We are all, no doubt, aware of the many acts of pedophile 
committed by a few celibate Catholic clerics.  Though such acts 
were committed by a mentally retarded few, it none-the-less cast 
a long shadow over the abiding majority of loyal Catholic clerics 
who practice their faith with honor and respectability.

These disclosures took on a more ominous character because, in the 
past, the Diocese heads chose to cover-up these improprieties rather 
than mustering the courage to publicly defrock and banish 
the perpetrators from religious servitude.

On looking back, one has to wonder: Was the blemish it may have 
caused, at the time, worth the enormous disgrace it has imposed 
on the Catholic faith of today?

As I look at our own divided Armenian Apostolic churches, I also 
wonder: How many holy improprieties have our Apostolic leaders 
been covering up?  And if they have been playing "Russian Roulette" 
with our Armenian faith, isn’t it possible that the same ugly 
thing could also happen to us?

Our Armenian Apostolic faith is seventeen-hundred centuries old.
And for the most part, the world has changed dramatically, but 
our Armenian church hasn’t.  Our Armenian Apostolic Church 
presently mandates celibacy after her clerics reach higher rank.  
But we know that even though the church mandates celibacy, that 
many in the higher ranks have already crossed that line. 

Therefore, doesn’t it make good sense to do the humane thing
by taking the celibacy mandate out of the line up?
Furthermore, how effectively can any celibate priest counsel
a married couple if they themselves have never experienced the
blessing of love and marriage.   Moreover, how can they
counsel how to raise a child, especially in the liberal
societies of today, if they themselves haven’t experienced
parenthood?

All of our Christian faiths define God as our Holy Father.
And though I will not dispute the fact as to whether or
not God is a male or female, I do strongly dispute the
exclusion of women from our altars.  Mary, the Mother of
our Lord Jesus Christ was a woman.  Yet, in most of our
traditional Christian faiths, a woman, even the Mother
of Christ, is not allowed on the altar.  Why?  Is it
because celibacy in women is more easily determined than
a man’s?   The Apostle John said that Mother Mary was a
virgin before, during, and after She gave birth to Christ.
How did he know?   Was he a gynecologist?

And, last but not least, as Armenian Apostolics,
why do we go to divided churches--why do our vaunted
clerics continue to keep us divided?

In making my feelings known and being contrary
to what my Armenian Apostolic Church presently preaches,
I fully realize that I may be putting my eternal destiny
in question.  But I don’t think I am because our Savior’s
First doctrine of faith was the doctrine of Love and the
second was in the fact that being created in the image of
God, we are all independent in both mind and spirit.
And to this end, we all have the choice of finding
our own way to salvation.  If such weren’t the case,
we wouldn’t be endowed with the Godlike individuality 
we were created with.  Therefore, I am always ready for
advice but, for real honest-to-goodness enlightenment, 
being of independent mind and spirit, it must and can only
come from within myself.  And this being so, I do not believe
that there is a mortal being on earth that has the authority 
or the power to dictate which of the many roads is the only
true road to salvation.

As time passes, our earthly faiths will become more
of an object of dispute over the varying beliefs that they
espouse.  This being so, I believe that the time has come
for all faiths to get together and to bring their beliefs
into harmony with the present, and even more so, with each other.

The following is a part of Meditation 17 (John Donne 1572-1631).  

".... No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. 
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor
of thy friend’s or thine own were.  Any man’s death 
diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and 
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls:
It tolls for thee....."


						Joseph Vosbikian