St.
Bonaventure University:
A Gulag of
Militaristic, Sexual &
Philosophical Indoctrination
I
enjoy a daily morning
routine which I have followed
for more than two years and
hope to hold forever. It is
always being interrupted by
one event or another, but
never broken long enough to
make me lose it or forget it.
I awake at 5:45 a.m. and listen
to the radio until six when I sit
up and meditate for twenty
minutes. Up to the time that it
is eight o’clock I perform a
series of exercises including
calisthenics, jogging in place,
and light weight-lifting. After
these ritualistic performances I
head for the shower continuing
to think about ideas for living,
for writing, for studying, for
whatever.
At times, the shower conjures
many intense feelings: they
can be very frightening or
euphoric in construct. I have
self-analyzed these sentiments
through some psychoanalytic
systems of thought, and I know
why they come about—even,
when they will happen. The
reasons are not crucial to this
writing. My subjective
responses spring out of the
mucky imprints of my life which
lie fixed below my
consciousness and, as the
years pass, occasionally melt
away wholly involuntarily.
Nonetheless, there are many of
them simmering, and they do
not disappear as quickly as I
would wish. They are down
there, and every so often signal
to me—through bodily tremors
and nervous tension—their
desire to find release in a
definition of their reality. The
screams for escape tell me I
must begin to assort my
notions, because if I do not
attend to these hidden
predilections which may not
pass away with time, I will
suffer painful consequences for
my neglect. These psychic
reactions demand immediate
attention.
The action or process of
stating, of describing, of
explaining, or making definite
and clear is best done for me
when I take pen in hand and
write. I do not know why. And I
am not always prompted to
write when I am psychically
destroyed of tranquillity or
composure, but when I do write
about what I am cajoled
emotionally to create, I feel a
sense of well-being for both
confronting what I could not
have faced before, and for
explicating something which
others may enjoy braving with
me and which they may find
relief in as much as I do.
On 7 June 1981—a balmy,
cloudy Sunday morning in
Caracas, Venezuela—I emerged
from the shower with a bevy of
horrifying reminiscences of the
years I spent in a
predominantly men’s Roman
Catholic university (St.
Bonaventure University) in
upstate New York. Excitedly, I
mulled over these bits of
impressions knowing only too
well that they would eventually
find their way to these pages
expressed in an interpretative
literary composition dealing
exclusively with my limited,
personal point of view. For
years I had had darts of
thoughts about a very terrible
experience, but on this tropical
June morning all became “co-
ordinated” for me. The way to
catharsis had been set in
motion, and when I went out to
have coffee and mineral water
in a local snack bar, I fidgeted
and shook with anxiety about
my recently-discovered
repressed ideas—now
discharging and soon to be
defined. The urge to commit
them to paper for myself and
my audience gave me a
confident, good feeling. After
many years I was finally going
to react against and defy the
terrors of buried bad memories.
From this act I would become
stronger and more satisfied.
My being would be cleansed
further. I would go beyond, and
in doing so, come closer to the
core of my existence. My act of
purifying would enfold, and I
would present it as a gift to my
listeners.
A purgation of the emotions
that brings about spiritual
renewal or release from tension
is not easy to achieve. Firstly,
it involves work and keen,
unrelenting dissection of the
passions. But this effort is not
as difficult as is the struggle to
keep a mental balance during
the unburdening. The strength
of the checked passions—once
they are ready to let loose—
plays havoc with good sense
and clear thought, and its
power demands excruciating
self-discipline on the part of the
self-analyst. The hidden
turmoil must be liberated
gradually; it cannot burst forth
as it wants to. The battle
drains one. It leaves the
emotions rent of any might. I
remember when I ousted the
appalling mental souvenirs of
the death of a comrade killed in
Vietnam, I had to stop every
fifteen or twenty minutes in
between the paragraphs I had
written about him. The ordeal
was so exacting for me, I
napped to gain my verve back
and only then was I recharged
and ready to continue.
Fortunately, the rewards
outweigh the rigors and throes.
A sense of well-being and
courage forever remain to
delight and fulfil once this
torturing road has been
tramped to emancipation.
The undercurrents of pain
which have seethed below my
good sense until now, far
exceed the pleasant memories
I took away with me from St.
Bonaventure University. It
cannot be said that there were
no real happy recollections.
But those are not what occupy
my mind. The wretchednesses
of my psyche admit little of
what was good in that
institution. Suffice it to say
that most things were bad for
me there.
