Latin

on my quest today to find an early version of the Roman Catholic matrimonial service in Latin (for a scene I’m writing, I hasten to say), I ran smack dab into my childhood. While I was raised Catholic, I have no horror stories about Catholic school. I got a good education, K-12, and I was treated kindly. This is not to say I like or approve of the church, just that I have no personal grievances. I’m not Catholic anymore, nor would I call myself Christian; when forced, I identify myself as an agnostic or a secular humanist. But in the spirit of confession (appropriate, given my morning’s reading) I’ll admit that the cadences of the Latin mass are comforting to me. Like a golf game on television or a droning vacuum cleaner, I am instantly lulled into a state of semi consciousness. At any rate, I spent a good hour nosing around in the pre-Vatican II world, where a small portion of Catholics still hang out, hoping for a return to a more conservative church. Just now this stuff is in the public eye because of Mel Gibson’s excesses and prejudices. But I won’t get into that here (I couldn’t do better than Maureen Dowd, anyway), except to say in a straight-forward way, I’ve got no use for Mel’s revisionist history.

Although I do have an idea for a movie in which a very rich, very conservative Catholic sets up a pre-Vatican II utopia on an island somewhere… and then things go very wrong. Mwah-ha-ha-ha. A Boys from Brazil and Jurassic Park meet Stepford Wives kinda thing. Armed nuns, herds of little boys with very blue eyes lining up to walk across water. You get the picture. Click here to see more.