Fuck Benedict XVI

He's a pedophilia enabler.

Well what do you know?

More sexual scandal at the hands of Catholic clergy and Papal people! First, the massive pedophilia scandal in Ireland, which resulted in Benny 16 calling some Irish church bigwigs down to Rome for a meeting (which I assume went something like this: "SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"). Now, some singer for the Pope is caught up in a gay-prostitute scandal.

Hypocrisy at its best. Hey, Catholic Church, is that a plank in your eye?

(Oh and it's now been 102 weeks in a row since I've been to church.)

Swing and a miss...

I mentioned on my Facebook status, with the intention of humor, that I was giving up the same thing I've given up for Lent for the past several years for Lent, which is Catholicism. Most people seemed to get it. One of my friends -- a devout Baptist -- said, "Good choice. Just be a follower of Jesus instead!" Another friend replied in agreement with that comment.

See, here's the thing: No.

If I wanted to remain Christian, I'd probably just stay Catholic. As much as I'm not a fan of Catholicism, it's the faith I grew up in, and the evangelical faiths seem just as crazy if not more so.

Further, last I checked, Catholics believe in Jesus. I know I haven't been to church in a long time -- let's be real, I am shooting for excommunication after all -- but the belief in Jesus as God personified is the central tenet of Catholicism.

And really, the nerve that someone would need in order to say something like that. That just reeks of unadulterated arrogance, and is a big reason why I have such a problem with religion in general. I just got done reading Christopher Hitchens' book, "god is not Great" (punctuation his), and that book made more cogent points about religion than every mass, sermon, pamphlet, Sunday School lesson, and conversation I've had with "men of God", combined.

While I'm against Catholicism, I'm not against it because I perceive it as a failure of a religion. I'm against it because it's a religion. Specifically, it was the religion I was raised in, thus the vendetta. It's not any better than any other religion ... but it's not worse either.

Ash Wednesday...

Ash Wednesday is so much more enjoyable when you no longer consider yourself Catholic.

(Also, I need to update this more often.)

Standards...

Cardinal Bernard Law, who used to head the Boston archdiocese, took great pains to cover up widespread child molestation among the priests of his archdiocese. He then got promoted to Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Meanwhile, a 9-year-old girl in Brazil was raped and impregnated, and she had an abortion to avoid the trauma of having a baby at 9 or 10 years of age. As a result, the child's mother, the doctor performing the abortion, and the entire medical team that participated in the procedure, were all excommunicated. The rapist was not excommunicated, essentially getting off scot free in the eyes of the Church, as is the policy of the Catholic Church to conveniently ignore child sexual abuse.

Luckily I haven't sexually abused a child, so I'm still eligible for excommunication.

Conundrum...

If Jesus is God, who did he pray to?

Not excommunicated yet.

Haven't tried yet, though. Well, at least outside of this blog, which really isn't much of an effort.

I'll get to it eventually, I hope.

The esteemed list...

Here is the list of people that I am aiming to join: Those who have been excommunicated from the Catholic Church in the 21st century (courtesy of Wikipedia).

• Eduardo Aguirre, Guatemalan Catholic priest, now bishop of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (1 person)
  
• Call to Action group members in Nebraska were excommunicated by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, Vatican later confirmed their excommunication. (Indeterminable amount of people, but clearly at least 2)
  
• Emmanual Milingo, former archbishop of Lusaka, for consecrating four bishops without the papal mandate. Also excommunicated were those receiving consecration. (5 people)
  
• The Community of the Lady of All Nations for heretical teachings and beliefs after a six-year investigation. The declaration was announced by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on September 12, 2007. (7 people)
  
• Rev. Dale Fushek and Rev. Mark Dippre. Former Priests were issued a Decree of Excommunication by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted for operating "an opposing ecclesial community" in direct disobedience to orders to refrain from public ministry. (2 people)
  
• Father Marek Bozek (since laicized by Pope Benedict XVI, and the lay parish board members of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in St. Louis, Missouri in December 2005 were declared guilty of the ecclesiastical crime of schism by then-Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke. Their excommunication was ratified by the Vatican in May 2008. (Four of the parish board members have since reconciled with the Church.) (7 people, 4 of whom returned to the Church, so 3 people)
  
• Mother of a nine-year old Brazilian rape victim, for obtaining an abortion for her daughter. Also the doctors performing the abortion. (Indeterminable amount of people, but clearly at least 3)

So... 1+2+5+7+2+3+3= at least 23 people excommunicated from the Catholic Church this century, not counting those who returned. Select company indeed.

