard that ‘app’ was short for ‘application’. I facepalm’d and zoned out after that. There was some more paperwork and words from Mr Peters, including the giving out of timetables and the arranging of student-tutor interviews. I promptly noticed a somewhat large issue with my timetable; I had been put down for Music. Considering the insane difficulty of music at A-level is such that even musical career A* types like Rose aren’t taking it, the fact that I didn’t take Music for GCSE, the fact that I never even considered music for A-level and the conspicuous absence of RS, which I noted from Nico’s timetable shares timeslots with Music, I deduced that this was some kind of error. This meant that the first order of the day (in which we had no lessons at all) was to get my timetable fixed by Mr Jenning’s magic powers.

After that the day didn’t really have much going for it apart from talking with Peter and his friend MechanicalCatfish (Luke) about nerdy things so powerful that we burned things around us. It was really strange to find that this Luke fellow likes almost everything I like, including anime, retro stuff, Zelda games and Scrubs. He one-upped me by having a GCSE in Japanese, though he doesn’t have Lylat Wars on the original N64 and can’t even complete it, let alone get anywhere near my pro high score. As a result of this excitement Chris got shunted a bit as he was with Max and Nico, who would definitely NOT have enjoyed the conversation. For this, I apologise.
I also talked to Chloé a bit about films she’d seen over the summer, jumped on Ned a bit and jumped on the Sixth Form Garden. ’cause I can. There was a bus assembly in the afternoon and then I was bored for a bit before we went home.

Overall, not an entirely inspiring day, but a taster of something of the attitude to be expected towards us as Sixth Formers.

Now, today was awesome, surprisingly mostly due to it having actual lessons in it. In the morning before form time I talked to Chloé in the common room. This is nice because we used to talk in the mornings in JMc, so it’s nice to know that not everything is going to change.
In form we finally saw all of the Upper Sixth half of our group in all their glory: hairy, scary and including Henry Gibbons. There was form time just for the LVI as the UVI went off for an assembly, but then we had to go to an assembly with Mr Jennings for a WHOLE PERIOD to learn stuff we basically already knew about cars and drugs and shit. Why did he make us read all of the rules in the yearbook if he was just going to tell us all of them again in extremely boring detail?

After that, introductions back in form and break, I had… a study period. Since I hadn’t yet had any lessons, I didn’t have anything to study, so I went to the common room and talked to Molly and her crew for a bit, and found out that in fact (with the exception of Abby – phew) they were all doing Classics, which was my next and first class. When we finally got to Classics, it was pretty interesting; there were about twenty of us packed into the Business and Enterprise centre, which was pretty crowded with just the Latin crew all those months ago… The lesson was actually pretty good, but we got given a ton of stuff to read and I’d forgotten just how… quirky… Mrs Stephenson is, with her flipping the exercise book  over and going ‘OMG! It’s liek another buk!’ Well, not that, but she still seems so proud of the idea after all these years…

In the aftermath of Classics, Chloé came down to see Mrs Stephenson about Ancient Greek lessons with Eliza, but apparently while we were waiting outside she was being guilt-tripped about not taking Classics… and so my lunchtime project began: trying to get Chloé to make up her mind about doing or not doing Classics. By the end of break she’d managed to draw up a rough timetable using my Classics lessons as a reference and dropping Chemistry. I tried to persuade her to go and see Miss Fletcher, her form tutor, but she insisted on going to see Mr McWilliams, whom we caught just outside the English block after running up and down the corridor indecisively five times. He agreed to chat it over with her in period six, which anyone who is anyone has free.

Then it was suddenly the end of lunch, so I had to register before going to my first lesson of FURTHER MATHS! Mr McWilliams was having to walk around the school to avoid the current building works, so in the meantime I randomly decided to plonk myself down between Ellen and Chelsea, more to annoy Ellen than anything else. Mr McWilliams was grumpier than usual when he came in and basically introduced the subject by saying that we should all kill ourselves at the age of 25, then another person came in (bringing our group to a total of 10) so Mr McWilliams had to go all the way back to the Maths block to get another book. In the meantime, after some slightly awkward conversation, I opted that we should all introduce ourselves by saying our names and the AS levels we were doing. It actually worked fairly well.
When Mr McW finally returned, in an even worse mood, we finally did some Maths. He did tell us that the first load of work we’d be doing would be fairly easy to do for our group, and indeed the vertex-edge graphs do seem fairly simple at this point. Well, not ALL of them are simple, just the ones that don’t have multiple lines joining vertices…

