On "The View" the other day, the actress, Rosie Perez, commented that divorced Catholics are not welcome at the altars of the Roman Church because divorced Catholics are banned from eating the Communion cracker (nobody gets the wine except in certain dioceses with liberal bishops).Rosie was pretty much correct, but oh boy, did she stir up a proverbial hornet's nest. You're wrong, people said (and many in a not very nice way). And Rosie was wrong. Maybe. A little bit.
So Rosie apologized!!
I might be a little wrong, too, but I think the status of divorced Catholics depends a lot on who is holding court at the bishoprick.
In some cases, I've read that the bishop is adamantly opposed to divorced Catholics sharing in the Eucharist. In other cases, divorced Catholics are welcome to take Communion so long as they haven't remarried.
A divorced person can also have their marriage annulled, which is a sneaky way of pretending that the marriage was never really a marriage at all and therefore doesn't count when it comes to taking Communion or getting into heaven.
Now I don't give a damn as to who is eligible to eat the cracker or whether wine is also available for the non-clerics. What is so funny and sad, though, is that Rosie's comment engendered so much commentary and even hostility.
Rosie needn't apologize. She was merely talking about a little magical rite practiced by Roman priests who pretend they can turn a cracker into flesh and wine into blood so the foolish faithful can eat and drink flesh and blood.
What I'd like to see people get worked up about is the continuing child molestation that is endemic in the Roman church, about how LBGTs are treated by the Roman church (even though up to 25-50% of the clergy are gay), and how the Roman Church continues to do everything in its power to impose its medieval views and practices upon the rest of us.
I'm quite sick and tired of old, tired white guys wearing dresses telling non-Catholics that life begins at conception, that it is a sin to get an abortion or use a contraceptive device, and that the views of these pompous prelates should be the law of the land!
[Photo from Wikipedia]