The only problem is that I'm not sure if any of them WANTED to be excommunicated. There's the conundrum. If I WANT to be excommunicated, and I make it public to the Church, would they just step up their game instead?

Another Sunday not in church...

And having done the math, it's the 95th Sunday in a row that I haven't attended church. It beats my personal best by a week (which was established last week, beating my personal best by a week, ad infinitum).

As stated in my first post, I haven't attended church (or even been in a Catholic church) since Easter 2008.

I did, however, take communion once last year, though that was kind of a freak thing. I went and visited my 92-year-old great-aunt and great-uncle, and a nun was there administering mass to them since they're shut-ins. We all got to talking -- the nun was a very nice lady, not really fitting into the nun stereotype of being strict and humorless -- and I mentioned that I was Catholic. I didn't mention that I had all but left the church at that time, because I figured that two 92-year-olds and a nun would be the wrong audience to discuss such a thing. So the nun was going to administer communion to them, and she asked if I wanted to take communion as well. I'm not really the argumentative type, especially since all three people were really nice and I didn't care to start any confrontation or otherwise rub them the wrong way. So I had communion and played along. No harm, no foul, I suppose. And if I was to be in that situation again I'd do it again. I have no problem with any individual Catholics -- it's the church and its teachings and traditions that I have the problem with.

Ideas...

So, does anyone have any ideas on what I should do to get excommunicated?

The only things are that they have to be 1) creative and 2) legal.

Of course, you can just come up with a bunch of illegal ideas and I can tweak them as necessary.

The first post

Hi there! The reason for this blog is pretty simple: I want to get excommunicated from the Catholic Church, and this blog will chronicle my attempts and relevant thoughts in the process.

A little background: I was born to a Catholic mother, and I was baptized and confirmed Catholic. Over the past five years, I've slowly lost the faith. My questioning of the church just got more and more intense, and I couldn't come up with any good logical answers.

Finally, I went to church on Easter 2008, and I realized that I didn't feel anything there. It was just like it was hollow. I finally saw the church and the mass as an empty charade. My mom knew that I was losing my faith, and she neither encouraged nor discouraged it, and when we left church that day I told her that I had basically gone that day for her and that I was pretty much done with Catholicism. She seemed to be aware of both of those facts, and she was appreciative of my going with her.

I haven't been back since.

(Granted, Christmas of 2008 the timing didn't work, Easter of 2009 I was driving back from Kansas City in the morning, and Christmas of 2009 we were snowed in. But still, I haven't been back since.)

Since then, I have also slipped away from Christianity altogether. A lot of stuff just doesn't add up for me. If you're Christian, good for you -- I'll never try and take that away from you. And if you want to pray for my soul, that's fine as well -- just because I don't believe in it doesn't mean it's absolutely untrue. It just takes a lot more "faith" for me to believe something that just seems irrational, both in the scientific and logical senses.

However, I've never been one to do things the right way, and I feel the need for closure with the Catholic Church. I just don't see myself coming back.

Thus, I want to be kicked out. It just gives some finality to it all. That and it'd be kind of funny.

And since I can see some humor in this all (not to mention the Catholic faith in general), I figured I'd blog it all on top of it. Besides, I could get some responses that I could incorporate into this quest.

I named this blog "Josh's Excommunication Blog" because it's simple and to the point. The URL is excommunicatingjosh.blogspot.com, though. I was originally going to use joshsexcommunicationblog instead, but that would read as "Josh Sex Communication Blog" -- which is funny but not quite the idea that I wanted to give off, especially since I just received a Master's degree in, uh, Communication.

Yep, so here it goes. I'm hoping that eventually this will culminate in walking into the Diocese of Des Moines, asking for my excommunication, listing my reasons, showing no willingness to repent for it, and getting granted said excommunication.

Thanks!