[Note: The following is completely fictional; it is weird but very well-written if I say so myself]
"It started innocently enough. One day while saying Mass I felt a great emptiness. I prayed more and more fervently to try to make the feeling go away, but it remained. To keep my spirits up, I mentally undressed selected nubile females in the Congregation; and it was Good. When the same emptiness returned the next week, I mentally undressed every female that I noticed in the pews. Before long, I was mentally undressing the entire Congregation, regardless of their age or sex; and in spite of the fact that they trusted and believed in me. I was becoming obsessive about it, just as much I once was about theology when I was studying to be a priest in the seminary; and it truly scared me. While I slept, and sometimes while I was awake, I swear I heard voices telling me: " 'Obsession, Compulsion. Do it! Forget sin. Forget God!' " I prayed it would all go away to no avail.
Soon afterwards, laying on of hands became cheap feels, and even cheaper thrills. Confessions became impromptu gynecological exams. I have put myself in more compromising positions than times I have said 'Amen'. I should have been excommunicated, defrocked, jailed, but I selected the most vulnerable and least likely to come forward of the Congregation. The obsession is growing worse. GUILT, SIN, REPRESSION, SUPPRESSION. The longer I do these terrible things, the less guilty I feel about them. The guiltier I feel though, the worse my obsession becomes..."
I could imagine on a typical tabloid show: "Today on Geraldo, Perverse Priests." (to be cont'd)
[The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern in the early '90s and as part of my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays]
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