Good news about cancer

Even if one’s family tree is not, like mine, riddled with cancer deaths, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer are major killers in the developed world.  Several pieces of good news on this front feel particularly cheering. 

First, researchers have discovered that women whose breast cancer is discovered and treated at an early stage have the same life expectancy as women who have never had the disease at all.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7447935.stm  I grew up believing that cancer was terminal 99.9% of the time.  The question was just how much time one had left to get one’s affairs in order.  But cancer isn’t always terminal anymore.

The second blast of good news is even more hopeful.  It looks as if a healthy lifestyle – nutrition and exercise – actually helps to turn off cancer genes in those carrying them.  So even if one has actually inherited a cancer gene, genetics is not destiny.  We ourselves can still have an impact on what happens to us.

I cannot find the article where I read this precious information but it was sometime in the last week.   I will chase it down and so anyone who wants to rknow more on this finding knows where to go.

“Elizabeth”

There was a mega-concert in Hyde Park, London, last night to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday.  It is impossible, I think, to exaggerate the respect and honour given to him for his statemanlike magnanimity and the scope of his forgiveness after being held in prison for more than twenty years for refusing to give up his fight against aparteid in South Africa.  He is the only person in the world known to address the present Queen of England as “Elizabeth.”

Although when Queen Elizabeth was visiting the States several years ago, there was a marvellous photo of a Black woman welcoming “Elizabeth” into her home in Baltimore with a huge hug.  If I recall correctly, she said “welcome to my house, Queen.”  This may not sound like a big deal, but I think the correct protocol is to address the Queen as “madam,” and certainly forbids even shaking hands with her unless she offers her hand first.  Most women practice learning to curtsy if they know they are going to meet the Queen, and nobody ever presumes to hug her.  The prime minister of Australia once called a diplomatic furore for putting his hand on her back to guide her in the right direction.  So the privilege of foregoing these pretty rigidly enforced rules of etiquette is no small thing.

Meanwhile, the knighthood awarded to Mugabe some years ago has been withdrawn, and Mandela himself spoke out against the outrage that is occurring today in Zimbabwe.  I’m not sure the situation in Zimbabwe is getting a lot of coverage in the US press, but it is the leading story in the news here day after day.  It is a terrible, terribly heartbreaking story of torture and murder of anyone not supporting Mugabe.  The irony is that he was the original freedom fighter who finally threw out white rule in what was then called Rhodesia.  And now it is he who is the dictator. 

The economics of clerical celibacy

After I expressed my surprise at the number of hits received by my post on clerical celibacy, a friend wrote suggesting I read Garry Wills’ Papal Sins.  (http://www.amazon.com/Papal-Sin-Structures-Garry-Wills/dp/0385494114).  Wills argues that clerical celibacy was strictly imposed in order to protect Church property which was rapidly being disseminated among children of the clergy.  This distribution was not only impoversishing the Church, but also diluted her political and economic power.

I would like to see the Catholic Church permit married priests, but do not want to distort the argument with erroneous historical arguments.  Garry Wills is a greatly respected Catholic writer, however, so I have made an effort to fill in my scant knowledge of the history of Catholic celibacy before jumping on his band wagon.

I’ve reached the conclusion that Wills makes a valid point, and that the plethora of benefices going to children of the clergy along with widespread clerical corruption stiffened the resolve of the hierarchy toward imposing and enforcing the consequences of celibacy on the clergy.  However, a special regard for priestly celibacy goes as far back as St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians.  Over the centuries, the imposition of clerical celibacy has varied both in terms of law and of observance, but it was not a new idea thought up during the Middle Ages when the Catholic Church was the richest landowner in Europe.  For anyone interested, what seems to me a refreshingly balanced view on the history of celibacy in the Church is presented in the Catholic Encyclopaedia on line (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03481a.htm ).

