OH, NOT! A Cardinal is gonna ' take one for the team', whaddaya know?

Ok... from the top... was nearly finished and google ate it.

Once upon a time, in a tiny happy kingdom, there was a young man. And he loved his church. Sang like a veritable angel. But he fell in love with the 'wrong' person, who also happened to be a man, and that wasn't what his church sanctioned or condoned.

But the young man was 'in-love', and he married his partner in a civil ceremony anyway, which probably hurt him inside... because his church certainly wouldn't allow it.

Now, the young man lived according to the tenets of his beliefs, and he was very helpful indeed, and tended to the needy, sang like an angel in choir, and was very busy, even though the beliefs of his church were totally opposite to who he really was, imagine that.

And it came time to vote for members to sit on the parish board, and the young man was elected by a very large majority. Which surprised the rest of the kingdom, because in a village that tiny, one would have thought they would be totally against it.

Well, his church said, 'oh no, this won't do at all. It is wonderful that he is so accepted in his community, but he must withdraw and concede his nomination. The way he lives his life is against all our tenets.'

And a wondrous thing happened. People in the entire realm heard of the young man's story, and decided to give a loud voice in opposition to his being ousted after being overwhelmingly elected.

And the loudest voices of protests came from the young man's community, because they liked him so much.

Now, the über-head of this church was of old and ancient lineage, and things hadn't been going so well for his 'lambs'. Way too many scandals. And his church's idea of never marrying, and remaining chaste for a lifetime was very difficult to follow for his fellow priestly members. Which led to... shall we say, egregious acts against the naive and innocent?

And that had led to his followers officially leaving his faith and church in droves. For years, and it was bleeding dry. And of course, revenues dropped accordingly.

But the über-head... well, he took the Sunday before the most important religious holiday of his church to go on the tee-vee and radio to say he'd revised his decision. He'd invited the young man and his spouse to dine with him. (and if I'd been asked, I'd have made a wiiide circle around THAT meeting and not shown up...) And said, that after seeing them, he would certify the election of the young man, and thought he was very upstanding. Happy end.

Disclaimer: I never denigrate what people choose to believe. If that is what the young man wanted, and actually got? I guess that's ok... but from the outside looking in... I really have to question everyone's judgement in the whole story.

I got some recent stats here. The latest involved a private school up north, and kids were abused in all sorts of ways into the 90's. And oh yeah, there was this 'terrific' horrific report on how people in Bavaria in schools like that... went so far as to turn kids, and then have them castrated when they were 20 to stop them from being gay. It was in the Fifties. If I were that young man... I would watch my back.

As to the ueber-head.. he said, 'It's against all teachings, but I'll take it on my cap.' And.. 'Jesus woulnd't have turnred them away.' No, he wouldn't have. But he meant taking responsibility for his decision a wondrously rare thing in his field.. But he has to stop the bleeding, so he's 'taking it for the team.'

Tja.. fairy tales are so odd... I must've dreamed it. I wanna know when any respect for clowns flew out the winder.