Confessional
(on revelations of pedophilia among Catholic clergy)
"Do not be men" is what the church would say
To them that don the vestments of a priest,
And by this law men's urges go astray
For ever by the law was sin increased.
Enforcing celibacy as a stricture
Is primal shame derived of primal law,
A fig leaf
made of misinterpret-scripture,
So man his sainted membership deplore.
Nurtured by secrecy, desire repressed
Seeks avenues unwholesome, turns to lust,
Clothes sin with countenance divinely dressed,
So faith in clerics changes to distrust.
Do not be too surprised when mere humanity
Mars its own image in God's image made.
The Church's only true identity
Is the Body of Christ,
whom men betrayed.
Of Rome and all her far-flung tributaries,
Expect no better, maybe even worse,
Than of this world of sullied sanctuaries
(For christian law is to embrace a curse).
Here rules the airish prince,
and by his work
Moloch receives the infant sacrifice.
Here incest horrors in the bedroom lurk
And mums and dads lay down their kin to vice.
March 2002
| 