The alarming glimpses at these
unfortunate mental records did
not, until now, appear in any
organized pattern—they were
disjointed and they were
spontaneous. They repeated
themselves intermittently, and
throughout their lifetimes,
there were lapses of long
months when they did not
surface to vex me. I have
collected these revolting
memories for almost twenty
years, and they fall into three
general categories: militaristic
indoctrination, sexual
indoctrination and philosophical
indoctrination. I attest that the
four years at St. Bonaventure
University was a time lost in
the worst of prisons: the state
of confinement where the mind
is worked over to be bent into
shape to conform to an
ideology. My four years were
dissipated in a “gulag” of
emotional and mental restraint,
and the cold winds and blinding
snows which blew down from
Canada into the western New
York State “snow belt” to chill
living beings at the foothills of
the Alleghany mountains,
frosted likewise my heart’s
desire to love and my mind’s
longing to ripen in knowledge.
The panic which soars today
when I think of years wasted
under the grips of a negative
constraint more powerful than I
was, rips bitterly at my temper.
I console myself with the
thought that I had both the
courage and the chance to
disentangle my very being from
such terrifying experiences
without losing my zest for life
and my mental stability, which
before my “escape,” was often
bulldozed within the thought
and emotionally controlled
environs of St. Bonaventure
University.
Now to begin. What is coming
is the elimination of that which
has lain dormant in my
subconsciousness for many
years. It is poison to me and
must be spewed out. I proceed
by reflecting on the four years
(1962-66) I was a member of
the St. Bonaventure University
student body. I invite you, my
dear reader, to come along
with me to share in my contest
to elicit the truth for myself and
others.
I.
MILITARY INDOCTRINATION
About military indoctrination, I
have the following mental
images:
A. I am in Military Science
class (201), and the sequent
quotation from Clausewitz’s On
War is being championed by a
United States Army major not
to defend the idea of military
preparedness, but to tout the
glory of battle: “War…is a
wonderful trinity, composed of
the play of probabilities and
chance which make it a free
activity of the soul, and of its
subordinate nature as a
political instrument, in which
respect it belongs to the
province of Reason….”
Intellectually, I am stunned by
these words. The thoughts sink
deep and penetrate my
character. My awe is profound.
I am a believer.
B. It is the season of Spring
and Thursday afternoon. The
fifth day of the week is both
“steak night” in the dining hall
and drill day for the Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps. I am
the S-2 (intelligence officer) for
the corps, and I have just
passed two hours sucking in
the fragrances of freshly cut
grass and blossoming flowers
momentarily made groggy by
the stench of puffs of gun
powder smoke floating away
from a battery of six 105mm
howitzers. Blasts from the
cannons saluted the
presentation of the Star-
Spangled Banner. The
schedule of military activities
has been boring and ordinary,
but both our green uniforms—
proudly worn to impress the
crowds and ourselves—and the
beautiful mountain backdrop
on the edge of the drill
field/football field, harmonize to
make the effort a worthwhile
occasion. As I return to my
dormitory unloosening my
black tie and unbuttoning my
mustard-colored shirt, there are
screams and taunts from voices
within the halls of ivory:
“R.O.T.C. sucks!!! Fuck the
Army!!! Eat shit, faggots!!!” I
am angered. Those
irresponsible, immature creeps!
What do they know of
Clausewitz? What do they
know about defending their
country? Who will it be who
goes to the battlefields to fight
and protect these ingrates?
Who will it be who assumes the
responsibilities they refuse to
accept? I am of a cause more
important and more potent
than they are. I will survive,
and those pathetic creatures
will die by the wayside
ambushed by weakness and
disloyalty. I lock my heels and
brace my body against this
unenthusiastic attitude. I am a
soldier.
C. It is time for the military
ball and we are snuggling up to
a United States Army
lieutenant-colonel who is tipsy
after his fifth martini. Vietnam
is a reality which haunts all of
us wearing the green.
“Sir, why are we in Vietnam?”
“To defend innocent peasants
against the perils of
communism, dummy!”
(“Cardinal, is there a devil? Of
course, there is a devil,
dummy! And where is the
devil, Cardinal? Where is the
devil! Why the devil is in Hell,
that’s where he is!”) “It is a
noble venture, and it is one
which will reap rewards for the
American people. We are
determined to stop those
fucking commies at their own
doorstep. We will not be
harassed. We will not cater to
the dictates of ideologues
possessed with a propensity to
cause disruption. Democracy is
the best mother-fucking
system, boy, and don’t you
ever forget that!”
“And, sir, what if you are sent
to Vietnam?”
“Son, I will be in Vietnam in
less than six months. And I will
fight for my country. I will
defend the principles of
democracy, and the God-given
right of all men to live in
freedom and peace.”
I wished for my turn to go to
Vietnam. I wished for my turn
to fight against the perils of
communism. I wished for my
turn to protect innocent Asiatic
peasants. I wished for my turn
to help secure freedom and
peace for all individuals.
