All his mind

Is bent to holiness,

To number Ave-Maries on his beads.

— Shakespeare, 2 Henry, VII, 3

Sing along, Ave Maria, Avaaay Mareeea. I know that some people may not take a liking to what I have to say this week, but facts are facts and what goes on at night will certainly be revealed at day.

Now, you may ask, what does prurient mean? Well, it simply means having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters, especially the activity of others. “He expressed a prurient interest in the young lady, Mi’Lord.”

Carnal I’m sure you’re more familiar with, ‘relating to physical, usually sexual needs and activities.’ Carnal, flesh, carnivore, carnival, carnal abuse. So there you have it, prurient and carnal, different words but sharing the same common theme, sexual matters.

Juxtapose them with the words priest and congregation and they also have one other thing in common — the church. But what does sexuality, priests, congregation and the church have to do with each other?

Open your eyes, get with the programme, read between the pews. The Church has been a hotbed, a breeding ground, a cornucopia of sexual activity for centuries, and goes as far back from when the Protestants broke off from the Catholic Church. Since then, is like dem step it up, as sexual affairs and sordid secrets still slowly simmer salaciously.

What a place to commit sin, right in the church, under God’s nose, but some people either have no fear, or simply do not care.

We’ll find out about prurient priests and carnal congregations right after these linguistic responses to ‘A suh we chat’.

Hail Master T,

Mi deh a foreign now long, long time, but mi chat good English a wuk and about, but patwa wen mi deh a yaad. At home our family converses in the Queen’s English, interspersed with patwa, and when visiting Jamaica, I tend to exaggerate a little by speaking patwa interspersed with English. Patwa is always music to my ears, especially abroad, and I hope it never dies.

Carlton

Hi Tony,

You are perfectly right. Can you imagine Jamaica without our natural language? It defines who we are, it’s in our music, our colourful way of conversing, our humour. Take it away and we’ll no longer be unique, but just another island that nobody knows. It’s our language that makes us special, makes the world pay attention, sit up and listens, and even tries to emulate us in speech and music. There are even Jamaican language courses in universities abroad. Thank you for making us proud of who we are.

Sonia

Now, before you take me to task for broaching this sensitive topic of prurient priests and carnal congregations, let me remind you that priests, parsons, members of the clergy are men first, and clergymen after. And we all know that in men, the flesh is weak and the mind is even weaker, if not more than willing. Man is man and will always fall prey to pleasures of the flesh, lusts, libidinous behaviour whether they are politician, police or priest.

The difference, though, is that men of the cloth cannot outwardly show their lusty life, their sexual shenanigans, their penile pleasure, lest they be defrocked. Defrocked, what an ironic word. But those priests have been having carnal knowledge with man, woman and child from the days of naught.

It used to be a closely guarded secret, but it’s all coming to light now, after years of denial and cover-ups. Even the sexual term, missionary position, was derived from the fact that missionaries of yesteryear, sent to spread the gospel, spread more than that as they had their way with the very people who they were sent to convert.

They took frocks off so many females, which perhaps gave rise to the term defrocking of priests. Missionary position, man on top, woman on her back. Those missionaries of old certainly had a wonderful time as they laid hands on the nubile natives of whatever country they were sent to minister. Then they had a sexual position named after them. It doesn’t get any better than that.

But missionaries have done more than simply have a sexual position named after them. For centuries, thousands of priests have been indulging in carnal knowledge with nuns and altar boys. Just last week the Pope admitted publicly that thousands of priests have indulged in sexual activities with nuns, and even had nuns as sex slaves. A cardinal was defrocked recently for his history of alleged sexual impropriety. The man even solicited people who went to him for confession.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned.”

“Yes, sister Mary, and we’ll do it again tomorrow night after Vespers.”

Hitherto this was just spoken of in whispered tones, fuelled by denial, but now de story buss and is all over mainstream media. Now, I grew up in a Catholic school, St Aloysius Primary, and back then many of the teachers were nuns. As children we all thought that they were angels, sent to protect us, as they glided about in their crisp white habits, with only their faces and hands exposed.

Could they have been kicking those habits with randy Father Rafferty? Nah, they were cherubs from heaven, and would never assume that position, missionary or otherwise. Revelations of sexual shenanigans are rife, with the Catholic Church worldwide coming forward and exposing thousands of priests who had sexual relations with nuns and altar boys.

This was exposed in the USA also, and many of those boys, now grown men, are emotionally scarred for life, unable to maintain stable relationships, with some even committing suicide. A story broke in New York a few years ago about nuns getting pregnant and having abortions right there in the convent.

The grisly evidence was unearthed beneath the basements of the convents and monasteries. So before you chide me for taking on this subject, take a look at what those men and women have been doing for centuries in the house of the Lord.

Even across religions it’s rife. Many popular name brand priests and parsons have fallen from grace. Remember people like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker reported to have indulged in prostitutes and pornography? If I recall, Jim Bakker served time in prison for those crimes, and Swaggart wept openly, begging forgiveness.

It happens right here in Jamaica too, as our sensibilities have been rocked by news of scandal after scandal of religious men having more than just hard talk with young girls, young men and members of the congregation. What is really interesting is how those same congregants will protect the parson and vilify the victim. “Is she force herself pon parson, tempting him.”

Remember the case where the parson was found in his car with an underage girl? It was whispered that he had carnal knowledge of her sister too, and the mother was complicit in the whole affair.

It’s a fact that many parsons have their pick of the pews when it comes to having sexual relations with members of the congregation. Many women are in church for that reason, and feel privileged to be anointed by the preacher, as he lays not only hands, but everything else on them.

There was a breaking story here years ago, where this pastor and choir mistress were making sweet music together, until his wife struck a discordant note and all hell broke loose. Listen, I’m not bashing priests, parsons, preachers or the church. I have close friends who are clergymen and I also have relatives who are parsons, plus I do go to church.

But the fact is, those men and the church are not exempt from prurient and carnal behaviour. There is an old saying that goes, “If you want to have plenty money and women, just open a church..”

Many women who can’t find men outta grass, end up in church as they seek satisfaction. Some get lucky and find a mate, walking down that same aisle to marital bliss. Others find other women’s men, while some get careless, get pregnant and parson read them outta church…

Yes, whenever a woman has fallen from grace, parson read har outta church. That means to be banished from interacting with the general congregation, and sometimes banned from the church alltogether, drummed out of the corps in disgrace, basically defrocked.

Even so, some women have not only one, but multiple children with church elders and still are allowed to remain in the flock. I guess they’ve relaxed the rules somewhat. Sister Mary and Brother John, be fruitful and multiply.

When I was a youngster I contemplated going into the priesthood, but thought against it as I feared I would have to live a celibate life and wouldn’t get any women. How wrong I was. Prurient priests and carnal congregations rule. Amen to that.

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: Recently, there have been instances of policemen being attacked and assaulted by taxi and bus drivers, schoolchildren and others, which again brings to the fore the need for our police force to be trained in self-defence. There was a video of a schoolboy fighting a cop on the school compound and a security guard had to pull the boy off the cop.

Recently, there was another video of a bus driver ‘chucking’ a cop and getting shot for his violent actions. Police work is hard, but if cops were trained in martial arts, many confrontations could possibly be diffused without the need for gunfire. Martial arts training can only be an asset. Last year a group of officers came to my karate class and proved to be woefully deficient. They simply could not defend themselves.