7 March—Last Friday I received my copy of the March Catholic Transcript, the magazine of the Archdiocese of Hartford. Well, not quite. Receiving is passive and I actively rescued my copy from the garbage—make that recycling—bin in the Litchfield post orifice. And it didn’t take much effort, as there were well over a dozen Catholic Transcripts at the very top of the of the pile, just waiting to be rescued. And even more on Saturday. One would have thought Litchfield’s faithful Roman Catholics had more respect for diocesan propaganda. I must admit, I still feel guilty for rescuing only one single Catholic Transcript.

The Catholic Transcript is a well-produced monthly, with a reliable and enviable paid circulation of about 165,000, according to the Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation the USPS requires to be published every October. The masthead, on the other hand, says that it’s “distributed free of charge through the generosity of donors to the Archbishop’s Annual Appeal.” Does the circulation still qualify as paid? No matter.

The Catholic Transcript has been published since 1829 (wow!), only 11 years after the Congregational Church was disestablished in the Connecticut Constitution of 1818; not even two decades after the First Amendment banned Congress from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion”; and a mere 14 years before Jewish congregations were allowed to incorporate in this forward-thinking, fabulously tolerant state in 1843.

That history doesn’t come from the pages of the Catholic Transcript, to be sure, but there’s always something in it that’s worth reading. Yet I rather doubt the magazine will ever run the story about the poor guy in Phoenix who recently resigned from the priesthood after it was revealed that he had baptized some 20,000 people over 16 years with a one-word error during the sacrament.

It seems that Father Andres Arango said, “We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” rather than “I baptize you . . .” as required by the Vatican. For shame, Father. Peccasti!

And Jesus Christ! No pun intended. A priest’s use of the first person plural instead of the first person singular invalidates baptisms? Are they kidding? Yes, I realize it’s a matter of the Christ versus the community, that Jesus is supposed to perform the baptisms through the priest.

But one bloody word? Couldn’t one of the church nobs—like the pope, as episcopus servus servorum Dei—issue a bull declaring that “we” in Father Arango’s clearly unintentional screw-ups was actually the royal we, meaning I. Given Jesus Christ’s exalted status—not to mention the inconvenience to 20,000 presumably devout Catholics, wouldn’t it make sense?

Or something like that. Popes have been issuing bulls and doing all sorts of other stuff that determines the practice of their religion since Peter was appointed by Christ.

But it’s not just popes, it’s not just Roman Catholics. It’s religion in general. God may or may not exist, largely depending on your definition as well as your belief. If there really is an anthropomorphic god, why can’t I simply worship him or her in my own way?

God forbid! Again, no pun intended. Because that would strip religion of its primary purpose—it’s a magnificent means of control, pure and simple . . .