Religious Education

There are some topics that I choose not to include in my BLOG. The reasoning generally circles around being too personal.

This topic, falls into that category on a couple of levels, but I need to write this out so you are getting the full story. As always, I welcome comments but please do not be offended when I tell you that decisions are already made for the most part.

THe day started like any other. We got up, had breakfast, I started to work, and he headed out to run some errands.

One of these errands was a stop at the whore's house. Where he spent the majority of the afternoon. He cooked ( meals for me), fixed her computer, and agreed to teach religious education at her Roman Catholic Church.

For those of you who aren't caught up, he's an Agnostic who attends services at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation. He's not just an Agnostic, he's an active MILITANT Agnostic.

I do not personally care. It used to bother me in the beginning ( over a decade ago) bit over the years of talking and learning we have come to a mid point that we both can handle.

So it came as a shock that this militant Agnostic would even consider the offer to assist in teaching.

Then I took a step back. I realized that it was HIGHLY UNLIKELY that she asked him. More likely, he OFFERED.

That made more sense. She is a very devout and strict Catholic. She takes her teaching RE very seriously. There is NO WAY she would have ASKED for his help. If she knew anything about him, there is no way that this came up in the fashion that he is portraying it.

By the way - this is one of his MO's. He offers something and then tells people he was asked. It usually means that he is covering something else.

And so it is in this case. It would appear that he is not happy with the direction their friendship is taking. He doesn't so much like that fact that he is not as important to her day to day life as he would like to be. She has more or less made that clear. She doesn't return calls and she no lionger emails with any frequency and when she does, it's usually a funny or proseltyzing email that drives him crazy.

This seems like the answer. Offer to teach RE with her, and he can be of "use" to her one time a week thus bringing the friendship to a stronger level.

So he comes home and asks me what I think of his teaching RE. This is supposed to be my opinion right? So I tell him I think it's not the best choice he could make. I suggest that while it's a really nice gesture that he wants to help a friend out, there is a lot of CATHOLIC responsibilty that he simply isn't aware of.

For example, he has to teach not only the faith and religious perspective, but he must also embrace the political views of the church while answering questions. "Go ask your parents" will not cut it If they wanted that, they would handle RE in the home.

I cite 2 of HIS favorite political issues: Birth control and A woman's right to choose. He can't advocate anything BUT abstinence til marriage and Pro-Life. Two of his favorite sticking points in the upcoming election, He's highly critical of Ms. Palin for her stance on both. So what will he do when on of these 11-14 year olds asks him about those things? lie? Go against his own belief system ? You might as well ask him not to breathe.

He has no background for this, however on the plus side he is second to none when it comes to learning something knew and doing researhc. On the other hand - he doesn't believe it himself, so how exactly is he going to sell that to kids who will see right through that?

I discovered something else today that I haven't yet shared with him. He will need to take Sexual Abuse Awareness training as well as have a background check done. The Diocese of LI requires it for anyone doing anything involving children. Hall monitors, lunch aides - all of it.

Not that he has anything to hide in either area - it's just one more thing he would have to do. There is no option to "informally" interact with kids in this setting. Not anymore.

The bottom line - he's trying to keep a foot in the door to maintain the type of friendship that works best for HIM. Not for her - she barely factors into this at all actually. He has been telling me since the hospital that she doesn't give a crap about him, returns every 10th call, every 5th email. Once she realized he was happily in safe hands with me, she stopped worrying about him altogether. And he was offended by it. Not that she and I have a problem and not that he and I have a problem and believe it or not, he's happy that she and I are OK, but he's nto reconciled to the nature of their friendship and what's working for her isn't working for him.

So I am not angry at him or her. I am not happy about this situation but I am not angry at anyone. I think it's wrong and hypocritical. It makes me wonder how well she knows him. There is a lot at stake here, but I think that my best friend has it right. It's in god's hands.

She did suggest I contact the whore and politely suggest that this is a bad idea. I opted to NOT do that. He would be livid and I would be also if that went in the reverse. So I will share the training and background check info with him and we'll see what happens after that.

I can now let this go. I've said my piece. You all know how I feel about this. So does he - we had our fight about it. He understands my position about it. He keeps saying that all this depends on how strict the congregation is. Which shows me he knows NOTHING about catholicism. Please don't misunderstand me, I have nothing against Catholics. I am one. Not Roman, but Anglican and it's more or less the same. THe term "Catholic lite" applies on more than one occasion. more than half my family is RC. my eldest brother and his family believe in Pope Pius X. So I know a little bit about this and the bottom line is, Catholicsm is Catholicsm. It has faith, doctrine,dogma and political views. Most people don't get caught up in all of that, but when you are teaching you need to be prepared for questions about that because those questions will come. I get them every day. I have to stop and think "What household am I in" sometimes as I teach, Lutherans, Catholics, ORthodox Jews, etc. I have to temper my answer based on where I am,.

He is such a smart and intelligent person. I think that kids would benefit from his wisdom, but this is not the forum for it. Not at all. It's not appropriate and has disaster for all written all over it.

But it's in god's hand now.