My six theses: A new reformation

So even though I have a fairly long history of church attendance and I'm married to a woman who grew up Catholic, for the first time on Sunday I attended an actual Sunday-morning Catholic service. I've done Catholic weddings and funerals but this was just plain-old normal "church." (Or "mass," like "mas" and of course mas is "more" in Spanish, and the only thing keeping the US Catholic church afloat right now is mas personas esponalas en los estados unidos, which is why the church stands where it does in the immigration debate.)

While recognizing its shortcomings over the years, I have a fair amount of respect for the Catholic church and for the work it has done worldwide to fight poverty, hunger, and injustice. Also, there's all that spooky cloak-and-dagger stuff that lead to great pieces of literature like The Da Vinci Code. But I have a few suggestions for the church, just based on what I saw today, to help with its services. Take this web log posting as me virtually nailing these suggestions to the church door!

1. Lose the communal cup.
The church hasn't noticed we're a very bacteria-conscious society - we have wipes, liquids, etc. to kill all kinds of bad stuff and we are convinced that these things will kill us if we're not proactive. We obsess about this stuff at all levels - normal-thinking people for example actually tell us not to eat raw cookie dough anymore! So the communal cup has to go. Yeah, they kinda wipe the lip of the cup sometimes between parishoners, but still, we're drinking all that backwash from everyone else. Gross. I saw one woman lift the glass up high and finish off the contents and I literally almost gagged.

2. Lose/change the altar boy.
These little boys walking around in their dresses...gotta get rid of this. At least let them wear normal clothes. This would save them a whole lot of trouble with those gay priests they keep taking in. Cause look...I'm just gonna say what everyone else is thinking: put little dresses on those young boys and it makes them look hot. I'm right, right? (Insert your own joke here using "priests" and "Diet of Worms." I would, but it's almost too easy.)

3. Redesign your churches.
Some of these churches of yours look like museums or showpieces. The feel of these places is so reverential and serious that anything other than Latin being spoken from the pulpit seems out of place. I sat there today and listened to some guy talk about birthdays and pancake breakfasts and make other mundande announcements from the platform in a room so ornate that it felt like the pope might come popping in at any second. It doesn't fit. Most people today are used to sitting in a sanctuary that is quite generic and could be confused with a large conference room in an office building but with a few crosses thrown in. So here is my suggestion: tear these things down, sell off all the nice stuff to pay for your lawsuits, and build something more suitable to the general public, that is, a church that looks more like the all-purpose room at your local community center.

Plus, all too often these things sit empty. Your attendance is in decline, unfortunately, particularly in Europe, where some of the most beautiful churches in the world exist, only to be unused most of the time. Take France for example, where they take their virulent anti-semitism served without a side of church attendance (unless you're counting all the Muslims in France, who score high in both categories). But then again, I can understand why few people choose to take up the collar in a country with a strong history of separating heads from that collar.

4. Let non-Catholics in on the code words.
If you've ever been to a Catholic service you probably noticed these code words and movements that have the priest and everyone else looking like a third-base coach in baseball giving signs to the runner on first. I think the priest must email these out to everyone on Saturday evening or something. But you're sitting there, listening in, and then he says the word "windswept," for example, and everyone stands up suddenly. Then a few seconds later he says "jambalaya," and each person in the room touches his thumb to his forehead and then his lips. ??? As soon as you've processed this, people are kneeling...you start to try to figure out how to flip over the kneeling-thingy-pad on the pew in front of you and the priest clears his throat twice and says "snowshoe" and eveyrone starts chanting! It's very confusing, and it feels quite exclusionary when they don't let you know ahead of time. They could at least put them in the bulletin.

And they also recite something called the Nicene Crede, which is very long (it's a summary of all the things that compose the basis of christianity). I don't mind standing there silent during the chanting because it's only for a sentence or two, but the Nicene Crede is like the Moby Dick of memorized recitations. So how about this, church: print out the Nicene Crede on chocolate bars, that way everyone can read along off of his chocolate. It doesn't have to be chocolate and for many reasons it doesn't even make sense for it to be on chocolate, but hey...then everyone gets a chocolate bar and who doesn't get happy when given a chocolate bar? Maybe you can start this thing where you say the chocolate literally turns into the body of Milton Hershey in your digestive system! Mmm....great chaser for communion. Hope they get along in there. They should - they're both Jews!

5. Impart some standards for dress.
(This only applies if you don't do #3.) With the casualization of society this may seem backward - institutions aren't supposed to care about dress anymore, as you'll notice if you go the symphony or a nice restaurant. But look....Catholic church, you've been known to bust some heads in the past when needed...it's time to do it again on this issue. It's very hard for me to sit in one of your beautfiul churches, listening to ancient recitations, beside some doofus in khaki shorts and a Washington Redskins t-shirt. METHODISTS dress nicer than your people...come on.

6. Be nice to the crazyhomeless person who wants a candle.
A crazyhomeless person sat down a few pews in front of me and she began to rant to the woman sitting near her. She was upset about something and this is more or less what I heard her say: "What's the deal with the guy selling the candles? I asked him to explain the meaning of the candles to me and he said I'd have to ask the priest. And I said that I thought the person selling candles should be qualified to tell me their meaning and he told me that it wasn't my business. And I think that's a very bad way for him to talk to me in a church. I think he should be reported to the priest." Later, she danced during the hymns so I guess she wasn't feeling too bad. But she did leave just as communion started. I heard her muttering something about how gross the communal cup is on her way out.