When the lesson ended Chloé went in to talk to Mr McWilliams for about five minutes before we realised that we were holding up an entire PE class, so Mr McW and Chloé went over to a table and I talked to Peter about how awesomely awesome Metroid Prime Trilogy is (released today) and how for some reason I acquired a copy of LoZ: Wind Waker earlier, complete with a memory card. The box was rather battered and the manual was one from the limited edition two-disc version, but a game is a game, and Gamecube games don’t come cheap in Europe. I don’t even know where it came from, but it somehow ended up in my hands and no-one else wanted it or claimed ownership of it or even appeared to understand what an awesome game it was, so… *yoink*
I checked the memory card when I got home to see what other saves there were, but there was only Wind Waker… Now if only my Gamecube controller wasn’t broken. Time to get out that soldering iron again…

Eventually Mr McW got Chloé to make a decision, so she went down to Mr Jenning’s office and had her timetable changed. That was an ordeal.

Oh, *Anime* the latest episode of Bleach was AMAZING. I don’t care if it’s filler, they had hollow Ichigo fighting the evil guy (Muramasa) inside Ichigo’s soul, and then suddenly HI is getting beaten by evil powers… Meanwhile, Renji is fighting his own materialised Zanpakutou but is getting his ass handed to him ’cause he doesn’t really want to accidentally destroy his sword…
Then in the last few minutes, Ichigo jumps out in front of Muramasa and is all like ‘You can’t hurt him, he may be a hollow but he’s part of me!’ and at the same time Renji is all like ‘It doesn’t matter that you think I’m weak because the only thing that matters is getting stronger!’ and then Ichigo goes ‘I need all the parts of myself, and if I need to defeat you to get back Zangetsu, then so be it!’ and then Renji is all like ‘I’m gonna kick your ass’ and Zabimaru goes ‘No way, your sword has no power without us inhabiting it’ and then Renji goes ‘HOWL! ZABIMARU!’ and it transforms and then materialised Zabimaru is all like ‘OMG WTF NO WAY!’ and then Ichigo runs towards Muramasa and then it’s the end of the episode. Ben lets out a fangirl squeal. *Anime*

This was meant to be a short entry, but that didn’t really work out, did it?

It’s called the “millefiori” (“a thousand flowers”) dish, and it’s “a miracle to have survived,” according to archaeologists in London.

Dating from the 2nd or 3rd century AD, and acquired by a citizen of the ancient Roman outpost of Londinium, it is made of hundreds of mosaic tiles shaped like petals, blue with white bordering. And nothing like it has ever been found intact in the Western Roman Empire.

The artifact was found 2.5 to 3 meters (yards) down at a sprawling ancient cemetery in Aldgate, east London, just beyond the old city walls. Romans were required by law to bury their dead outside the city gates.

It formed part of a cache of grave goods found close to a wooden container holding the ashes of a probably wealthy Roman citizen of Londinium.

Other artifacts recovered with the bowl included ceramic pottery and glass flasks which once contained perfumed oil used to anoint the body.

<Read more here>

Or The Scandal of the Strings

Here is your completely random and amusing historical tidbit for today. The topic is that warrior haven of Sparta and its take on music during the 7th century before Christ. From Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization, Vol. 2: The Life of Greece (Simon & Schuster 1966):

In that dim past before Lycurgus came, Sparta was a Greek city like the rest, and blossomed out in song and art as it would never do after him. Music above all was popular there, and rivaled man’s antiquity; for as far back as we can delve we find the Greeks singing. In Sparta, so frequently at war, music took a martial turn – the strong and simple “Doric mode”; and not only were other styles discouraged, but any deviation from this Doric style was punishable by law. Even Terpander, though he had quelled a sedition by his songs, was fined by the ephors, and his lyre nailed mute to the wall, because to suit his voice, he had dared to add another string to the instrument; and in a later generation Timotheus, who had expanded Terpander’s seven strings to eleven, was not allowed to compete at Sparta until the ephors had removed from his lyre the scandalously extra strings.

