An Ending

The last post on this blog will be simple.

I don't often agree with my father. On many things he is plain wrong. His views on many things are close to those of Jeremy Hartley/James Higham- if you leave out the crazy views about 'Them'.

But unlike Hartley, my father isn't a dribbling buffoon. He would, frankly, think Hartley a complete twat, in spite of the similarity of their political views. And just occasionally, he says something sensible.

My father says we all need love most of all because we need someone to believe in us. To see the best in us. To drive us onward when we are alone. We need someone to believe in us to make us become what we should be.

My father was lucky. He had that from my mother. She believed in him, had faith in him.

When I encountered the Swan women in 2007, I found something I had never really found before. I had had women in love with me before, but for the wrong reasons. They did not see in me the me I could be, or should be. They loved me as a biological mate. A potential father to their children.

My mother didn't love my father for that. She loved him to make him what he became.

Because Carly Swan first wrote to me after a post on Nietzsche, because our first conversations were political and philosophical, I thought her love was for the part of me that was the best. The bit of me no woman had ever loved me for before. The RIGHT reason.

The reason my grandmother loved me. I thought she loved me for the priest within me. I thought she loved me for 'Crushed'. For my mind. For what I thought. For my philosophy.

And that meant a lot. It was WHY I THOUGHT she loved me made me love her. Because I BELIEVED she BELIEVED in me. As a priest. As thinker. As a writer.

And because of that, because of the support I thought she was going to give me in my life's work- I wanted to reward her. I loved her BECAUSe of why I t5hought she loved me.

But it was a lie. Carly did not believe in Crushed.

Carly did not understand what Crushed was all about.

This blog was to be my church, me it's priest, my posts my sermons and my readers my congregation.

But priests do more than preach sermons. They hear confession, they provide moral and spritual guidance one to one for their flock. They are there for them, on call, twenty four seven. That is why priests don't marry. They are married to their flock. They are the shepherd.

If Carly could have supported that, been a bedrock of support, it was what I needed. And I was prepared, in return for that support to breach certain principles of mine, as long as it was out of sight. Because ultimately, the Free Love message was part of what I must teach my flock. Not the most important thing, but still something I had to stand by. And I had also to be there for my flock.

Carly couldn't handle that. She could not understand my flock had to come first. That her role was to be behind the scenes moral support. It was not for her to involve herself in my doing of my duty to my flock. But she started to put the cart before the horse, see my flock as a threat to 'her relationship'.

Because, in truth, it was a lie. Carly did not REALLY believe in me. She did not WANT me to be a priest to my flock. She just wanted a biological mate.

And I discovered that. When it all boils down to it, that was REALLY what her fight with Phish was all about and why I was sickened by Carly. Carly did not want Phish to be part of my flock or, indeed, any woman who might 'interfere in her relationship'.

But it was Carly who was interfering. It was Carly who couldn't accept that I can't turn my back on anyone. That even Carly's 'archenemy' Ms Smack was entitled to come to me as her priest, if Ms Smack wanted me for her priest.

Carly did not believe in me as her priest, so how could she claim to love me? When she did not give a damn for what is best in me- what this blog was.

I had made a mistake. I had seen in Carly something that wasn't there. I had thought what existed between us was something it wasn't.

Because, you see, I believe in CLERGY. I believe in what it stands for. I believe that what the clergy did was special.

What was that? Ok, well, you can see what the ideal of Romantic Love WAS. One woman, one man, bonded together. And outside that was no sex, no children. Not only that, not even a cuddle.

That was what priests were EXPECTED to give up. So as to be- carers. For two thousand years there were no social workers, no Samaritans, no counsellors, no psychiatrists. No one to provided a social welfare system of detached people to CARE for the weak and the vulnerable.

No one to ensure that the meek truly inherit the earth.

No one but the clergy. No one but the CATHOLIC clergy.

That was what the Catholic faith was all about. You give up Romantic Love so as to be able to LOVE. Love your flock. Console them when they are weak, intervene in domestic disputes. Guide them. Calm them. Be a FATHER to them.

Because that to me was what Catholicism was all about, morally. All the disciples, they left their families- their wives and their children- for Jesus.

And I believe that is what is RIGHT. The weak, the vulnerable, the needy, they must come FIRST.

Because that is what is wrong wirth Capitalism. Protestant Ethics. Because yes, each man knows best the way to his only happiness. But not all are equally equipped to acheive it.

The tough, the brazen, the 'In yer face', they acheive their happiness. The meek and the mild get kicked down. in the name of 'Freedom'.

And I don't want that. I want the meek and the mild to get served first.

What I thought I saw in Carly was a belief in that system of ethics. Rising above your own emotions and feelings to stand aside and PLAN the happiness of others. To be there for the weak, the needy and the vulnerable.

But she did not love in me that desire to give of myself to THOSE WHO NEED. She just wanted a biological mate. But she had no NEED of me. What use was my intellect, my Samaritans training, my passive desire to suppress my own emotions to meet the need of others? What need had she of that?

