To help pass those long, tedious hours on the interstate to this summer's vacation destination, Pistrina releases its Traddie family-fun, educational game Travelers' Tribunal. While Tradistan's lawless, unsupervised clergy will never be accountable in this world for all their bad behavior, you and the kids, for a few, carefree hours, can pretend to mete out sorely needed justice by adjudicating selected cases ripped from painful sede memories or, in our last game, the newspapers.
Here's how to play:
1. Before your road trip, print out each of the four cases we post.
2. Take turns reading the cases out loud in the car. Mom can start, then the kids, and, when Dad's not driving, he can read, too. (Brutalized, true-blue culties might have to invite a literate relative, friend, or care-giver to do the reading for them.)
3. Once everyone understands the elements of the case, let the fun begin!
Your objective as a Catholic family is to (a) scrutinize the facts, (b) render a guilty verdict, and then (c) determine the appropriate punishment: (i) defrocking, (ii) time-out in a Carthusian monastery, (iii) referral to secular authorities for prosecution and incarceration, (iv) indefinite confinement in an ecclesiastical dungeon, or (v) all of the above.4. You must pronounce final sentence on each case by the time you arrive at your destination. Don't worry. You needn't know anything about canon law. For one thing, it doesn't apply during the Sede Vacante and for another, renegade sede clergy don't abide by it anyway. You may use the principles of moral theology, but remember that in Tradistan those principles bind only the laity, not the clergy. On the whole, you'll do perfectly fine if you just follow the notions of right and wrong learned at your mother's knee or in the sandbox.
Let's get started with case #1:
A sede priest arrives at his icy Minnesota mission unprepared for the sudden onset of bone-chillingly cold weather. The lay coordinator offers to take the shivering priest shopping to buy a winter coat. Inasmuch as the priest claims to have no money with him, the layman volunteers to lend him the cash out of his own pocket. The priest gratefully promises to repay the man. The weeks pass without the priest's saying so much as a word about repayment. Finally, the distraught layman begs the priest to reimburse him for the purchase of the coat. With characteristic sang-froid when the funds of the faithful are involved, the rascal-priest coolly replies that the layman should reimburse himself from the mission's collection money, of which the layman was the custodian.As you mull over the punishment(s), ponder not only the fact that this scumbag cleric unjustly postponed payment of his personal debt and thereby increased the seriousness of his sin, but also the fact that he placed the poor layman in moral and, possibly, in civil jeopardy in order to escape his obligation. Also consider that the layman has left the traditional movement in disgust with the sleazy clergy. (This last fact could be viewed as an objective good, which might mitigate the sentence: his immortal soul is a lot safer outside Tradistan and the reach of its grasping ministers.)
HAPPY MOTORING AND, YES, YOU HAVE OUR PERMISSION TO BE...
J U D G M E N T A L.
(INDEED, WE INSIST.)
So a priest uses money from the collection to buy himself a coat to keep himself warm while he's serving that mission? This is some sort of huge crime??
ReplyDeleteDidn't you read the case? This crudball promised to repay a personal loan and then weaseled out by requiring the lender to reimburse himself from the collection. If you think this behavior is O.K., you're lost! Typical cultist.
DeleteDid the priest specifically say he would pay the money back out of his own pocket? Your article didn't specify that. I doubt your informant even remembers.
ReplyDeleteIt's not clear whether your problem is with the fact that the priest didn't pay right away, or that he paid out of the collection. If the former, well, I'm sorry but a lot of people forget to pay money that they borrow and need to be reminded, especially priests who are busy and have a lot of things to keep track of. If your problem is that he told the coordinator to reimburse himself out of the collection, I don't see what's wrong with using money from the collection to buy the priest a coat either. Can you please clarify.
In any case, to make a "game" in which people pretend to punish such a trivial incident with penalties as serious as laicization ("defrocking" is a protestant term) or imprisonment is pretty ridiculous.
I'm afraid to speculate about what you would impose for something that really is serious.
By the way, on an unrelated note, can you please return my set of the "SAW" movies when you get a chance. Unless you're not done watching them. Thanks!
Money for a winter coat is not a trivial obligation, and a priest, if rightly formed with a good moral theology background, would never need to be reminded, no matter how preoccupied. The debt was personal, and the original expectation was that priest would repay. If you cannot see what's wrong with using the collection money to redeem a personal debt, you are a moral monster. The collection is not the clergy's piggy-bank, and the layman was rightly mortified by the priest's reply.You have spent too much time in the cult. Get out now and save your soul. Tune in next week.
