There's some misunderstanding surrounding celibacy, so we're going to explore why it's such a prominent part of the Imperial Christian Priesthood, and we'll take a look at some of the damage that the policy has caused. We've made a point of keeping the trauma-triggers to the later portion of the show, so everybody can enjoy the more interesting bits of history before we get to the more sensitive content.
We explore some of the history of the celibacy policy, as well as other rules that have been ignored over time. Chastity and celibacy are not the same thing, and they're not mutually assured, but they're not mutually exclusive either. We also take a peek at the work of Vincent Doyle and Coping International.
Trigger-Warning: Halfway through (with deliberate break and warning), we talk about priestly sex scandals around the world.
Catholicism has taken a few hits since the priestly diddlers hit the news, but it turns out that antidisestablishmentarianism is still strong in the American federal government. After the trigger warning, learn more about the statistics around the Catholic sex abuse scandal, and some of the profiling of those priests who have been identified. It turns out an awful lot of external reports encourage the Catholic church to let their priests marry, with good reason.
All this and more....
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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be for this episode.
[00:00:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's some things that I'm not excited to talk about, but it's important.
[00:00:18] Katie Dooley: I mean, we try to laugh here on...
[00:00:21] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.
[00:00:23] Katie Dooley: But this episode is no laughing matter.
[00:00:27] Preston Meyer: No, not so much.
[00:00:29] Katie Dooley: Uh, trigger warning. We're talking about the Catholic Church.
[00:00:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we're gonna keep it light for a little while. We'll let you know when you should duck out. If that's a thing you feel the need to do.
[00:00:44] Katie Dooley: But we are talking about the Catholic Church.
[00:00:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:00:48] Katie Dooley: So I hope that's enough said.
[00:00:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about the the foundation for the problem.
[00:00:57] Katie Dooley: Yes.
[00:00:58] Preston Meyer: Which is how I built most of my notes in trying to figure out how to put this all together.
[00:01:03] Katie Dooley: Yes, it is such a big thing, it is very hard to make it. I mean, it's hard to make it digestible for a few reasons. One, because it is terrible.
[00:01:12] Preston Meyer: Indigestible,
[00:01:13] Katie Dooley: Indigestible and then it's just...
[00:01:15] Preston Meyer: It's unpalatable.
[00:01:17] Katie Dooley: Yes. And then it's just so it's so big. Like, where do you start and finish?
[00:01:23] Preston Meyer: And yeah.
[00:01:24] Katie Dooley: You don't.
[00:01:25] Preston Meyer: So anyway.
[00:01:26] Katie Dooley: Sorry. Yes. Preamble, this is preamble.
[00:01:30] Preston Meyer: This whole preamble, we actually haven't said anything meaningful, but let's get into it. Celibacy, that thing that a lot of people are familiar with the word. And a lot of people misuse this word a lot of the time. Celibacy is not going without sex. I don't care what version of the dictionary you use. If it says it's going without sex, it's incorrect.
[00:01:55] Katie Dooley: That's abstinence.
[00:01:57] Preston Meyer: Well, abstinence is a big umbrella term. And celibacy is a kind of abstinence. But going without sex is chastity. Chastity is voluntarily refraining from participating in extramarital sex. According to some definitions, or all sex in general, depending on your dictionary, extramarital chastity is explicitly demanded in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and most other religious traditions as well. Celibacy is voluntarily choosing not to get married. Sex has nothing to do with it. Self-described incels aren't celibate. They're just assholes. An awful lot of people think that celibacy means abstinence from sex, because that's how they see most priests. And at this point, it makes sense, because most priests, at least in the Catholic tradition are also supposed to be chaste. Even a lot of priests misdefined celibacy because of the long tradition of how the word just gets used. They don't bother looking it up to see what the word actually means. They just use it and hope that they're using it right. I think everybody knows somebody who does that with words.
[00:03:21] Katie Dooley: Yes, I've definitely made up words before.
[00:03:26] Preston Meyer: But even if you have a weird uncle that goes around having sex every weekend with total strangers but refuses to ever get married, he is also celibate. He just isn't chaste. Chastity is expected in every tradition that places any value in the biblical law, and so priests are supposed to be both. In the Catholic tradition, both chaste and celibate so people can get confused by this issue. There's no reason they should though.
[00:04:02] Katie Dooley: But I do not equal sign.
[00:04:03] Preston Meyer: Yes.
[00:04:05] Katie Dooley: Between those two words.
[00:04:06] Preston Meyer: Yes. Bible-believingIf you're going to be a quote unquote good Bible-believing Christian, then you're not going to be having sex outside of marriage. That's chastity.
[00:04:19] Katie Dooley: But you will probably get married.
[00:04:22] Preston Meyer: Probably.
[00:04:23] Katie Dooley: So you're not celibate.
[00:04:24] Preston Meyer: Right. So this is a tradition that we see in the Catholic Church, especially that the Church of Rome does not allow any clergyman to marry except deacons. There are exceptions to that, of course. Any converts from other churches, like an Anglican priest, for example, can convert to Catholicism and stay married.
[00:04:48] Katie Dooley: Right.
[00:04:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they can stay married and actually still serve as serve as priests as long as the right permissions are signed. It's it's a.. I don't want to say common exception, but it happens.
[00:05:01] Katie Dooley: Yes.
[00:05:02] Preston Meyer: And it's it's legitimate. Which of course raises the question over and over again and more and more often, why won't they let the regular Roman Catholic priests marry? We're going to get into that.
[00:05:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:05:20] Preston Meyer: It's it's weird to see how strict the Latin Church is about marriage, like straight up banning it for priests, but also turns out they're really not worried about sex. That and of course, there's the Orthodox tradition, which is like Catholic. They're both the old ones that split apart from each other. In the Orthodox tradition, priests cannot get married, but there's no actual problem allowing somebody who is married to become a priest and stay married.
[00:05:52] Katie Dooley: So I feel like a lot of people do that first.
[00:05:55] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah.
[00:05:55] Katie Dooley: And then go to seminary.
[00:05:56] Preston Meyer: For sure. In fact, there's a nice tradition in some parts of the world where there's a family tradition of raising priests. Like I served as a priest. And so my son's going to do the same, but he's going to get married first. That's that's normal.