As humorous as the scandal of the strings is to us 21st century types, it seems that Sparta was a very musical city, even if that music served national (i.e. milataristic) purpose. I don’t know about you, but I find this highly fascinating! Durant continues:

Sparta, like England, had great composers when she imported them. Towards 670 [B.C.], supposedly at the behest of the Delphi oracle, Terpander was brought in from Lesbos to prepare a contest in choral sining at the festival of the Carneia. Likewise, Thaletas was summoned from Crete about 620; and soon after came Tyrtaeus, Alcman, and Polymnestus. Their labors went mostly to composing patriotic music and training choruses to sing it. Music was seldom taught to individual Spartans; as in revolutionary Russia, the communal spirit was so strong that music took a corporate form, and group competed with group in magnificent festivals of song and dance. Such choral singing gave the Spartans another opportunity for discipline and mass formations, for every voice was subject to the leader. At the feast of the Hyacinthia King Agesilaus sang obediently in the place and time assigned to him by the choral master; and at the festival of the Gymnopedia the whole body of Spartans, of every age and sex, joined in massive exercises of harmonious dance and antistrophal song. Such occasions must have provided a powerful stimulus and outlet to the patriotic sentiment.

Something leads me to believe that sooner or later, someone is going to want to see my footnotes (and this a blog, mind you!), so I’ve posted the entire text (with citations) that I use in the film, here below:

Text of the Michelangelo Code as read in the December 1, 2006 YouTube posting

We were in Rome back in August, and went to the Vatican, and made the long snaking route through the museum to the Sistine Chapel. So we’re looking up at the ceiling, and I’m listening to the audioguide: this is God separating light from darkness, and this is God creating the Sun and the Moon…Creating the Sun and the Moon. And then I’m looking around at the rest of the ceiling. [ignudi] that’s right, Michelangelo was supposed to be Gay. In fact, he’s really gay. In fact…I don’t know if you’ve been to the Vatican Museum, but it’s basically some rooms by Raphael, the Sistine Chapel, and then acres of naked Classical sculpture. And I’m like, yeah, those Classicals they were kinda gay too. And, you know, the one actually inspired the other. The Popes started the cult of digging up statuary from antiquity, and basically began art collecting in its modern sense. And it was this cult for all things classical that fueled the Renaissances obsession with the human body. So I’m thinking…if the elite of Greece and Rome were gay, and Michelangelo was gay, then where were all the gay men in the intervening 1200 years. I mean where did all the gay men go when the Classical world collapsed?

So this essay is only gonna make sense if you believe people are genetically born gay. If you don’t believe in the gay gene, but instead think that homosexuality is sinful behavior brought on by bad-upbringing, then you’re probably gonna think this is all a bunch of nonsense. My personal theory is that a tendency to homosexuality began appearing in the new urban societies of the Mediterranean in the first millennium BC. It may possibly have been a response the to no longer pressing need for population growth, since these city states were already densely populated. I thought that was a really neat theory, but then I found out that Aristotle had postulated something pretty much the same.[1] Now the important thing to remember about Hellenic civilization is not that they created the foundations of western civilization, and literature, theatre, philosophy, they figured out that a²+b²=c² and that if you made a column a little bit fat that it looked straight…that they did all this…oh and they happened to be gay…THEY DID THIS BECAUSE THEY WERE GAY! The Greek miracle was produced by 45,000 men over 6 generations in a handful of city-states.[2] And how did it happen?: Pederasty. Sexual relations between man and adolescent. These men weren’t just having sexual relations with these lads, they were also teaching them all of the inherited wisdom and knowledge from ancient civilization…at a time before formal education.

I don’t want to say anything too inflammatory, but Classical civilization (the Greeks and the Romans) was essentially a highly cultured gay elite supported on a superstructure of millions of enslaved heterosexuals, whose job was to produce and reproduce. And for its first two centuries Christianity was in large part a liberation movement for the heterosexual slaves.

Now the question I asked at the beginning seems rather pertinent because right now the Vatican is grappling with the “problem” homosexual priests. And let me stress before I begin, that my agenda is not pro or anti-gay, nor is it pro- or anti-catholic. My only agenda is try to determine what happened, and to understand it for its full complexity.

In 2005 the Vatican issued a new set of guidelines for seminarians studying to be priests.