As I said before, I myself do not think clerical celibacy is serving the Church and the community well today.  But I have little doubt that there have been thousands of dedicated men who have entered the priesthood over the centuries and who remained celibate at great personal sacrifice motivated by love of God.  For them it was not a cynical economic or political ploy.

That doesn’t change my view, though, that for many priests today, celibacy allows them to remain coddled in a cocoon of immaturity.

Eating my way out of osteoporosis

I feel like a member of a small group of older women – and some men – who are highly sceptical about taking a biphosphonate like Fosamax to deal with ostopenia, or the more severe form of bone-density loss called osteoporosis.  I find it encouraging to read your comments, and, since this is such an important part of what I consider my duty to try to grow old responsibly, am doing a bi-annual review of my current state of affairs.

I went on a hunt for alkaline foods, because I often find it difficult to maintain the recommended 4-1 ratio of alkaline to acid foods.  I was delighted to discover that figs, soy beans, lima beans, apricots, and turnip & beet tops all are even more alkaline than raisins.  So I’ve added dried figs and apricots to my permanent kitchen supplies, and have switched to soya milk.  Almonds and brazil nuts are alkaline so I have them instead of most other nuts which are acidifying.  There are lots of lists of alkaline/acid foods on the internet, so I google a site occasionally to keep my motivation up.

I will also confess that I find the discipline of exercising every day takes some effort.  For which read:  there are probably an average two days a week when I don’t do anything more serious than take a 15 minute walk.  I feel so very much better when I exercise though.  It gives me more energy, and I feel about ten years younger. 

I still have to concentrate to stand up straight when I’m walking around.  I look in the mirror to make sure my shoulders are back and my butt in, but if I’m not actually looking in a mirror, I feel almost as if I’m bent backward by about 90 degrees when I’m actually only just upright.

I don’t find taking calcium and other supplements three times a day particularly difficult.  But I think there are an awful lot of people who aren’t as organized as I am.  I rarely miss more than one scheduled supplement a week.

Although I’d give myself a B+, all in all, I find keeping up the regime isn’t always easy.  My own preferences, and the needs and preferences of family and friends sometimes get in the way.  And since osteoporosis is painless until one fractures a bone, I am sometimes tempted simply to ignore the problem altogether and convince myself it isn’t there anymore.

But then I think of my GP looking at me after I’ve fractured a bone and saying “I told you you should be taking Fosamax.”  And I head for the raisins on my way to an exercise session.  Whatever else, I’m going to be able to say “I did it my way.”

Jello wrestling

In the last few days, I have been learning a little more about the historical roots of clerical celibacy.  But I would like to check out the facts a little more thoroughly before I sally forth further in public on this issue. 

In the meantime, a little light relief in the midst of the serious business of figuring out what life is about.

I have just been introduced to one of the historic year-end events at Cambridge University here in England.  It is Jello Wrestling.  Two women students dressed in bikinis wrestle each other in a vat of strawberry jello.  Other students pay to watch, and at the end of the fight, the winner is awarded £250 (about $500).

Unfortunately, this year the event got out of hand, and the loser was so incensed that she began to sock the winner and then everyone else who tried to restrain here.  Somewhere in the midst of the melee, she also acquired a bottle of wine which helped stoke her energy, and which she used even when the police eventually arrived.  She was taken to the station, and when she was released said she had no comment.

The university authorities, however, have decreed that this historic event has taken place for the last time. 

I guess I shall never see a jello wrestling contest then.  Somehow, the loss seems bearable.

Power and celibacy

As I wrote yesterday, I’m surprised at the intense interest my post two days ago on clerical celibacy has generated.  If the subject had been women priests or homosexuality, it would not have been quite so unexpected.

As it is, I remain surprised.  Because although I think the Roman Catholic Church would benefit from allowing priests to choose to marry if they wished, I do not think it would transform the world.  Priests might be a little more mature, appreciate a little more fully the challenges of marriage and raising a family, be a little more humble.  And more young people might consider the priesthood today.  But if human frailty could be cured by marriage alone, the world would be in a much better state than it is.  Married clergy are not unknown, and they do not stand out as unparalled paragons of virtue compared to celibate clergy.