[00:06:17] Katie Dooley: Sounds even healthy!
[00:06:19] Preston Meyer: Right? It really is. What's interesting, though, is that if you're a priest and you have been widowed, you're not allowed to remarry. Even in the Orthodox tradition, they don't allow priests to marry. You got to be married first, and then that's just the way it goes.
[00:06:37] Katie Dooley: I think women outlive men more times than not.
[00:06:41] Preston Meyer: Right? So both churches, both the Orthodox and Catholic churches, claim that these are necessary Sees and they acknowledge that they're not any sort of dogmatic law. It's not that we believe this law came from God. It's just over thousands of years we've noticed this is a policy that we're pretty committed to.
[00:07:02] Katie Dooley: Ehhhh....
[00:07:03] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:07:04] Katie Dooley: There might be a few of those episodes.
[00:07:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's there's good reasons to reconsider, at least. And we'll get into.
[00:07:12] Katie Dooley: I can think of like 200,000 good reasons to reconsider but...
[00:07:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:07:18] Katie Dooley: We'll get to that statistic later. It's as sad as you think it is.
[00:07:22] Preston Meyer: Yes. On the flip side, Protestants generally encourage clergy to be married, even their bishops, which is straight up unheard of in the imperial traditions further east.
[00:07:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah and Protestantism, it's almost weird if you're a pastor isn't married.
[00:07:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:07:41] Katie Dooley: 'Cause you gotta be repping the good Christian family.
[00:07:44] Preston Meyer: Right, family is a huge deal, just like it was in the Jewish tradition that all of this comes out of. Yeah, you know, innovations and new decisions and claims of revelation. Weird things happen sometimes. It's it's kind of interesting, though, that within the Protestant tradition, clerical celibacy is recognized as fully antithetical to good theology and obviously harmful in the real world. We'll get into that later. And to add another layer to that, a lot of Protestant churches will not allow divorced people to serve in the clergy. So you need to be married and never get divorced.
[00:08:30] Katie Dooley: Yes. And then, I mean, divorce is still frowned upon in most Christian groups. Even if it's allowed, it's still, I think even outside of Christianity, it's still pretty frowned upon just societally.
[00:08:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:08:44] Katie Dooley: It shouldn't be, but...
[00:08:46] Preston Meyer: It's generally, broadly speaking, divorce is a broken promise, but ruining both people's lives within the community because one of them broke the promise is a pretty crappy thing to do.
[00:09:04] Katie Dooley: Yes.
[00:09:05] Preston Meyer: So the stigma of divorce is a little ridiculous.
[00:09:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Don't stay with anyone you don't want to be with.
[00:09:13] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:09:14] Katie Dooley: It's my. It's my PSA for the day and don't be alone with the priest. Uh.
[00:09:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:09:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:09:27] Preston Meyer: Terrible. Terrible things.
[00:09:29] Katie Dooley: We're gonna try and keep it light-hearted.
[00:09:31] Preston Meyer: But at least until we have to get into the the bad stuff. I mentioned a little bit the the history of marriage in the priesthood. Super important in the Israelite and Jewish tradition that the priests of Israel and Judah were expected to be married. Their whole deal was that the priesthood duties were assigned by families for a couple of weeks of the year. The priesthood in general was a very patriarchal lineal family thing.
[00:10:04] Katie Dooley: Aren't there aren't there gospels that say Jesus would have had to have been married because it was weird to have a Jewish priest that wasn't married?
[00:10:11] Preston Meyer: I've never heard of any that say that Jesus was a priest.
[00:10:15] Katie Dooley: Prophet Person.
[00:10:17] Preston Meyer: Um, as a rabbi.
[00:10:18] Katie Dooley: Rabbi, thank you.
[00:10:20] Preston Meyer: It would have been weird for him to not be married. Yeah. And Jesus was a very popular and well-known rabbi. Not that they use that exact verbiage for that role during his lifetime. The traditional rabbinical system that we're familiar with today started just a little bit after he died. But that's basically the role he filled.
[00:10:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah,
[00:10:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, anyway, yeah, the Levites were very family-oriented. In fact, the entire Israelite religion, religious tradition was very family-oriented. And the only thing to really take away from that into the tradition that we see in the Catholic tradition, is the idea that you were not allowed to work in the temple or visit the temple if as a man, if you had ejaculated since the last sunset, and only then if they had had a bath before sunset as well, which sounds a little bit weird, but they have some really strict laws about cleanliness. If you're on your period, no visiting the temple, all kinds of things like that. If you're dumping fluids, you're unclean.
[00:11:35] Katie Dooley: How do they know?
[00:11:36] Preston Meyer: It's all self-discipline business. If you want to break the rule, you can break the rule.
[00:11:43] Katie Dooley: You'll be smoted, though.
[00:11:46] Preston Meyer: Sure and then, of course, we have Paul the Apostle. His writings are relied on very heavily. In fact, Paul is far more important in the Catholic tradition than any other writer, which feels really weird to me. But he did write the bulk of the New Testament, or at least what got accepted into what we now call the New Testament. But he asked temporary, full-time ministers to keep it in their pants while travelling abroad, but also specifically encouraged bishops to follow the Roman law of having only one wife, as opposed to the Hebrew tradition of allowing multiple wives, which means that there was a time in the Christian tradition before Catholicism destroyed everything and took power and monopolized Christianity, that priests and bishops would be married and sometimes with more than one wife.
[00:12:44] Katie Dooley: Wow. Lucky guy.
[00:12:46] Preston Meyer: If that's the way it goes.
[00:12:50] Katie Dooley: I feel like more than one wife would be difficult to manage. I know how hard I am to manage.
[00:12:56] Preston Meyer: Sure, but that's not the only time the Catholic Church has deviated from the biblical standard.
[00:13:05] Katie Dooley: No.
[00:13:07] Preston Meyer: Jesus said that if you can't look at a woman without breaking the law, cut out your eyes and your balls.
[00:13:13] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:13:14] Preston Meyer: Jesus was very straightforward about this. And there's a lot of people who argue that he was just being figurative. No, no. Some of the stories are figurative. When you have a man giving advice to an audience, he means exactly what he says.