DeleteThe priest repaid his debt using money from the collection, so that satisfied his obligation of justice.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know the priest intended to pay out of his own pocket in the first place? And even if he did, what's to stop him from changing the arrangement? You are assuming the money from the collection shouldn't pay for his coat, which I don't agree with anyway. The church that a priest serves should pay for his necessary expenses, and that includes a winter coat. For goodness' sakes, if the priest had told the coordinator to pay for his bill at the horse races with money from the collection, I could see a problem. But a coat so he doesn't freeze in the winter? Seriously? And I'm a moral monster if I don't see anything wrong with that?
If your own moral compass doesn't indicate that the collection basket is NOT the clergy's ATM to be accessed any time they need some cash, then no citations from moral theologians or even secular ethicists can redeem you.
DeleteHere's a real life situation that may help. I worked in a large Fortune 500 firm once. At a company function an inebriated salesman was helped into a cab and the fare was paid for by me without any expectation of remuneration. The embarassed salesman approached me and compensated me out of his departments petty cash fund.
ReplyDeleteI was young, stupid and trusting back then so I didn't ask where he got the $60. So when the auditors asked questions how and why someone in another department I promptly repayed them. To make a long story short what saved me from termination but of course destroyed my career was unflinching honesty. I had no other course but to speak the truth.
That salesman took money that wasn't his and used it for purposes other than the was intended by his supervisors. He could have explained what he was doing but that would have led to his termination. Not only was the salesman stupid but he had a sense of entitlement whatever the consequences. That happens in a lot of professions.
After reading my comment I recognize it isn't pristine. The last sentence in the 1st paragraph should read embarassed salesman approached me later. The second sentence in the 2nd paragraph should read.....someone in another department received the $60 I promptly repayed them.
ReplyDeleteMea culpa
Anonymous, your “real life situation” example only REINFORCES Pistrina’s argument. In your example (which was not very clearly explained), a salesman reimbursed you for paying his cab fare, NOT out of his own personal money, but with funds taken from the company where both you and he worked. I agree with you: what he did was WRONG. In Pistrina’s example, a priest who was LENT money (by a layman) to buy a coat – when asked by that layman to pay it back – told said layman to reimburse HIMSELF with money from the collection basket of the church that the LAYMAN attends – NOT from the collection basket of the that priest’s church.
DeleteWhat that means is that this priest wanted this man to “help himself to money” from his church’s collection basket, i.e., STEAL that money to reimburse himself. That means that NEITHER this priest NOR anyone from this priest’s church reimbursed the layman (nor intended to do so). That means that this priest wanted this layman to COMMIT THEFT. ¿Comprende? Anonymous, what sort of concrete is your skull made of, and what sort of organic waste material are your brains made of?
BTW, this same priest was once LOANED a book by a layman. The layman told him to return the book when he had finished reading it it. I’m not sure if the priest ever read the book – but he NEVER returned it. I know this to be true, because I WAS THAT LAYMAN. This priest is a THIEF. I hope that I explained that plainly enough for you. If my message has trouble reaching your brain, maybe a suppository will help.
Hi Watcher! I am the poster for posts 7 and 8. It was my specific and deliberate intention to reenforce Pristina's argument because I am a different poster from the other anonymous in posts 1-6. That's the whole point of anonymity-it could be anyone. So, you, myself and The Reader are in agreement. That should have been clear enough from my admittedly substandard writing.
ReplyDeleteWhat should be clear to anyone who reads this is that you do not take that which does not belong to you. Nor do you deliberately misrepresent that which a freewill offering is designated. Best wishes
Anonymous, please accept my abject apology! I mistakenly thought that you were the "other 'Anonymous'" (as you so rightly surmised -- and noted). Thank you for the correction!
DeleteA priest goes to Minnesota in winter without a winter coat??! He's not only a thief, but none too smart!
ReplyDeleteYou've got that right...UNLESS the priest was in the market for a new overcoat and knew he could con the kindhearted and overly trusting laity into springing for it.
DeleteHe was probably counting on the man not asking for the promised repayment; when he did, the sleazo made him a partner in his deceit by having him "reimburse himself." Clever, right? He made the layman do the actual filching if he wanted to see his money back again.
Not all thieves are dumb, especially rapacious clerics who like to split hairs, practice mental reservation, and invent technicalities.
Watcher, your apology to Anonymous does not match your scurrilous, scathing, uncalled for rebuke of him and his example. Where is the quid pro quo? That's how much you know about justice. You come across as a blowhard with an ax to grind.
ReplyDeleteSee how much fun it is to play TRAVELERS' TRIBUNAL? There're loads of activities for both depraved, amoral cultists as well as such high-minded, decent people like Anon. June 22, 10:23, whose splendid example of the reprehensible salesman highlighted many of the ethical and moral issues at play.
ReplyDeleteWe've received numerous e-mail comments, too, with creative takes on the case, most notably the culpability of lay people who put too much trust in malformed, gutter-bred, self-promoting, low-life clergy who can't keep their grubby hands out of the till.
Keep on playin' and judgin', and come back next week for Game Two!