If I were really to put my finger on it, I would say celibacy isn’t the root of the problem, but power.  “Power corrupts,” said Toynbee, “and total power corrupts totally.”  That’s not just true of religious institutions.  It’s true of governments and companies and families and communities.  Power is a horribly horribly dangerous thing to possess.  Like radioactive waste, it eats away at almost everyone who touches it.

On the other hand, if we had women priests in the Roman Catholic Church…

No, I don’t think I’ll get into that today.  Though for the record, I can’t for the life of me see what theological reason there is against it.  And I do think it would be a good idea. 

My guidelines for sex in a free world

To my considerable surprise, yesterday’s post in which I presented my current thoughts on clerical celibacy got twice as many hits as any other post in this blog ever got on a single day.  To tell the truth, I had no idea it was such a hot topic.

I myself have been thinking about the guidelines for sexual relationships in the modern world, and what I would suggest to any one still young enough for it to be relevant.  At the age of 68, it is no longer a question of burning personal urgency for me, but as I listen to young people today, I’m not sure that many of them have any clearer guidelines than I did once I abandoned the simple Catholic rubic of “No sex except with one’s marital partner and then only after marriage.” 

Even enlightened parental guidance so often seems to include little more than “use an effective contraceptive until you are ready to have a baby. “  Nor does “if I want to have sex with someone, why not?”, strike me as sufficient.

So what would I say in the completely unlikely event that I were asked?  I would say -

• Only have sex with someone you want to have sex with.  Don’t have sex to avoid disapproval, to be one of the crowd, to be able to say you’ve done it, or in the hopes of pleasing someone so they will want to go out with you again.  In the end, all those reasons are a terrible turn off.  Sex won’t be much fun, and it is not a very good foundation for a relationship.
• It is almost impossible to believe when one is in the throes of mad, wild, passionate sexual attraction, but the passion doesn’t last unabated.  An enduring relationship has to have more than passion.  Look for kindness, respect, consideration.  Look for someone who enjoys talking as well as listening to you.  Look for someone whose most important values you agree with.  Look for someone who treats others the way you yourself want to be treated.
• For heavens sake, use an effective contraceptive until you are ready to be a parent.  Don’t get pregant or get someone else pregant out of carelessness.  Abortions are psychologically more difficult for many people than they expect them to be, and they often seem to cause subsequent babies to be born prematurely.  So abortion is not, in my opinion, anything like the preferred option as an effective birth control method.
• I am a great believer in marriage, and research shows that people who are married stay together longer on average than people who are just living together.  I am, however, also a great believer in living together before getting married.  It’s a lot easier to get out of relationship that isn’t working if you’re not married.
• Children without fathers are not necessarily doomed.  However, I think to deliberately deprive a child of a loving father is like depriving them of two legs.  I think if you want to have children, under most circumstances the most loving thing to do is to have them in the context of a stable, mature, and loving relationship which will provide children with two parents.
• I don’t think extra-marital sex is always a betrayal, or always has a negative effect on one’s primary relationship.  But it seems to me that it is a contradiction in terms to be a feminist, to believe in women’s equality, and at the same time to think that their husbands are fair game.  So I don’t think, under most circumstances, it’s all right to sleep with somebody else’s spouse.  Vice versa, for men.
• I would also say that I have found that monogamy has a lot of unexpected benefits.  Neither I or my husband have ever experimented with the alternative, and the occasions when I have thought about doing so have in retrospect been an indication of problems with my primary relationship which I needed to face.  
• I know that an extra-marital affair does not always destroy a relationship, but it has implications for that relationship, whether one’s partner knows about it, merely suspects it, or does not know or care.  I would suggest thinking about it seriously beforehand.  Under rare circumstances it can even help support the marital bond.  But I suspect those occasions are the exception.
• From all my personal experience, from friends I’ve talked to, and from all the research I have read, I have reached the conclusion that sex is probably the most diverse of human activities.  What gives pleasure, and what one needs or wants from ones partner varies immensely.   Some people are strongly monogamous, others not, some strongly heterosexual, some homosexual, some want sex very frequently, some just want affection.  It takes time to find out what one’s own personal preferences are, and discovering those of someone else even more.  Give yourself space to find out your own needs.
• Falling passionately, madly, totally in love with someone can happen in an hour.  I know.  I have been married for more than 35 years to a man I fell in love with at first sight.  But madly, passionately, totally only sometimes is forever, and even when it is, it’s takes a lot of work.  It’s why I believe in living together before getting married. 
• The last thing I would say, I think, is about unrequited or unfulfilled love.  It feels like the most terrible loss in the world to fall totally in love with someone and nonetheless to walk away from the relationship, whether it’s real or only potential.  I know.  I’ve been there too.  But as I look back, I know that in some circumstances, walking away is the most unselfish, courageous, and creative things one might ever do.  One might do it for love of ones spouse or for ones children, or out of respect for others involved.  But don’t see it only as a negative thing:  its cost is great but it may be the only way you can avoid being responsible for an immense amount of devastation and suffering.  And ultimately, out of the great black hole of loss, something new can be born.  The black hole of loss is always there, but it can be a mysterious source of strength. 