[00:13:33] Katie Dooley: Gouge out your eyes, sir.
[00:13:35] Preston Meyer: Right. Of course. The first ecumenical council in AD 325 strictly forbids following Jesus advice in this way. Mystifying.
[00:13:47] Katie Dooley: I mean, people are really easily can ignore the whole love your neighbor stuff too, from Jesus so...
[00:13:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but nobody's preaching against love your neighbor. There's a big difference between.
[00:13:58] Katie Dooley: Fair.
[00:13:58] Preston Meyer: Failing to follow the rules and preaching against good doctrine.
[00:14:04] Katie Dooley: Cutting off your own balls..
[00:14:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:14:06] Katie Dooley: I like that you call that good doctrine.
[00:14:08] Preston Meyer: Well, I was being more general, but I'm comfortable including that specific statement in the doctrine under the umbrella.
[00:14:16] Katie Dooley: I would like to see a pastor make his congregants follow through with that.
[00:14:23] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, if you got somebody who keeps shouting, you can't let her wear that because it makes me have dirty thoughts. Fix your own problem, buddy. Don't mess with her. Deal with your own business.
[00:14:39] Katie Dooley: And just hands over a pair of scissors.
[00:14:41] Preston Meyer: Right. Keep it simple.
[00:14:45] Katie Dooley: Oh. That's terrible.
[00:14:47] Preston Meyer: People think a little harder before they shout about somebody else's problems. And the way you dress is nobody else's problem.
[00:14:58] Katie Dooley: No it's not.
[00:15:00] Preston Meyer: In fact, speaking about councils, the records of the Council of Elvira, which is in Spain in the early fourth century of the Christian era, the records of this council are the oldest written records that require priests to be celibate. It also banned the married ones from having sex with their wives at all.
[00:15:21] Katie Dooley: That's horrible. And then they couldn't get divorced. Because this is the fourth century.
[00:15:26] Preston Meyer: Right? It's terrible. The logic behind it, of course, is that rule about the Levites of if you have mass every day, Then you can't be messing around.
[00:15:38] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's too bad they can't come up with, like, a, like a schedule or something.
[00:15:43] Preston Meyer: Quick, off the top of my head. Morning mass, have sex with your wife in the afternoon, have a shower before sunset. You're good to go for the next day.
[00:15:50] Katie Dooley: I'm just thinking like maybe Bob does it Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. And you do Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Like...
[00:15:57] Preston Meyer: Sure.
[00:15:59] Katie Dooley: We're really overcomplicating it here, right?
[00:16:02] Preston Meyer: Well, the number of priests to a parish would have to double for your scheme, wouldn't it? So.
[00:16:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:16:11] Preston Meyer: And the church doesn't want to have to take care of twice as many mouths, especially when they're having a hard time finding volunteers. It's not the perfect solution. I like it, but it's not the perfect solution.
[00:16:23] Katie Dooley: Yours is pretty elegant too, I will say.
[00:16:26] Preston Meyer: Morning mass, have sex with your wife, have a shower all before sunset.
[00:16:31] Katie Dooley: Get back to work.
[00:16:32] Preston Meyer: And just keeping your pants overnight.
[00:16:34] Katie Dooley: Wash, Rinse, repeat.
[00:16:36] Preston Meyer: Exactly.
[00:16:39] Katie Dooley: Ha ha. Oh. I'm terrible.
[00:16:41] Preston Meyer: So the the exact line that we have here is from Canon 33, from the Council of Elvira. It says it is decided that marriage be altogether prohibited to bishops, priests and deacons, or to all clerics placed in the ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not beget children. Whoever does this shall be deprived of the honor of the clerical office. So we're going to get into this a little bit more later. Having kids will you will be deprived from the clerical office is how that ended. This rule is very poorly enforced.
[00:17:17] Katie Dooley: Yes.
[00:17:19] Preston Meyer: There are some scholars who think that this is meant to reinforce an older policy or practice that had previously been ignored by many. The the way it reads doesn't really indicate that. It's kind of ambiguous whether or not that's the case from the wording that we have here, but that's what a lot of people believe, and it's pretty hard to change their minds. But this same council of Elvira had some other really great rules. I wrote down a bunch of them.
[00:17:50] Katie Dooley: It looks like we ignore all of them.
[00:17:53] Preston Meyer: Almost. So number 34 was don't burn candles in cemeteries during the day. It feels weird. The context for that is witches do it, so we don't want to catch you doing it.
[00:18:06] Katie Dooley: Okay. It's a candle.
[00:18:10] Preston Meyer: Right? 36 was don't paint icons or pictures on the church walls.
[00:18:17] Katie Dooley: Uh oh. Who's gonna who's gonna let Francis know? Who's gonna tell Francis?
[00:18:23] Preston Meyer: Well, I'm just thinking of Michelangelo. And this huge Sistine Chapel.
[00:18:28] Katie Dooley: Exactly, literally the entire pope's residence is shit painted on the walls.
[00:18:33] Preston Meyer: Right? But here we are. Number 50 was don't share meals with Jews. I'm sorry. I rather enjoy the handful of Jewish men that I share meals with occasionally. But also, I'm not Catholic, so I have to live by this rule.
[00:18:51] Katie Dooley: Jew. David.
[00:18:54] Preston Meyer: Yes, he is Jewish.
[00:18:56] Katie Dooley: It's funny for a multiple... It's on multiple levels funny?
[00:19:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, another one that actually bothered me was canon 59, which says that watching a pagan offer a sacrifice makes you guilty of the same. Yeah, there's ten years penance just for learning about your neighbors, which is antithetical to our whole Holy Watermelon deal.
[00:19:20] Katie Dooley: Wouldn't that be great if they applied that guilt by association to their greater problem that we're about to talk about?
[00:19:26] Preston Meyer: That'd be so great. Canon, 60, says that being killed for smashing an idol does not make you a martyr.
[00:19:37] Katie Dooley: Wow. Okay.
