You know what also doesn't go somewhere? Human flesh and blood in your mouth.

I just tune this shit out, and turn up "Vicar in a Tutu" by the Smiths, then proceed on with my fabulous life.
But if you must gab gab gab, do so wonderful darlings.

I chatted once with this interesting priest years ago who said he hated counseling married couples because he himself wasn't married, and felt stupid offering advice on something he had no experience with. Also what is the obsession with where all the parts go? Strip away the religio-speak of any group who has a sexual-behavioral agenda, and that tendency is just weird. People don't care how I operate in the world as it relates to, say, my liver, but those same people sure are obsessed with my vagina.

Oh, it goes there. It goes there good, sometimes for hours.

Dear Father Riccardo,

If you think you can reach out to me by telling me my 25+ year relationship is harmful and unnatural, you have failed from the very start.

He condemned oral sex? For everyone?

I don't think there's any explicit Scriptural authority for that, other than it running counter to 'be fruitful and multiply'. But so does not having sex. So he and his (supposedly) celibate priests are even more guilty of whatever sin that supposedly entails.

Sometimes I think studying theology causes brain damage.

Reasoning by analogy can lead to fallacious associations, but what would a Catholic priest know about those?

"because I think that’s harmful and here are the reasons why." I am dying to hear the "reasons" why lesbian sex is harmful (say, compared to heterosexual sex, and besides the "you'll burn in hell" type of harm).

@3, "Also, what is the obsession with where all the parts go" is only for the gays. I'm sure even Catholic priests know that straight people have anal and oral sex. But for the gays, somehow those same acts are wrongwrongwrong, and "unnatural" besides.

I'll tell you what is wrong and unnatural: priests using their authority and the supposed authority of God himself to hurt little children. What, you think we've FORGOTTEN?! You think you have ANY moral high ground to lecture perfectly nice adults on their sexual practices?

Anal Bagels is the name of my Village People cover band.

Please, Rev. Riccardo. You're from fucking DETROIT. You don't know about bagels.

I don't know, father. If it gives me the best orgasm of my life, that bagel's going in my ear at least twice a day :)

If people can put jelly alien eggs in their ears, I don't see why a bagel doesn't go there.

And "of course he has gay friends: he's a priest" nearly made me die laughing. Thanks Dan :)

I just had to try putting a bagel in my husband's ear. Even with LOTS of cream cheese, he was shouting "No, it's too big! It hurts!" So then he tried putting a bagel in my ear (We're kinda versatile when it comes to baked goods.) and damned if he wasn't right. It WAS too big! It DID hurt! Then we got on the floor and tried, you know, the other thing. No problems there! So, yeah, the priest and his little perverts-in-training are correct. Bagels DON'T go in ears. But the other thing? That fits just fine.

@14: you put a wiener in your ear? Or in your husband's ear? Your details are a bit fuzzy.

Well of course God loves gays - just like He loves all of us sinners. Difference being though... gays choose not to admit that their particular sin is sinful.

And that's not all: I heard that Jews use the blood of gay babies to make those bagels.

I think I'll be googling Bagel Porn with a Cream Cheese facial this weekend.

I fully support the right of any man or woman to put a bagel in his or her ear. Likewise, I support the right of any consenting adults to put bagels in each other's ears, if doing so brings them pleasure. But I draw the line at French bread, 'cause that's just gross.

@ 16 - Gays have merely figured out that since there is no Santa Claus in the sky looking down on all of us, there is no sin.

@ 11 - Evidently.

I don't get why these people keep talking about it. Such a fixation on human sex. Boy sex..can't own their own love of boys/ men, and live an honest life.no, have to twist and turn their psyches around, till they spit venom.

Also, has the good Father tried, like, a mini breadstick? Because, those look like they'd fit into an ear quite snugly.

If sticking a bagel in my ear means I can't hear Catholic priests blathering on about pointless nothingness, please hand me a bagel. On second thought, two bagels.

Why does anyone remain in the Catholic Church? What with the crazy beliefs, pedophile priests, and anti-intellectualism, I would think those churches would be empty of all except the senile.

@Dan: "What Riccardo fears is Catholics winding up in a metaphorical ghetto, walled off from the rest of the culture and ignored by people who've realized that the Catholic Church got gay sex wrong just like it got straight sex wrong. (Contraception is not a sin; anal sex—gay or straight—is nothing like shoving a bagel in your ear.)"