• The Catechism distinguishes between homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies.
• while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called “gay culture”.
• Different, however, would be the case in which one were dealing with homosexual tendencies that were only the expression of a transitory problem – for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded. Nevertheless, such tendencies must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate.[3]

Well I’ve got news for the Vatican…I call it the Michelangelo Code…and you know what, the code is this simple: [Celibate = Gay]. Or perhaps I ought better to rephrase that. As an answer the question I asked earlier, about where all the gay men went with the collapsed of the Classical World…well, I believe they hid in the clergy of the Catholic Church. In order to explain my theory, I’ve made this chart:

If you’re gonna be priest, you can be…

Now the ideal candidates are over here.

Problem is that these guys, very often end up over here,

and leave the priesthood.

Such is the case with Father Al who taught us church history in Sophomore year. He ran off with our English teacher, Ms. W., who he later married as his wife. Or my uncle Ronny who spent 7 years as a monk in a Trappist monastery speaking to nobody, then he decided to take a little break from the cloistered life, met an ex-nun named Betty, and moved to Denver and became flaming atheist, then a Unitarian Universalist, then Shaklee Salesman, then an Armenian Orthodox, he liked the chanting.

My theory is that through much of it’s history, the clergy of the catholic church, has been stocked largely from over here.

The concept of celibacy having a kind of holiness, dates from before Christianity, and I do not propose that this was originally a conscious conspiracy on the part of late classic gay elite. Rather it would one of history’s great unintended consequences. A regime of celibacy generation after generation succeeds in recruiting young men who consider a life without female copulation perfectly enjoyable, and once they reach the seminary or the monastery, only then do they realize their attraction to men. This does not mean that there were not also millions of those who were of these categories.

But I believe that time and again the institutions of the church would fall under the sway of this kind of clergy.

This does not mean that I am saying that because these men were gay, they were not also holy. I’m not saying that they didn’t generously care for the laity and give them comfort in their lives. And most importantly, I am not saying that these men did not provide the people with what to them was the most accurate description of divinity possible. All I’m saying is that I think a majority of them were gay. Whether here

or here.

And it does not mean that many of them were not here

Precisely because they saw their homosexuality as sinful, and, at great effort and will, resisted that sin. I call my theory the Michelangelo Code, because it is Michelangelo who outs the clergy. He’s doing so because he represents a new model for Gay men. He shows them a new route. They no longer have to be priests…they can be…get this…artists.

Michelangelo was part of a large migration of Florentine masters brought to the court of the Vatican. Another thing they brought with them was a secular gay lifestyle.[4] From the 14th Century on, Florence had been a center for the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, as well as the applied arts^: goldsmiths, gilders, framers, printers, jewelers, and cabinetmakers all of them organized on the guild method with large numbers of artistically-oriented young apprentices and journeymen inhabiting close quarters. And… surprise, surprise, you had a serious outbreak of gay culture. Situation was so bad in the 1430s that the city opened free brothels (brothels with women prostitutes) to try to counteract the persistent plague of sodomites.[5]

Here’s how I read what Michelangelo is saying. [Creation of Adam] This…to me…is Pederasty: Older man passing love and knowledge to the younger man. This describes the origin of Classical civilization. [Expulsion from the Garden] Eve here represents the burden of the heterosexual lifestyle: child-rearing, food producing. Here is Noah preparing a sacrifice, this is the old Hellenistic Religious millieu. The Flood – the destruction of the Classical World, and gay men are fleeing to the Ark of the Catholic Church. And here we have the drunkenness of Noah. His sons mock at him because he is naked and drunk. The liberties of antiquity are at an end and we are under the new asceticism of the Christian Regime.

I focus on the early 16^th Century because its one of those moments when the lid pops off history and you a chance to see events from multiple angles. Interesting to note…1510…same time that Michelangelo is painting the Sistine Chapel…who else is Rome? Martin Luther. Luther was an Augustinian Monk sent to Rome on official business. He was to negotiate with the future head of Augistians in Rome, regarding disputes between the German Branch of the Augustians and Roman headquarters. The man he met there was Giles of Viterbo.[6] This humanist scholar who advised on the ideological layout for the Sistine Chapel.[7] I believe he probably proudly showed of the creation to Luther, but what caught Luther’s attention was these guys. So here’s my second bombastic statement of the evening: I think one of the reasons Martin Luther split from the Church was because the clergy as superfluous and gay. You see, all the major heresies from 11th Century on, attack in some way on the privilege of the celibate/homosexual priest class. The Cathars, the Albigensians, the Lollards, the Hussites, the Waldensians, and finally the Reformation itself. In each case the heresy posits the idea that there be no formal priest class, but rather married heterosexual preachers coming from the laity. Martin Luther was simply thinking, thank you very much you gay/celibate priests, but we straight Germans can read our own bible and practice Christianity for ourselves. And in that he was following a line of thought developed by the Jan Hus and the Hussites in Bohemia, and Jan Hus was getting many of his ideas from John Wycliff, a 14th century English theologian who shared Luther’s contempt for the elitist religious orders and promoted reading the bible in the vernacular. He made the first translation in to English. His followers were lay preachers, who often couldn’t read Latin, and were called Lollards. In 1395 the movement represented a growing challenge to Papal authority and in that year, they presented their 12 Conclusions of the Lollards to the English Parliament. Now, this is their 3^rd Conclusion on Clerical Celibacy:

The Third Conclusion, sorrowful to hear, is: That the law of continence [that is celibacy] annexed to priesthood, that in prejudice of women was first ordained, induces sodomy in Holy Church.[8]

They’re saying it in plain words. The Lollards knew it in 1395. I believe Martin Luther knew it. I definitely think John Calvin knew it when he wrote in Institutes of the Christian Religion: Book 4, Chapter 12 Section 23.

Of the celibacy of priests…In one thing they are more than rigid and inexorable, – in not permitting priests to marry. trusting to their vile celibacy, they have become callous to all kinds of iniquity. The prohibition, however, clearly shows how pestiferous all traditions are, since this one has not only deprived the Church of fit and honest pastors, but has introduced a fearful sink of iniquity, and plunged many souls into the gulf of despair.[9]

To me, it is clear that Calvin refers to the sin that shall not be named.

So what was the Papacy like in the Renaissance? Well according to Noel I. Garde, in Jonathan to Gide: The Homosexual In History the following renaissance popes were gay: Paul II (r. 1464-1471), Sixtus IV (r. 1471-1484), Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503), Julius II (r. 1503-1513) and Leo X (r. 1513-1521), Julius III (r. 1550-1555).[10] Oh and if you think that the non-Gay clergy didn’t know what was going on, then consider Adrian VI (r. 1522-23), the short lived exception ruling less than a year. He like, the current pope was northern Germanic, grew up in Utrecht, and he knew exactly what he was up against. He cancelled most of the artistic projects of the period, and spat out a burst of profanity upon looking at Leo X’s beloved Laccoon.[11] He would not celebrate mass in the Sistine Chapel, because it was “a bathhouse full of nudes.”[12] Well, he lasted only one year before he was either poisoned, or succumbed the Roman malaria.[13] The subsequent Pope, Clement VII (r. 1523 to 1534), was more of the previous vein, interested in secular pursuits and artistic production. The Goldsmith Cellini tells us that Clement had a confidant, Cavalierno, who, though no more than a simple horsegroom, “had served faithfully, and the Pope had embraced him, enriched him, and confided in him as oneself.”[14] Or more bluntly, in 1527, a street preacher named Brandano, interrupted Clement during the Holy Thursday blessing from the balcony of St. Peters, shouting: “Bastard Sodomite, because of your sins Rome will be destroyed.”[15] And, well, in fact, Rome would very nearly be destroyed later that year when Lutheran German mercenaries in the emperor’s army sacked the city, and killed nearly half its inhabitants, plundered its artworks, smashed its relics, and defiled its churches. It brought an end to the glorious milieu of early 16^th Century Rome, the school of Raphael dispersed or killed. Michelangelo fled back to Florence.

I bring up this period of the early 16^th Century because it shares so much with our own. For the first time since Adrian VI, the short-lived reformer, we have again a German Pope, Benedect XVI, and also one who intends to de-gayify the clergy. Now any attempt to study gay men in the clergy from a historical perspective obviously involves the very subjective tool of archaeological gaydar. And the problem is no less complicated by the fact that few of these men left us written records of their feelings on the subject of their sexual orientation and activity. About the best we can do very accurately is consider is our present, and the very recent past. If the Vatican’s own inquiry in to the state of Seminaries, wasn’t enough of an alarm bell, I turn to the recent year 2000 publication of Fr. Donald Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood. Cozzens argues that American Seminaries were attracting larger and larger numbers of gay students and that “should our seminaries become significantly gay, and many seasoned observers find them to be precisely that, the priesthood of the twenty-first century will likely be perceived as a predominantly gay profession.”[16] I agree with Fr. Cozzens assessment of the present, but I think he’s mistaken in thinking this is a new phenomenon. I believe it’s always been this way, since the 4^th Century.