[00:19:38] Preston Meyer: I looked into it because it says that there's no scriptural background for it, and there's some apocryphal stories about Abraham smashing a whole bunch of idols, which contradicts their statement that there's no scriptural or patriarchal figure who has done this. Of course, he didn't get killed, so maybe that's the detail they're missing. Number 62, I felt was really weird. Don't baptize race car drivers or actors. Actually, it says pantomimes or chariot drivers but.
[00:20:11] Katie Dooley: Let's bring it into the 21st century.
[00:20:13] Preston Meyer: Right, obviously, we need to be updating policies for modern verbiage. So don't baptize race car drivers or actors.
[00:20:20] Katie Dooley: Oh... Who's going to tell Mel Gibson?
[00:20:23] Preston Meyer: Right. On the flip side of that, article 44 was baptized prostitutes without delay.
[00:20:32] Katie Dooley: Do not wait. Run! Don't walk to your baptism.
[00:20:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I felt a little bit weird, uh, juxtaposing those two. But,
[00:20:42] Katie Dooley: I mean...
[00:20:42] Preston Meyer: That's what we get.
[00:20:44] Katie Dooley: We got Tom Cruise on one hand and pretty, Pretty Woman on the other.
[00:20:49] Preston Meyer: Mhm.
[00:20:49] Katie Dooley: I see why we pick Julia Roberts.
[00:20:53] Preston Meyer: Sure. Cannon in 81 was a woman cannot receive mail of her own at all.
[00:21:00] Katie Dooley: Fuck.
[00:21:00] Preston Meyer: It must be addressed to the household, the head of household and and wife.
[00:21:08] Katie Dooley: Is that why it's still a thing? It's still very much a thing.
[00:21:11] Preston Meyer: Probably.
[00:21:13] Katie Dooley: I so... I didn't take my husband's last name, but I so often get Mr. and Mrs. Bryant last name.
[00:21:21] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. Strict rule from the Council of Elvira.
[00:21:27] Katie Dooley: I just got a check made out to Katie Bryant's last name, and I was like, I don't know if I can deposit this check because that person doesn't exist.
[00:21:35] Preston Meyer: Right? You pop into the bank and say, this was up,
[00:21:37] Katie Dooley: Please!
[00:21:39] Preston Meyer: Can I have my money?
[00:21:40] Katie Dooley: Monies?
[00:21:40] Preston Meyer: Uh, another weird rule for women. Um. Canon 67 says women must not associate with hairdressers or men with long hair.
[00:21:53] Katie Dooley: Double fuck. For those of you who don't know my husband, he has long hair.
[00:22:00] Preston Meyer: Uh, it's just. I'm thinking of the whole world that we live in.
[00:22:06] Katie Dooley: Didn't Jesus have long hair?
[00:22:08] Preston Meyer: Yes.
[00:22:09] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:22:09] Preston Meyer: Well, okay. So there's there's a debate about what counts as long hair.
[00:22:13] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:22:14] Preston Meyer: Is a man's hair truly long? If it only just rests on his shoulders? That's that's the line where a lot of people put it.
[00:22:22] Katie Dooley: I feel like if you can put it into a ponytail, it's long hair. And Jesus could definitely do a man bun for sure.
[00:22:30] Preston Meyer: Sure. Why not? Yeah. So those are some of the really weird ones. And then another couple that that bothered me, canon 63 and 68, basically point out that killing a living child by smothering is far more favorable for your church situation than having an abortion.
[00:22:51] Katie Dooley: So it's better to birth a child and then stuff a pillow down his throat? Yeah, okay.
[00:22:55] Preston Meyer: According to the Catholic Church and the Council of Elvira 1800 years ago or 1700 years ago or whatever.
[00:23:02] Katie Dooley: Let's not listen to that one.
[00:23:03] Preston Meyer: Right.
[00:23:04] Katie Dooley: Let's not listen to most of these.
[00:23:08] Preston Meyer: I mean, the vast majority of these have been solidly ignored for a while, and...
[00:23:14] Katie Dooley: Including this one.
[00:23:15] Preston Meyer: Including this one, canon 71. Those who sexually abuse boys may not receive communion even when death approaches. That means permanent end to your fellowship in the church, permanent end to your clerical status. We're not going to get into that yet there's...
[00:23:35] Katie Dooley: Still more groundwork we're going to frame a bit.
[00:23:39] Preston Meyer: There's more good things before we lose people. Hopefully. Uh, yeah. The Catholic Church leaned really hard into this no ejaculation that it's unclean. Even though Peter had received a vision that can be fairly said to abolish that whole principle. And it's recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, where all of the Catholic priests ought to be reading on the regular. Anyway, that's the way it goes. They decided that since mass is every day no sex for the man in the dress. But there's exceptions, or rather failures on the part of the clerical superiors. Did a little bit of digging in the news, and I found that a few years ago, a priest knocked up a 17-year-old girl in Pennsylvania. This is not really that far out of the norm, unfortunately. The weird thing is that this priest went ahead and forged the signature of his boss to let them get married or forge a signature on their marriage certificate. And then, just a few months later, divorced the girl. And everybody found out about it. And he wasn't able to continue working in that parish in Pennsylvania. And but a priest somewhere out of state said, hey, come to my parish, come in this little town.
[00:25:13] Katie Dooley: What? They just shuffled them around?
[00:25:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:25:16] Katie Dooley: Wow. Foreshadowing.
[00:25:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:25:21] Katie Dooley: In 2012, Kevin Lee, a priest in Australia, revealed that he had been secretly married for a year and that the church leaders knew about his marriage, but disregarded the celibacy policy and he stayed on as a priest. This one I'm like, not so bad. Not as bad as the other one. But he also lied about it.
[00:25:40] Preston Meyer: I mean, is secretly married really that much better than forging your bishop's signature? I don't know.
[00:25:49] Katie Dooley: I mean, it's better if. As long as he was. I'm assuming there's no context here that he was happily married. It's better than knocking up an underage girl and then divorcing her.
[00:26:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:26:04] Katie Dooley: Presumably after the baby was born. So it wouldn't be a bastard. Not that that matters anymore, but if you were a priest, it probably does. And...
[00:26:12] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:26:13] Katie Dooley: Anyway.