The Catholic Church got the motion of the universe wrong, teaching that the sun, planets, and stars all revolved around the earth. And when Galileo pointed out their error, they hauled him before the Inquisition and forced him to recant. It took the Church 500 years to admit they were wrong. So I think it's going to be a very long time before they admit they've got anything as elemental as sex wrong.

@ 25 - I personally wonder why anyone follows any religion, as all their beliefs are crazy.

But as far as the catholic church goes, the fact of the matter is that most self-identified catholics don't obey the church at all and don't really care what its leaders say, unlike the evangelical christians, who mindlessly repeat and try to enforce (on others, of course, not on themselves) whatever nonsense they've been taught.

A good example of that is how easily gay marriage has been legalized in Mexico, in spite of the catholic church's opposition. Some demonstrations took place, but it mostly went unchallenged. And since the demonstrations were all close to the US border, I wonder if these people weren't christian fundies rather than catholics, protestant religions having made a lot of headway in the country of late, especially up north.

[“This is the question which is asked by junior-high kids: Why does God hate gays?” Riccardo said.]

No, it isn't.

@3 I remember reading the comments section of some article about gay relationships or something, and a poster was going on and on about how gay men needed to be educated about how the butt makes poop. Because being gay mean you no longer understand basic bodily functions? And I think this guy knew more about the ass than most proctologists. It made me wonder why someone so against anal sex knew so much about the ass.

Re @22. I'm not condoning
grown men liking boys. I meant these guys should have owned up to these feelings when they were boys, liking other boys.

I'll give him credit for one thing. At least he is honest that the Church "reaching out" to gay people has nothing to do with helping gay people but rather is just their own self interest to not seem so out of touch people stop paying any attention to them at all.

What he doesn't realize is the way he "reaches out" to gay people does just that.

If putting a bagel in your ear got you off every freaking person in his audience would have been sitting there with a bagel hanging out their ear.

Thank you Riccardo for showing everyone that your church is, indeed, out of touch. Keep up the good work. With a little luck before long your backwards, medieval institution will be relegated to the dust bin.

@11 - there's a decent bagel shop at Woodward & 10 Mile, just 2 miles outside the city.

I've long ago run out of new things to say about Catholic priests, BUT I can NOT let a 'Detroit doesn't know good bagels' statement stand under any circumstances! The Detroit Metro area has a large Jewish population, many of whom (or their ancestors, at least) spent time in NYC before coming here. We have decent fucking bagels in several locations throughout the Motor City TYVFM. (But, in the mouth, not the ear, is how to get the real pleasure, just in case these priests have anyone confused)

Anal Bagels, by the Banal Angels! Concept band name and first album title in the CAN (so to speak).

Title Track: We Have Decent Fucking Bagels.

(sorry. I will stop now.)

Yes, but was it a Cream-filled bagel?

Oh Dan, how I wish your Mom was still around. I would love to hear the phone conversation's and comments from her about such Catholic nonsense.

I know, I know, it's a REALLY long waiting line...... Love you, Dan ☺♥

Not to mention using a Jewish food to illustrate unholy behavior.

I imagine the bagel fetishists out there are feeling really confused and/or paranoid right now.

@34, I'd schmear that

@27 But if many Catholics don't believe what the priests say and don't follow their rules, why bother to sit in church and listen to their diatribes on sex and sin, etc? Why do they support the church with their contributions? There are liberal churches, so why don't they find one closer to their actual beliefs?

@ 40 - Most faithfuls don't have any actual beliefs. They just gleaned a few things from what they were taught as children and they identify with the religion they grew up in.

And as to why they sit in church, maybe American catholics are different, but the catholic churches are pretty empty in all the countries where I have lived or stayed any length of time. For the most part, catholics go to christmas and easter mass (or Virgen de Guadalupe celebrations in Mexico) and that's about it.

@41: I think attendance is higher in US Catholic churches. Otherwise most of them would be closed. I left the church almost 50 years ago; I think the last time I was in one was for my Dad's funeral 10 years ago. And the priest managed to get in a little diatribe on abortion. At a funeral. I was disgusted, but the Catholics didn't seem to mind.