Now there are some interesting studies that give us insight into the recent past, as well. In 1966, The School of Nursing of the Saint Vincent’s Hospital in NY performed psychological tests on candidates for the priesthood, and found that:

Perhaps the most troublesome and most frequent appearing sociopathic features or disturbances in assessment work concern the high incidence of effeminancy, heterosexual retardation, psychosexual immaturity, deviations or potential deviations of the homosexual type…. A recent study of 107 male candidates, for example, shows that 8% of these were sexually deviant, whereas 70% were described as psychosexually immature, exhibiting traits of heterosexual retardation, confusion concerning sexual role, fear of sexuality, effeminacy, and potential homosexual dispostions.[17]

According to the way I read those findings, that’s 78%.

I also refer to research by an ex-priest, Michal Maher, who does a study of the rules governing seminarians at the Saint Louis Catholic Seminary in the 1950s. They contained all kinds of curiosities: “Particular Friendships” were banned; Seminarians were never allowed to see each other nude, not even in the showers; Seminarians were not allowed to visit one another in each other’s rooms, except with special permission; and then the door had to stay open; and they were never allowed to sit on one another’s bed. In comparison, the nearby, equally all-male, Lutheran Concordia Seminary had none of these rules. Interestingly, Maher interviews a more recent graduate of St. Louis Seminary, Fr Bob, who attended in the 1980s, when most of these rules no longer existed, and homosexual activity among the students was wide-spread.[18]

In fact a rule prohibiting something is sometimes a historian’s best indication of a social trend. St. Benedict, wrote in his Rule in the 6^th Century that: ” All monks are to sleep in separate beds….If possible, they should sleep in one room…Let a candle burn throughout the night. They will sleep in their robes.” He also forbid close friendships among the brothers.[19]

Let me stress that in my research, I’ve been most often assisted by the writings and webpages of conservative traditionalist Catholics. I’ve also been expecting sooner or later that Dan Brown moment, when someone says that I’ve stolen their idea.[20] Within academia, I would say that is Mark D. Jordan, who published Silence of Sodom in 2002. Outside the academic world, I would say the person who’s already close to my own conclusion is Randy Engel, author of the self-published, Rite of Sodomy, Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church.[21] In the book, she describes the recurring infestation of homosexuality within the church, and the unwillingness of the hierarchy to do much about it. And it was she who alerted me to the single best source of all, which St. Peter Damian, who in the 11^th century, wrote a long letter to Pope Leo IX, called the Book of Gomorrah, describing the widespread infestation of homosexuality among the clergy. He described in great detail the variants of the vice with precise categorization from masturbation to sodomy. He especially fiercely denounces those bishops who “commit these absolutely damnable acts with their spiritual sons”.[22]

Who can expect the flock to prosper when its shepherd has sunk so deep into the bowels of the devil … Who will make a mistress of a cleric, or a woman of a man? … Who, by his lust, will consign a son whom he spiritually begotten for God to slavery under the iron law of Satanic tyranny.[23]

Curiously, here was Leo IX’s response:

In light of divine mercy, the Holy Father commands, without contradiction, that those who, of their own free will, have practiced solitary or mutual masturbation or defiled themselves by interfemoral coitus, but who have not done so for any length of time, nor with many others, shall retain their status, after having “curbed their desires” and “atoned for their infamous deeds with proper repentance.”[24]

Peter Damian’s work caused significant outrage among the church hierarchy, and eventually, Damian had to protest again to the Pope that nothing had been done about the scandal.

Often the reason I am finding my best information from conservative traditionalist webpages is because, like Mrs. Engel, they frantically trying to expose homosexuality among the clergy, and are frustrated because little is done to punish the sinners. For example Roman Catholic Faithful posted full screenshots from the St. Sebastian’s Angels webpage, a chat room for gay priests. I added the black bars. And then they were appalled that the priests they had caught red-handed continued to hold their positions.[25]

Finally, Fr. Robert Hoatson wrote a long letter to the Renew America website (this website belongs to the right-wing pundit Alan Keyes) and here’s what Fr. Hoatson say:

This is what happens in a “celibate-challenged” culture. Those who are living the vows are anathema, while the sexual actors are promoted to higher offices. Sex is open, available, and even recommended in many clerical circles today. Priests couple off now and live “married” sexual lives in vacation houses they purchase together or in rectories they share together.[26]

He goes on to say:

Why do bishops look the other way, deny, and cover-up for sexual activities of priests? The answer is simple: they are violators of celibacy themselves. And, very often they have reached their positions because they “slept around” or compromised their promise to live a celibate life. Violators recommend other violators for positions of leadership, and less than honest men (and women) join the hierarchy and further taint the organization.[27]

So if this is our image of the present and the recent past, then the only thing I’m really adding my theory is the notion that this is not a new phenomenon. It’s been this way for 17 centuries: The straight guys have been fighting a losing battle with the gay guys for control of the church. St. Peter Damian describes a similar situation in the 11^th Century. Why should we assume that the intervening centuries were different?

I do stress this is a theory, it’s a hunch, but I can tell you that the more I look at the question, it is so obvious to me. Right about now Benedict should be receiving the results from his investigations of American seminaries that was begun in 2005. We have heard nothing of the results from the inquiry, but my own suspicion is that I think his Holiness and I are, in some ways, on the same page on this subject. He realizes that if you take the gay priests out of the church…you may not have much of a church left.

[6] Böhmer, Heinrich. Luthers Romfahrt. Leipzig. A. Deichertsche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Werner Scholl, 1914. pp. 36-76. This is the most of comprehensive attempt to piece together Luther’s formative experience in Rome in 1510. Böhmer speculates on the likely meeting with Giles (also referred to as Egidio da Viterbo and Egidio Canistro).

[7] Gordon Dotson, Esther. “An Augustinian Interpretation of Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling.” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 61. No. 3 (Sept. 1979) p. 405.

[8] The full 3^rd conclusion reads: “The Third Conclusion, sorrowful to hear, is: That the law of continence annexed to priesthood, that in prejudice of women was first ordained, induces sodomy in Holy Church; but we excuse us by the Bible, for the suspect decree that says we should not name it. Reason and experience prove this conclusion. For delicious meats and drinks of men of Holy Church will have needful purgation or worse. Experience for the privy assay of such men is that they like not women. The corollary of this conclusion is that the private religions, beginners of this sin, were most worthy to be annulled but God, for his might, of privy sin send open vengeance.” The full 12 conclusions are available here.

[9] Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion: Book 4, Chapter 12 Section 23.

[10] Garde, Noel I., Jonathan to Gide: The Homosexual in History. New York: Vantage Press, 1964. As a source, Garde’s work has achieved wide-spread dissemination on the internet, but it also shows the pitfalls of Archaeological Gaydar as many of his claims can be disputed.

[11] This event was portrayed in Chastel, André. The Sack of Rome, 1527. Bollingen Series XXXV. 26. Princeton: Princeton University Press. and Chastel attributes it to: P. Giovio, De Vita Hadriani VI in Vitarum illustrium aliquot virorum libri X, vol. 2, Basel, 1577, p. 128

[12] Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite de’ piú eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori (1568). Ed. G. Milanesi. Florence, 1878-85; reprinted 1906. 5:240-41.

[13] “Das Ende Adrian VI (2. Marz 1459-14. September 1523) ein medizinische-historischer Versuch.” Medizinische Monatsschrift. 1959 May. Describes the potential causes of Adrian VI’s death.

[14] Cellini, Benvuto La Vita da lui medesimo scritta (ca. 1559-1562). Ed. G. D. Bonino, Turin, 1973. Book I. Chapter 7.

[15] The passage on Brandamo’s outburst, I take again from Chastel’s The Sack of Rome, 1527. Chastel’s note is as follows: Pastor, Histoire des papes, 9:288ff. Brandano’s true name was Bartolomeo Carosi. There is an unpublished biography by Camillo Turci: see D Orano, Marcello Alberini, p. 246, n. 2; G. B. Pecci, La Brandaneide, Lucca 1757; P. Picca, “Il Sacco di Roma,” pp. 234ff.

[16] Fr. Donald B. Cozzens. The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest’s Crisis of Soul. Liturgical Press, 2000. p. 103

[17] W. J. Coville, “Basic Issues in the Development and Administration of a Psychological Assessment Program for the Religious Life,” In Coville, W. J., D’Arcy, P. F., McCarthy, T. N. & Rooney, J. J. (eds.) Assessment of Candidates for the Religious Life: Basic Psychological Issues and Procedures, (Washington, D. C.: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 1968). For this source, I am also grateful to Michael J. Maher (see ensuing footnote).