[00:26:16] Preston Meyer: Such a weird world we live in.
[00:26:18] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I just wonder why there are these rules at all.
[00:26:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah, hopefully we've laid some groundwork to understand at least part of the explanation. Whether or not we agree is an entirely separate matter.
[00:26:34] Katie Dooley: Fair. I will let it.
[00:26:37] Preston Meyer: So looking into this wide world of people who are born to priests, I found this fella named Vincent Doyle, and he's kind of an interesting fella. He was born to a Catholic priest named John Doyle way back in the 80s, the early 80s. And interestingly enough, John wanted to care for the child. And so John and Vincent grew close, and I guess I couldn't find whether Vincent's last name was always Doyle. But I have, from what I found, I've just been assuming that which should have been a handy flag that says, hey, there's a family relationship between these two people. Could be. And really, that's a lot of how John was involved in Vincent's life is like a really close, loving uncle. Vincent thought he was his godfather, which may or may not have been a legit on paper thing.
[00:27:38] Katie Dooley: I mean, he was a god... father! Ah!
[00:27:43] Preston Meyer: Very nice.
[00:27:44] Katie Dooley: Thank you.
[00:27:46] Preston Meyer: Anyway, the priest, John, died in 1995, when Vincent was 12 years old. And then years later, when reading some of the things that the priest had written, Vincent found out, much later, in 2011, 16 years later, that the priest was his real father.
[00:28:09] Katie Dooley: Daddy!
[00:28:11] Preston Meyer: He's he's not really okay with it as he realizes this. This really sucks.
[00:28:18] Katie Dooley: No, surprise parents are never good for anyone.
[00:28:23] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. So anyway, Vincent launched Coping International just a few years later, but chose not to promote it. His plan was to see how many people would find it on their own, through search engines, to see how big his problem was in the world. After two and a half years, 13,500 people from 175 countries found his site just by googling phrases like "children of priests", "dad is a priest", "pregnant with priest's baby". Yeah, more than 13,000 people just stumbled across his website by trying to find somebody out there that had something in common with them. This is a very large problem.
[00:29:09] Katie Dooley: They definitely weren't all podcast researchers, that's for sure.
[00:29:13] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:29:14] Katie Dooley: But we found them through podcasts. No one here is pregnant with a priest, baby, I think.
[00:29:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, I am one of the Google hits, but...
[00:29:24] Katie Dooley: I literally thought you were gonna say I am pregnant with the priest's baby.
[00:29:31] Preston Meyer: Oh, you got me.
[00:29:33] Katie Dooley: Congratulations, Preston.
[00:29:36] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. So today, Vincent is a psychotherapist. He leads a sort of international support group through Coping International, where he has shared documents published by the church on the subject. And very recently, just in late 2020, he published a book called Our Fathers, a phenomenon of children of Catholic Priests and Religious. I don't love the title because it really feels like there needs to be another word after religious.
[00:30:05] Katie Dooley: Yes.
[00:30:05] Preston Meyer: Somebody called him on this and he's explained religious refers to priests and nuns who belong to religious orders as opposed to a diocese. It doesn't fix it for me, but I accept that he's committed to what looks like a misprint.
[00:30:24] Katie Dooley: Yes, usually it's an adjective. And then here he's used it as a noun, which I see why it's not incorrect. The religious, But you're right it does. It doesn't roll off the tongue like it should. Right.
[00:30:36] Preston Meyer: It feels like there should be another word. But anyway.
[00:30:38] Katie Dooley: Sorry.
[00:30:39] Preston Meyer: Um, it's doing well as a book. Um, it tells his own story. It tells the history of Coping International. And it also offers advice and explanations of canon law. The Church of Rome has responded directly to Coping International about the whole situation and the book, and they just call the phenomenon inevitable. It's not, if you let priests marry, then this whole situation would be solved.
[00:31:09] Katie Dooley: It goes poof. I mean, the children, random children is solved. The next part is not necessarily solved, but probably greatly improved.
[00:31:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so fun fact the Scottish name McTaggart means son of the priest.
[00:31:27] Katie Dooley: Oh.
[00:31:29] Preston Meyer: All right. For those of you who, uh, might want to get off the train, now is the time. We're going to get into some of the really the grosser details, and...
[00:31:41] Katie Dooley: We're gonna be less funny.
[00:31:42] Preston Meyer: Now. Yeah, we'll just catch you next time. Thanks.
[00:31:45] Katie Dooley: Bye.
[00:31:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:31:48] Katie Dooley: So, fun fact the Catholic Church has a long, dark history of sexual abuse.
[00:31:56] Preston Meyer: I don't know if that counts as a fun fact, but it.
[00:31:58] Both Speakers: Is a fact.
[00:32:00] Katie Dooley: So, as Preston mentioned, the Catholic Church holds its clergymen to outdated standards of sex and gender. The celibacy, chastity and having an all-male clergy still. There are records of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct that go back as far as the 16th century.
[00:32:21] Preston Meyer: And that's just records of sexual abuse. It'd be weird if it was a new thing in the 1500s.
[00:32:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah, this is just when we actually wrote things down.
[00:32:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah. With the Protestant Reformation, it just, I guess, better record keeping? Maybe, I don't know.
[00:32:39] Katie Dooley: Probably a more educated public? Than that, where it wasn't just the priests keeping records.
[00:32:43] Preston Meyer: Generally speaking, I think you're right.
[00:32:45] Katie Dooley: The priests wouldn't keep those records.
[00:32:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:32:50] Katie Dooley: So many of the victims at the time were young women who, of course, weren't often believed. And disclosing abuse to an authority would be dangerous for them. And the authority was often the church. This is different from the modern crisis where the majority of victims are young boys. In 1622, Pope Gregory the 15th, he denounced solicitation. So asking these young women for the sexual favors. So at least they knew it was wrong then, what?
[00:33:22] Preston Meyer: I mean, it's like it's weird that that's noteworthy when, like, regularly speaking, if there's a problem in the community, somebody brings it up and says, hey, fix it. Soliciting anybody for sex in.. At any point or position within the Catholic Church is inappropriate. Unless you're already married.
[00:33:44] Katie Dooley: And it's your wife you're soliciting.