Well, she did have a need, it was a true. But not a need she would acknowledge. She had a need to learn how to suppress her feelings. Her desire to mate. To become PURE.

Had I known what I was eealing with before I started, I could have made adequete provision. I could have treated her as what she was- strong and loud of personality but emotionally weak. Unable to sacrifice her emotions for the greater good and therefore, not an EQUAL, not a COMPANION, but another person needing me. A person I would need to remain emotionally detached from because one would have to balance her needs against the needs of others.

And meeting Carly's passionate desires is a low priority. In fact, it would be the reverse of a priority. If I had an inkling of her passionate emotions, I would have been able to treat her as someone one sought to teach how to SUPPRESS their feelings.

In short, Carly was not in need of mollycoddling or being given love to raise her up. What she THOUGHT she needed- from me- she didn't need. She needed quite the opposite.

Which posed a problem. Because now she had these 'passionate feelings' and-

-well, my duty was to suppress them. Because she couldn't control such emotions. In short, it was a paradox. The very fact she would cling on like grim death to a 'relationship', the very fact she would fight off women she thought 'threatened' her relationship, all these things made taking the relationship off her a NECESSITY.

I could not- in all conscience ALLOW a woman to have those sorts of feelings for me. Surely it must be apparent to anyone with an ounce of ethics that if a woman develops such feelings for you YOU HAVE A MORAL OBLIGATION TO BREAK HER HEART.

That was the point. Carly had no actual need of me at all. And that was why I had considered her as a 'helpmeet'. Not because I sexually interested in her- I really don't HAVE sexual desires- not because I wanted her to be a Mother to my children- I don't see that as somethinfg I get to choose- but because I believed she would be a good support for me in my supporting and BEING THERE for people, online.

In short, I THOUGHT she was a good 'Priest's wife', as far as such a thing as ever possible. But by and large, it isn't. And if you try allowing priests to marry, en masse, you end up with a diluted priesthood that ceases to retain it's respect- and trust- amongst it's congregation, because they no longer see him as truly impartial. After all, are you really going to seek confession and absolution to a man who might tell his wife your confession during pillow talk?

How can a priest put his congregation- EVERY MEMBER OF IT- above his wife? And yet that is the function of a priest. And why experience has showed, if you want the Church to be central to the community, if you want the clergy to be the clue that keeps communities peaceful, an unmarried clergy is what works. Go to any Catholic church and see the respect the priest is treated with and then compare to any Protestant church.

So a good priest's wife- if there was one would be a woman with no needs of her own. No desires, no passions. A simple helpmeet and moral support for when the priest comes home after hearing six difficult confessions, intervened in eight marital rows and visited five people on their deathbeds and he CAN'T talk about it, she's just THERE. There for HIM. As he is to his congregation.

Because he must ALWAYS be emotionally detached. With everyone. Even her. He can tell her NOTHING. He is bound by vows to the Church.

That just wasn't Carly. And it isn't many women. Or men, if the Church allowed women clergy. It's not an easy task. but, Carly wasn't up to it.

And if you're not up to that task then that- and not 'being in love' determines our 'relationship'. As in- are you my congregation, or are you a fellow priest along with me.

You see, the real reason for Carly's hatred was that she did not WANT me to be for others, just her. Even though being there for her served no positive purpose, in fact, tended to serve negative ones.

And Hartley? Slimy Jeremy Hartley?

Well, Hartley just didn't want me having a congregation for much the same reason Ian Paisley went out protesting when the Pope visited Ireland.

Because Ian Paisley believes the Pope to be the Antichrist and the Roman Church to be the scarlet whore of Babylon.

It stands to reason, therefore, that a Catholic who preaches Marxism and Free Love must be a minion of Satan, doesn't it?

To quote Conor Cruise O'Brien 'Protestants fear Catholicism, but they do not fear Catholics. Catholics fear Protestants, but they do not fear Protestantism'.

What that basically means is that Catholics have learned that Protestants will hurt them as individuals. Burn their homes, castigate them, persecute them, but their faith- being based on idiocy- will never triumph. Protestants know that as individuals Catholics will turn the other cheek- but as a faith Catholicism is the one that keeps growing. Because it's based on a bit more than LITERAL reading of the Bible.

I'm a Catholic. I'm a Marxist. I'm a Darwinist. I'm a Nietzschist.

Therefore, what I teach my congregation is truth.

I have no regrets, I did what was God's will and I will keep doing it.

And I WILL make this world a better place, as I swore to do in 2007. I WILL finish what I started then.

Oh and here's a clue.

John Lennon- one of my heroes- got in so much bother for saying he was bigger than Jesus. And yet, of course, he wasn't meaning to be blasphemous. Just stating a fact. At the time, he was getting mobbed by fans in a way hadn't been seen since Jesus.

That's all you're getting :)