Okay, I’ve got that out of my system.  For what it’s worth, which I suspect isn’t much.

Re-assessing celibacy in the Catholic Church

Since the documentary last week about Father Cleary, I have been re-evaluating my thoughts about clerical celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church.  Despite the fact that recent popes have adamantly refused to consider a married clergy, it is worth remembering that even in the RC Church, clerical celibacy did not become a requirement until the 13th century, when it was imposed in an attempt to control wide-spread abuse.  Additionally, it is a practice which has never been introduced by the Orthodox Catholic Church, and a requirement which is not being universally imposed on some converts from among the Anglican clergy who are already married.  So clerical celibacy is not in that circle of doctrinal beliefs like the divinity of Christ, for instance, or the Trinity of God, which Rome believes could not be changed.

The traditional argument in favour of clerical celibacy with which I grew up, and which is still the principle defence used by the Church, is that celibacy frees the priest from the demands of a wife and family, giving him greater freedom to respond without limits to the needs of the Catholic community which he serves.  I pretty much accepted this view as I was growing up, including the corollary that celibacy was a higher calling demanding greater sacrifice than marriage.  This puts the celibate on just a little higher level than the ordinary laity who have succumbed to the more basic needs of human life.

Examining this view in the light of nine years experience as a nun, and thirty-five years of marriage, I humbly suggest that this view of celibacy is a little off the mark.  Marriage is not easier than celibacy.  It is not a series of riotous romps in bed night after night.  On the contrary, living full time with another adult with opinions, evaluations, goals, and traditions different from ones own is one of the most demanding experiences life can offer.  Raising children together makes the task doubly demanding.  In my view, there is no other circumstance in life that puts greater demands on one’s personal egocentrism.  You just cannot make a marriage last without being willing to re-examine and frequently to relinquish many of your pet practices, assumptions, even, on occasion, convictions.

Sex can bring great pleasure.  But it often does not.  The divorce rate makes it clear that sex in itself does not hold a marriage together.  In any case, making a marriage work sometimes is simply impossible.  But even in the most successful marriages, there are days when it seems unachievable at any cost, or at least more difficult than is worth it.  I like being married.  It is one of the best things that I have ever done, and my husband is one of the most wonderful things in my life.  But it has not always been easy, and it is I who have made it difficult as often as my partner, as we each attempt to stretch and grow and reach across that great space that exists between the human consciousness of two separate human beings.