[00:33:45] Preston Meyer: Yes.
[00:33:46] Preston Meyer: Or husband.
[00:33:47] Katie Dooley: Very important detail. Yeah.
[00:33:48] Katie Dooley: Just 'cause you're married doesn't mean you get to solicit.
[00:33:50] Preston Meyer: Correct.
[00:33:51] Katie Dooley: So a lot of these solicitations would happen, of course, during confession. And, like, I was reading a whole bunch on, like, the mechanics of confession, they're supposed to be like, you're supposed to be able to see the people just obviously not hear what they're saying to protect exactly this from happening.
[00:34:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So gross.
[00:34:14] Katie Dooley: So records show it was cracked down on. But internally only, of course, which we will see more of. So during the Inquisition, heretics were publicly exposed and shamed. But in contrast, those charged with solicitation were dealt with privately. So I mean, this just it's basically never stopped.
[00:34:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It was counted as a smaller problem. A problem one worth talking about, but not one worth fixing. Apparently?
[00:34:45] Katie Dooley: No. And then more modernly, so, like you said, there's been the shift from young women to and we'll talk more about reasons they think it's happening and reasons we can "fix it". But one of the things the modern crisis of, again, it being young boys is there's a blame on the air quotes "gay subculture of the Catholic clergy".
[00:35:11] Preston Meyer: I mean, it makes sense that in a religious institution where your feelings make you have to wear the label of evil so very often, which is a gross thing for any group to do that the best way for them to solve it while still staying in the community they value is go and join the priesthood. And then it doesn't matter who I want to have sex with, because then I don't get to have sex. But then.
[00:35:40] Katie Dooley: Yes. So I just want to be clear that pedophile does not equal homosexual and vice versa. Not that there aren't.
[00:35:49] Preston Meyer: But they're not equivalent.
[00:35:50] Katie Dooley: They're not equivalent because the correlation does not equal causation in this case. So yes, Preston's right. Because you can't get married in the Catholic Church. If you're a gay man, it's a sin to have sex with a man. And if you love your faith and want to stay with your family, then yeah, joining the clergy isn't a terrible thing. Secrets of the Vatican is a great PBS documentary, which you might watch for movie night. And it actually does address the gay subculture of the church. But the content of the documentary is consenting adult male priests getting it on with each other.
[00:36:23] Preston Meyer: I mean, that just sounds like a whole popular subgenre of gay porn probably.
[00:36:31] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, they could probably make a bunch of money on it.
[00:36:36] Preston Meyer: I mean, the church has money issues thanks to related problems.
[00:36:42] Katie Dooley: So and then, you know, again, when I'm saying correlation does not equal causation, it's also what these abusers have access to. So if you're in a seminary with a bunch of young boys and you're an abuser, it really doesn't matter if that's what you have access to.
[00:36:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:36:58] Katie Dooley: I hate even saying it. That's what you're gonna seek out?
[00:37:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Take advantage of what you got. Like prison and drama school.
[00:37:07] Katie Dooley: Right? But worse because these are children.
[00:37:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So much worse.
[00:37:14] Katie Dooley: But I gay for the stay is a pretty good analogy.
[00:37:17] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:37:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:37:21] Preston Meyer: Ah. Smoke em if you got em, is what they say. And it's so much worse in this context.
[00:37:26] Katie Dooley: So bad. So while some reports go back as far as the 1950s, we know that survivors often feel shame about what has happened to them. So cases really started to gain media attention in the 1980s in North America. And by the 2000, the Catholic Church was facing a global crisis.
[00:37:45] Preston Meyer: Hmm. Yeah. And of course, they just shuffled the priests around. We mentioned that one specific case before, and that's just one case of the whole phenomenon that we see worldwide. There's some really awful statistics, and we've managed to pull a few from a few different countries. We don't have global stats. That gets really tricky, but we tried. We got some numbers for you.
[00:38:12] Katie Dooley: I'm sure the church's global statistics that they don't want to publish.
[00:38:15] Preston Meyer: I'm very confident that that's the case. Since 1950, over 200,000 children in France were sexually abused by clergy members.
[00:38:28] Katie Dooley: There was some number related to that. I think it was something like 2000 or 3000 pedophiles in the French Catholic Church. To get to those numbers.
[00:38:39] Preston Meyer: That's awful.
[00:38:40] Katie Dooley: Still, a lot of kids I don't even know say it.
[00:38:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:38:45] Katie Dooley: One statistic that I found incredibly staggering. And this, to be fair, this is higher than the global average. But since 1950 7% of Australian clergymen have had an allegation against them. And most of most of these accusations happen in the church. So the global rate is 2% of clergy. This is higher. But I always think about.
[00:39:10] Preston Meyer: It's weird. It's weird that Australia is that much worse than the rest of the world. That seems unlikely. I could see Australia being twice as bad as the global average.
[00:39:24] Katie Dooley: There's probably countries that haven't disclosed nearly as much as it could. I don't want to say Western countries, but if you think there's probably countries that haven't disclosed. And yeah.
[00:39:35] Preston Meyer: Um, Vincent Doyle found stats that he saw very regular hits on his website coming from Africa and that it was not as it wasn't the exact same as the Western world, but comparable just for Africa.
[00:39:55] Katie Dooley: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I can see. Yeah, the 7% of Australian clergymen always bothers me. Because if you think of your child's school and imagine there's 50 staff members, that means four of them are child abusers. And I'm just like, if I knew that, I would not. I don't have children, but I would not send my child to school anymore. Yet we still send kids to church.
[00:40:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Usually, though, parents are with their kids at church, or at least for mass, that kind of thing.
[00:40:31] Katie Dooley: I was going to say.
[00:40:31] Preston Meyer: There's there's an awful lot of opportunities to get the kids alone.
[00:40:35] Katie Dooley: There's 200,000 and I don't want to say negligent parents. That's unfair but instances.
[00:40:39] Preston Meyer: Some tricky situations. Bad, bad bad things.
[00:40:44] Katie Dooley: Between 1975 and 2018, 314 minors, mostly boys under the age of 14, were sexually abused in Cologne, Germany. That's just Cologne, not Germany.