The Catholics are a weird bunch. If you are one of them they will forgive just about anything if you act ashamed of it when you are confessing. My father became Cathie again years ago and started hanging out with Catholic monks and my immediate thought upon entering the cafeteria at the monastery was: "Oh, they're like 70% old gay men." Which was the case-and half of those were in a state of sinning, if you know what I mean, and being absolved. A bunch of old queens in dramatically dour habits fucking each other would be cute if they weren't super obsessed with propagating the belief that gay/queer was is a sin and that divorce is bad. They're still pretty bothered by divorce. At least in my interactions

It is still astonishing to me to get advice on sex of any kind from a celibate man. how would he know from normal?

Riccardo said it’s important to reach out to gays, because “if we don’t find a way to do that, then we’re going to have a ghetto and put walls around us and no one is going to come in.”

LOL.

@7, @9 Catholic rules on sex forbid anything that doesn't lead to the creation of more little Catholics. So no oral or anal, gay or straight.

But Catholics locked Jews in walled ghettos for centuries, so it would be poetic justice to see Father Riccardo and Bill Donohue and Brian Brown locked up in a walled ghetto.

So this statement is a little problematic. The relationship between Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages is a rather complex one. But, in general, the expulsions and persecutions were not instigated by the Church hierarchy.

Expulsions of Jews were generally instigated by the secular authorities. For instance, in England, Jews were extended royal protection in exchange for heavy taxation. They were able to pay that heavy taxation because they had a monopoly on lending money at interest (typically around 40-50% per year) due to a prohibition on usury by the Catholic Church. And the people who owed money to the moneylenders tended to be the landed aristocracy. A couple of the clauses in Magna Carta specifically try to regulate debts owed to Jews. Once the Jewish community became less useful to the Crown (often because others found ways around the usury prohibition), it became politically expedient to expel Jews (who were mistrusted by the commoners for superstitious reasons and hated by the nobility for economic reasons), which Edward I did in 1290 (they were not legally permitted to return until 1657).

On the other hand, outright mob violence against Jews generally arose from the blood libels (accusations of murder of Christian children for ritual reasons, desecration of the Host, etc.) which periodically arose and spread among commoners, and generally represent the typical superstition and fear of "the other" that is a common feature of human nature, compounded by anti-Pharisaical passages that appear throughout the New Testament. These were usually fairly localized events, but a particularly grisly episode happened as part of the First Crusade in 1095-6, when Jewish communities in several German cities were massacred.

But it should be noted that the Church hierarchy generally sought to protect the Jewish communities that it could. The archbishops of Cologne and Speyer in Germany did their best to protect the Jews in their cities. The first walled ghettos went up there not to imprison Jews but to protect them. And Jews themselves generally embraced the ghetto because typically, within its walls, they were given wide latitude to govern themselves. Not to mention that if there had been extensive commingling between Christians and Jews, it's very likely Judaism itself would have been assimilated out of existence; Jews policed the boundaries between the two communities just as assiduously (if not more so) than Christians did. And still, in some cases, do.

It's also true that the Catholic clergy bent over backwards during the Second Crusade to ensure that a similar attack did not happen again. For instance, Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercians, preached extensively in Germany to prevent a repeat.

That's not to say there weren't problems as well. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 asked secular authorities to force Jews (and Muslims) to wear special clothing distinguishing them from Christians (the forerunners of the patches that Jews had to wear in Germany in the Nazi period). This was to prevent accidental commingling...another attempt to police boundaries between the two communities. And while forced conversion was explicitly prohibited, Christian authorities could bring a lot of pressure to bear. This often took the form of forced disputations, where Jews were obliged to defend their beliefs against Christians. But conversion was always available as an option for Jewish communities that would otherwise be expelled. It was this choice of "convert or leave" that led to the rather fascinating experience of crypto-Judaism, especially in Spain following the expulsion of 1492, and the subsequent reaction against that in the form of the Inquisition.

It's actually a rather interesting history, and not anywhere near as one sided as is commonly thought.

I propose from now on, when writing or discussing the Yahwistic religions, we distinguish between morality and taboo. Things like murder, stealing, treating others as you would be treating, are subjects of morality. Anything at all sexual is put under the header, "Christian Sexual Taboos." Or Muslim or Jewish or whatever.

Thus, "Catholic Priest Uses Bagels as Analogy to Discuss and Define Christian Sexual Taboos."