So I think is marriage potentially one of the most maturing and rewarding of all human endeavours.  At the same time, I think celibacy is frequently a dangerous state in which the self-centered egocentrism of childhood remains unchallenged throughout adulthood.  As a result a tremendous number of celibate priests remain immature, cursed with the arrogance that comes with a life-time of never being challenged, lacking the courage that comes when one enters into a close enduring relationship with an equal adult.

I fear this childish arrogance and unexamined self-satisfaction often reaches deep into the  Roman Catholic hierarchy itself.  Many in the hierarchy also strike me as incredibly naive about sexual matters, placing all sexual indiscretions in the same shameful category.  Homosexuality between consenting adults is just as sinful as paedophilia, which is equally as perverted as transvestism or having an affair with a woman, married or not.  An underlying assumption is that these problems occur because some men simply do not have the strength of character and self-control to maintain their vow of celibacy.  Sexual indiscretions have been treated with such cowardice and secrecy and their discovery the source of such shame that serious help for the errant priest to face and deal with his problems has often been effectively unavailable.

Of course, just as marriage is not a fail-safe map for growth and maturity, celibacy is not an inescapable curse of immaturity.  But having lived both life styles, it’s going to take a lot to convince me that celibacy is the higher road.

Thinking it over, I think the Roman Catholic Church would benefit a great deal more from a married clergy than a celibate one. 

Learning to say yes meaning being able to say no

After the whiff during my grade school days of an introduction into the unauthorized sex life of the Catholic clergy, my next wave of revelations came after I left the convent.  Chronologically I was twenty-six, but in terms of sexual awareness, I was still an eighteen-year old raised in a totally Catholic family in the 1940’s and 50’s in midwest America.  I’d even gone to an all-girl boarding high school taught by nuns.  I was released into the New York City of the late 1960’s and 70’s, into the world of civil rights and anti-Vietnam protests, of hippies and flower children and free love.  Academically I flourished, but in terms of understanding the sexual signals I was both sending and receiving, I was completely out of my depth.

I’d revolted against the concept of sex that seemed to permeate any discussion of the topic in my family, which managed at the same to to present it as something shameful and embarrassing while remaining somehow “sacred,” a fiendish turn-off for sexual enjoyment.  But though I’d given up my adherence to the Catholic teaching that sex belonged exclusively within marriage, I was without any anchoring principles to take its place.  I didn’t sit down and think about it, but vaguely assumed that it was fine to sleep with anyone at anytime if the spirit so took me.  There were several problems with this modus vivendi.  The first was that, even when the spirit did not so take me and in the absence of any sexual attraction on my part, I had no skill or confidence about saying no.  I’d been socialized as a good Catholic girl to please, especially to please my father, and by extension to please men.  So I found myself in compromising situations more often than I wanted.

The second thing I did not appreciate at the time was that I was not the only one who was at sea.  I thought everyone else was so terribly sophisticated and experienced about sex, that they knew how the game was played, and were enjoying it all immensely.  I missed the anxiety and pain and rejections that were not solely restricted to me.

After I left the convent, several priests stayed in contact with me.  One evening, Father D invited himself for dinner to the studio apartment where I lived alone.  We shared a bottle of wine and the chicken casserole I’d prepared, and he told me he’d fallen in love with his best friend’s wife and that the night before they’d had sex.  He was still an active priest, and was struggling with his realization that the one reason he would leave the priesthood – to marry this woman – was not on offer.  At what I thought was the end of the evening, I went into the back hall to retrieve his coat.

When I returned, Father D was standing there totally undressed.  “I want to have sex with you,” he said.  “I can’t have Arleen tonight.  Will you be there for me instead?”

I had never given him any signals that I was interested in him – in fact, I found him rather boring and dull.  and I am not the type to relish being a stand-in lover for the unknown unattainable Arleen.  And so I would like to say, dear reader, that I said an emphatic No.  But I didn’t know how to manage saying no without making him angry.  Consequently, I used a much more cowardly technique.  I submitted to his request without pleasure, showing absolutely no emotion and remaining cold and rigid.  When he finished, he put on his clothes and left, and I never saw him again.  Not, I will say, to my regret.