[00:40:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. An investigation of the whole country of Germany found that 1670 clergymen had committed some kind of sexual attack against more than 3600 minors. Boys, mostly under 13. Yeah, between 1946 and 2014. That's staggering numbers. The official report says that this is certainly an underestimation. So the news does not get better.
[00:41:33] Katie Dooley: No. Ireland is one of the worst offenders. So an investigation found that 150. Excuse me, 15,000 victims were sexually abused between 1970 and 1990. So in only 20 years. And that since that time, the church has been so obsessively or has so obsessively concealed the abuse, they couldn't get any reliable stats.
[00:41:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah. If you remember our last episode, Ireland and the Catholic Church are real tight.
[00:42:05] Katie Dooley: It is interesting. The more, let's say conservative or devout a country is, the scarier the numbers per capita are.
[00:42:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's not that people behave better in an ultra-conservative environment, it's just that they hide their issues more.
[00:42:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah, because your air quotes are supposed to be better, yeah.
[00:42:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah and hiding things often makes the problem worse. Yeah. Terrible, terrible things. In the USA, a little closer to home. More than 11,000 victims have come forward, and the church has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements just to get those people to go away.
[00:42:48] Katie Dooley: Yes, very few of these ever actually go to, like, the police level of anything.
[00:42:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:42:54] Katie Dooley: At best to just get dismissed by the Catholic Church.
[00:42:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There's there's no jail time happening. Uh, there's a report, um, of 11,000 names. Not the exact same 11,000 that I just cited for the USA. But the John Jay report goes through 11,000 allegations, and they found that of the ones that they investigated, 81% of the victims were male. That's a huge problem considering the relationship the church has with the queer community and homosexuality. 22% of victims were younger than age ten, 51 were 51% were between the ages of 11 and 14, and 27% were between the ages of 15 and 17. Of course, we're only counting abuse of minors in all of this. Yeah. These ages are really gross. But of course, during the pandemic in 2020, the US government gave the church $1.4 billion.
[00:44:08] Katie Dooley: Is this not a violation of the separation of church and state?
[00:44:12] Preston Meyer: I believe that it is.
[00:44:13] Katie Dooley: I told my dad and he didn't believe me. He was like, is that from a reputable website? And I was like, yeah. And I like pulled up Forbes and CBC and CNN. And I was like, look.
[00:44:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the First Amendment to the American Constitution has this fancy establishment clause that prohibits the government from making any law respecting an establishment of religion. And this. So giving a billion and a half dollars to the church isn't a law, but it falls into this category that forbids the government from taking any actions that favor one religion over another. It was it was designed with the with the express intent of preventing the tax dollars of any citizen from going to any church to which they do not belong.
[00:44:57] Katie Dooley: Perfect. I'm surprised more people weren't outraged by this.
[00:45:02] Preston Meyer: So when this was written, an awful lot of Catholics and Non-Anglican Protestants were fed up with their taxes supporting the Church of England specifically. Of course, the state of Maryland was specifically Catholic for a little while before it... That changed around, and a lot of states had their own state religion. But federally, and this 1.4 billion was federal money. Federally, there is no state support for churches, or at least that's supposed to be the case. But the church was really hurting because they lost all their money paying off the families of the victims of these diddlers. And so the government's like, here's some money.
[00:45:46] Katie Dooley: No, we just need to let these organizations collapse. It's fine.
[00:45:53] Preston Meyer: Well, they still have a lot of money left over from Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
[00:46:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah. If it's such a big like if your parishioners feel so passionately about it, they'll keep you afloat.
[00:46:07] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:46:08] Katie Dooley: I'm not saying that's a good thing, but like.
[00:46:10] Preston Meyer: That is the reality. That's how a fair market works.
[00:46:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah. You can't have them tax-exempt and then give them money.
[00:46:18] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. It's all a terrible mess. So I also did a little bit of digging into the the profiling of the priests who are responsible for all this nonsense. Yeah, it's it's gross. By 2002, more than half in the United States, more than half of cases are full on statutory rape, which, let's not confuse. It is not different than rape. The median age for the first act of alleged abuse was 35.
[00:46:56] Katie Dooley: By the priest.
[00:46:57] Preston Meyer: Right. The a full half of all of the priests who have touched kids. Their first time was before the age of 35 or at the age of 35. So we're not talking about a bunch of dirty old guys, though there are some. We're a lot of young men, which when you're trying to convince a minor to have sex, I guess it helps if you're younger. I don't know. Terrible. Only 19% of priests had a substance abuse problem at the time of their first infraction. This number may have grown for more. Hard to say. Only about 7% were reported to have actually been under the influence of intoxicants.
[00:47:48] Katie Dooley: They all knew what they were doing. This is not something you can put on to something else.
[00:47:52] Preston Meyer: Right? 59% were accused of only a single allegation, which, I mean, it's still a problem, but that means only 41% have done this more than once. That we know about.
[00:48:07] Katie Dooley: That means they've done it a lot. Because how do you get those kind of numbers?
[00:48:11] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:48:14] Katie Dooley: Oh, I don't like this episode.
[00:48:16] Preston Meyer: Gross. We're almost done with the terrible, terrible things. Uh, just under 3% of priests were the subject of ten or more allegations. They have in this stats everything collected by 2002, which is unfortunately, 20 years ago. 149 priests had more than ten allegations against them and accounted for just shy of 3000 attacks.
[00:48:49] Katie Dooley: That's terrible.
[00:48:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:48:53] Katie Dooley: In the 1940s, an American priest founded an organization to treat Catholic priests who struggled with drug and sex addictions. After only a few years dealing with the priests, he wrote to the Pope warning him that sexual abuse offenders were unlikely to change and should not be returned to the ministry. The Vatican didn't want any reports of misconduct before 2001, so everything was handled in-house.
[00:49:20] Preston Meyer: Which, as we mentioned before, was just shuffling them around.
[00:49:25] Katie Dooley: Don't do that again there, Father Bob.
[00:49:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:49:30] Katie Dooley: That doesn't work.
[00:49:31] Preston Meyer: No, it doesn't solve the problem at all. It just means that somebody in a different community is going to get hurt.