[18] Michael J. Maher. “Openly Addressing the Reality: Homosexuality and Catholic Seminary Policies.“ Religion & Education, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall 2002) Copyright © 2002 by the University of Northern Iowa.

[19] I draw the translations of Benedict from J. Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), 187-188. Boswell is in many ways the pioneer in this field, and again I am grateful to Maher for guiding me to him.

[20] In so far as any academic has approached my conclusions, I point to The Silence of Sodom by Mark D. Jordan, a professor of theology at Emory University.

[21] Engel, Randy. Rite of Sodomy, Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church. New Engel Press, 2006. which can be ordered directly from: http://www.riteofsodomy.com/

[22] Owen J. Blum, O.F.M., Peter Damian, Letters 31-60, part of the Fathers of the Church – Medieval

Continuation series issued by the Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1990. p.15

[23] Ibid. p.15.

[24] Ibid. p. 5.

[25] If you really must see the whole thing, it’s here.

[26] Here’s the full text of Fr. Hoatson’s letter on the Renew America website.

[27] Ibid.

PLEASE CLICK [HERE] FOR THE NEW VERSION

Following the formal, floral flurry of her first full (indigestible) fe(a)stival,
a young Greek girl ~ whirled in the Ancient World ~ feels less than bullish
about a “barbecue” she can’t “relish” whilst ruing the rules of religious rite
to favour the flavour of Vegemite at a panicked Pannychis that’s proven
death, like “life…’s no picnic“.

You can read about the [BULL SACRIFICE] at the end of the Eleusian Mysteries,
that is the cause of this kid’s queasiness by clicking the highlighted hyperlink
to visit Wikipedia’s [FREE ENTRY] “entry”.

I like the vocal. The “Uncanny Valley” visuals
were the best I could manage at the time.

You could shut your <I+I> , it rather <looks> like <”eye”> did.

Animal Rites
(Pensively penned : 11:04:28 – 16th May 1994)

We were happy
Happy dancing
And the flowers in our hair smelt like the summer should
And the music had a melody before the evening came
And betrothed their scent to incense
Letting*
The tabor take our steps

Cold, cold marble
Sculpted into silence
Sanctified
Paler platter for a smearing and a knowledge
Within hopeful visions
That deter the night
Yet stir the Shades

And we were quiet
Quiet watching
The solemn palms of preparation
Moistly glisten
Dionysus‘ roses drowning for the
Fire
Barley water, a reflex in sharp reflection

And we had altered
Altared faces
And the ashen garlands squealed and spat their colours out
And the lyre called us louder, wilder as its strings were scorched
Like ceremonial sunsets
Return
Before the evening came

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~ NOTES ADDED OCTOBER 2008 ~

In a move forward from the wonky-mouth (and incorrect dentition) of
Mountain Mouton the Singing Sheep,
this computerised character’s teeth are reasonably-angled.

The intensity of her stare is a little over-cooked, despite her obvious
(odious ? Audius ?) tempered-distress…and she is MUCH too old.
I envisaged a girl <aged between eight and twelve years> and NOT
a grown woman who has borrowed a wig from Andie MacDowell.

I made the base-picture for this speaker’s face using a free tool from
LionHead Studios called StarMaker. The aforementioned handy
utility armed me with a fully-frontally posed portrait ensuring the
easiest and most successful feature-fitting within Reallusion’s Crazy
Talk 4 lip-synching software. It also provided a non-photo-realistic
cartoony quality to the character that, I think, ironically, makes it seem
less eerily unnatural than the result from an un-edited snapshot would
have been.

I had considered adapting this –>

To ~Not Look So Sad~ She Needs to Raise *UR...CHIN*

StarMaker only allows for the generation of Adults. I would really
like to get access to a tool that lets you make ANIMAL heads so that
you can create characters that don’t get IN THE WAY of their words.

I think the latest version of iClone (3) – which I have not trialled yet
as the Forums suggest it is SERIOUSLY plagued with bugs – has tools for
stretching non-human skulls. However, I believe the bias is for aliens
and the demonic and I would prefer my negativity to not dip lower
than the melancholic.

~ Let HAPPINESS harrass horror ~

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