Mostly I’ve tended to blame Father D for taking advantage of me and betraying his commitment as a priest.  But there was another protagonist in this story, and that was me.  I wasn’t raped.  I was simply too lacking in a sense of self to stand up for my own wishes.  But if I found that, having discarded the unyielding Catholic strictures concerning sexual behavior, I was at a loss, there is every reason to think that so were many priests.  They were as naive and ungrounded as I was, and wandered into unsatisfying, unfulfilling relationships the same way I did.

With time, I did find my own set of principles.  With time, I decided that it was my responsibility to say yes and to say no in response of sexual advances.  It was up to me to decide what I wanted and with whom and when.  Father D was not the last priest to make advances to me.  But he was the last time I didn’t say no.

So I did learn something from our unsatisfactory encounter.  I hope that he somehow did too.

A glimpse of the less than the best

If Father Basil was an example to us of the best that a priest could be, we also had a glimpse of the less than best.  When I was about ten, our pastor at Holy Family parish died quite suddenly of a heart attack.  He’d had attacks before – several when he was saying Mass, but nobody knew at the time what was happening.  He had been a colourful pastor, and generally appreciated as dedicated and hard-working.  Once he actually went into the church and removed the life-size stone statue of the Blessed Mother holding the baby Jesus because he said we didn’t love her enough.  But when he died, the nuns all said Father Sammon had been a saint, and we all duly understood his various extreme behaviors in that light. 

That made him a tough act to follow, and there was some coolness toward Father P. who was subsequently appointed by the bishop to be our new pastor.  Within weeks, one of the nuns told her sixth-grade class that Father P. had stormed drunk into the church one evening.  When I reported this at the dinner table that night, my father looked at me and said that I was never, never to repeat that ever again.  I knew there was something wrong.  My father had never before, and never again looked at me like that and told me not to repeat what I’d heard.  My only point of reference was of stories in war-torn Europe when children were asked to keep deadly secrets to themselves.

But there was worse to come.  Within six weeks, Father P. mysteriously disappeared, and Father Archibald was assigned as our second new pastor.  I learned some years later that Father P. not only had a drinking problem, but that altar boys held a special attraction for him which, unfortunately, he did not resist.  My father and Father Basil learned about it, and agreed with the bishop that Father P. should quietly be removed without further scandal.

Looking back at this incident from my perspective today, I wonder about several things.  Would Dad agree to such secrecy again today?  How did he, even then, become convinced that quietly moving this priest on to another unsuspecting parish would do less damage than openly exposing the problem?  Perhaps the bishop gave an assurance that Father P would be helped.  Or at least kept away from working closely with children.  In this case, I don’t know what happened, but I do know that in diocese after diocese paedophile priests were simply moved from parish to parish to continue unaided in what were often failed attempts to fight their devils.

More latterly, I wonder about Father P. himself and hundreds of priests like him.  Were his paedophilic pursuits within his control?  I don’t know.  I think of the number of times I have sworn I will stay on a diet and the almost equal number of times I have succumbed to the temptations of chocolate and sugar, making excuses and promises that justify my behavior “just this once.”  Eating forbidden chocolate, of course, is not on the same level as sexual abuse of children, but it illustrates the narrowing of consciousness that destroys so many of one’s best intentions.  Perhaps Father P. hated himself, swore repeatedly that he would stop.  Was there any equivalent of Alcoholic Anonymous where he could call for help?  Was there anywhere he could turn?  Could he even lock himself in his own rectory until the impulse past?  No, of course not.  He had to walk over to the church and say Mass, joking with the same young boys who were the source of his tortuous temptations.

At the time, I thought that Father P. was unusual.  Perhaps Dad did too, and perhaps he was.  By the time I’d left the convent some fifteen years later, though, I discovered that if most priests were not paedophiles, an awful lot of them were womanizers.  They taught me a lot about my own limitations.  About which more in another post.