[00:49:36] Katie Dooley: I didn't open this can of worms because I emotionally couldn't open this can of worms, but it probably should be. An episode in the future is that nuns were also abused by priests. Horrible stories for that. But nuns were also abusers. Most notable notable high-profile cases: residential schools in Canada. We didn't talk about residential schools and sexual abuse.
[00:50:05] Preston Meyer: It just fits into the category, right?
[00:50:10] Katie Dooley: There's a whole chunk of time.
[00:50:12] Preston Meyer: Terrible things.
[00:50:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And then the Magdalene Laundries is where they would, like, look after young mothers. But they wouldn't. They would just abuse them.
[00:50:22] Preston Meyer: So nice.
[00:50:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So, yes, we talk about priests, but there's.
[00:50:29] Preston Meyer: It's not just the priests.
[00:50:30] Katie Dooley: We talked about rpiests and young boys, but it's everywhere.
[00:50:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The problem is bigger than just the priests.
[00:50:39] Katie Dooley: Yes. So what causes this? How do we fix it? We are not meant... that Francis needs to fix it.
[00:50:49] Preston Meyer: We don't have the power to make the change.
[00:50:51] Katie Dooley: I'm an atheist. They don't even look at me.
[00:50:54] Preston Meyer: Uh, and the Catholic Church has no interest in me either. But somebody with a little bit more pull, I guess somebody who is seen as more authoritative than you and me. In Australia, there was a public inquiry back in 2015 that came back with some results on how to prevent child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Yeah, it's unbelievable because they said you need to let the priests get married.
[00:51:21] Katie Dooley: What?
[00:51:24] Preston Meyer: They say this is likely the number one cause of rampant sex abuse within the church. But we also know the Catholic Church isn't the only institution with an abuse problem. That's not a good defence.
[00:51:38] Katie Dooley: No, but, yeah, I mean, if you let priests get married, you could. I mean, obviously we wanted to drop by more, but even if it dropped by 10% because people got to get married, it'd be amazing. And then if you let people gay.
[00:51:50] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's a really conservative estimate.
[00:51:54] Katie Dooley: Well, because some people are just actually horrible people.
[00:51:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah that's true.
[00:51:57] Katie Dooley: And will abuse regardless of whether they're married or not.
[00:52:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, Josh Duggar.
[00:52:02] Katie Dooley: Right. I hope his kids are out of that house. And then I would even say opening up the clergy to other people, women, married men, because then you get to pull from a better pool of people.
[00:52:18] Preston Meyer: One can hope. Some argue that we didn't know enough about abusers and thought that they were cured after some psychological, psychological treatment, and they were sent back to work. But, I mean, I just read to you an excerpt from a letter decades ago warning, hey, this doesn't work.
[00:52:39] Katie Dooley: It doesn't work. There's a shortage of priests. So this causes problems from everything from, you know, there's just too many people for one person to serve. So things are... Checks and balances are gone. But that also means they're desperate for anyone who's willing to be a priest. And so checks and balances on the seminary side of things are obviously not happening. And then oversight. The entire Catholic hierarchical pyramid is short on people. The the shortage of priests, interestingly enough, the number of priests hasn't decreased. The population of Catholic people has doubled since 1970. And that always surprises me because a) I mean, just doctrinally, it's a very traditional religion. And then I can't believe people didn't leave in droves as we got some of these stats and numbers. But that's just me. That's just me being judgy.
[00:53:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's just crazy.
[00:53:48] Katie Dooley: So in the 1980s, there was about a priest per 1900 every 1900 Catholics, and now it's well over 3000 Catholics per priest.
[00:53:58] Preston Meyer: Could you imagine if all of the Catholics went to church on a regular basis?
[00:54:02] Katie Dooley: Well, there's. And then there's some parishes that I forget. There's some number like tens of thousands of parishes don't have priests.
[00:54:09] Preston Meyer: Okay.
[00:54:09] Katie Dooley: That are just are unserved.
[00:54:11] Preston Meyer: Huh. That's make for some pretty big congregations.
[00:54:16] Katie Dooley: Mega churches, if they wanted.
[00:54:18] Preston Meyer: Oh, man, I gotta get...
[00:54:19] Preston Meyer: That's a tradition that needs to stop.
[00:54:22] Katie Dooley: Their hymns hopping before they can have a mega church.
[00:54:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we'll talk about mega churches another time. Yeah, a lot of writers are pretty sure that the celibacy policy was put in place so the church wouldn't have to pay to support the families of priests. I've heard this a few times growing up. If that was the only issue, wave that against the legal expenses.
[00:54:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I mean, there's like billions of dollars spent in legal expenses. It doesn't take $1 billion to raise a family.
[00:54:51] Preston Meyer: Right? It's.
[00:54:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but then they don't like contraceptives, too. So a priest could have a really big family.
[00:54:58] Preston Meyer: Well, lots of people have big families.
[00:55:00] Katie Dooley: But still, having a big family is way better than our current alternative.
[00:55:07] Preston Meyer: Right? I'm trying to think of a way to brighten this up before we close off. And, I mean, this has been dark and crappy and kind of a weird thing to to dive into and see what's going on.
[00:55:26] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it didn't do anything for my mental health this week.
[00:55:30] Preston Meyer: Go listen to something fun as soon as possible.
[00:55:34] Katie Dooley: Maybe we'll put a happy playlist on there. Link to Katie's Spotify. I mean, we'll do that. Happy songs.
[00:55:41] Preston Meyer: You can find some good laughs on Discord. We've got all kinds of great memes. In fact, we've had a nice little sprint of them lately.
[00:55:51] Katie Dooley: Yes, you can always check out our Instagram or Facebook for more learning. And of course, our spreadshirt for some hilarious merch that'll put a smile on your face.
[00:56:03] Preston Meyer: Or, if you want to support us without filling your closet with clothes and whatnot, you can always pop onto our Patreon. All the links for all of these will be in our show notes.
[00:56:14] Katie Dooley: Hold your religious leaders accountable, everyone.
[00:56:17] Preston Meyer: Please.Thanks for joining us.
[00:56:21]
Both Speakers:
Peace be with you.