D. I am receiving a lecture
from a full-bird colonel who is a
veteran of two Northamerican
wars. His uniform is weighted
with ribbons and decorations
and commendations. He is an
“old-timer.” What is fascinating
about this high-ranking officer
is that he is a puny man—
smaller even than my own
medium-built frame. He is
bald, and he chain smokes
Camel cigarettes at an
astounding rate.
inhaling and exhaling of his
unfiltered cigarettes. Later,
when I will come to know this
man better, I will watch him
gulp tremendous swigs of
cognac to calm his ragged
World War II and Korean War
nerves.
This chicken colonel is living
taut. Is it that his shell-shocked
body hardens from the
memories of exploding artillery
rounds? Those same sounds I
myself will come to know in
less than two years?

He is telling us about an
experience in World War II Now to the realities…
combat when he—as an
artillery forward observer—
called direct fire on his own
position to ward off a flood of
attacking German infantrymen
who had penetrated his lines.
The colonel is pallid with
seriousness. I am glued to his
nervous being which appears
to want to explode at any
moment, but is spared this
disintegration by the artificial
opening and closing of a
mental safety valve: the rough
1. Clausewitz’s ideas about
the nature of war have
been refuted time and time
again. They are famous for
their contrarieties, and
they have received enough
negative interpretation to
keep them from having
potent influence except
among die-hard military
fanatics who are on the
verge of extinction—very
slowly, but very surely. I
wish to make some
personal observations
about the “philosopher of
war” with reference to his
belief in the
reasonableness of war and
my own combat
experiences in Vietnam.
This Prussian logician of
bloodshed belongs,
fortunately, to another age
where his respect for
national mythologies was
able to play ruin with
historical forces, and his
haphazard aptitude to
idealize any cause, was
free to take firm root
among those whose lives
were beset by troublesome
boredom and susceptible
to his dogmatism.
Clausewitz, as effective as
he was in the use of war
speech, spoke with a
flippancy—a forked tongue,
if you will—that served only
too well his middle-class
ambitions to hop up to
those noble birthrights he
so embarrassingly lacked.
And so, with pen in hand—
it has been said to be more
powerful than the sword—
Clausewitz devised a quasi-
philosophical nomenclature
to outwit and dominate
those of the snobbish
military establishment who
had made his military
pretentiousness at first so
trying and frustrating. And
from this intellectual
recklessness, we obtain
notions that war is a
mathematical principle, a
complicated piece of
machinery, a profound
technique!
I knew men in Vietnam (1967-
68) who valued his
concepts. They understood
war to be the way he
envisioned it—the result
being uncannily unreal. I
have seen majors and
colonels and generals—in
freshly-starched fatigues,
sipping whiskies, and
comfortable in well-fortified
protected areas—pulling
out red pins and white pins
and blue pins which moved
hundreds and then
thousands of individuals
into situations war
philosophers themselves
would have preferred to
avoid. And they did this,
naturally, with the consent
of a president, senators,
House Ways and Means
Committee members,
journalists, priests, actors
and stockbrokers. They did
this also with a vengeance
for what they themselves
had to endure as young
buck soldiers pissing and
moaning in the rice
paddies of another age
where they too were up to
their necks in roily waters
with leeches sucking on
their scrotums.
War belongs to the province of
reason? Whose reason? Is
reason an attack near the
Cambodian border where a
United States Army infantry
company, under “attack”
by its own artillery, has
gone so berserk one grunt
is on the ground in the fetal
position—his rifle discarded
—saying the rosary? Is
reason the death of thirty
men who, attacking a hill,
are hit by their own air
force’s 750-pound bomb?
Is reason fighting for all
this when within a man’s
army there exists a weapon
which might end—in a
matter of seconds—all
conflict for the soldier and
the zealots who direct him?
(Oh! Then it is
unreasonable to have
atomic weaponry, you
ask?) I found little reason
in war, and what was
requisite ground of
explanation of a logical
defence of it served not
those in combat, but those
who would benefit from
this play of probabilities
and chance by being as far
away from it as they and
William F. Buckley, Jr, Gore
Vidal, Al Gore, Noam
Chomsky, William Clinton,
et cetera, themselves
could be!
I conclude that Clausewitz and
his ilk would better serve
mankind by sublimating
their unnatural and
perverse instincts to
dominate and rule to the
playing of chess or
Monopoly. These warped
characters need to divert
their rudimentary forms
and thwarted desires to
another destination:
healthy for them and all
men and women. They
need to know what
motivates them. They
need to know why they
make the most formidable
of cowards, for it is these
same individuals—so
convinced of the
reasonableness of battle
tactics and campaign
charts and standard
operating procedures and
planning specialties
(artistic war experts!)—who
fall apart the easiest during
the duress of battle. When
their by-the-book rules and
regulations fail to serve not
only the realities of battle
and war, but the actualities
of life, do they then sink
into the quagmires of
frustration and despair
which for so long they have
fought to sidestep through
their fastidiousness and
resolute spirits.
B1. A uniform is an anomaly.
Whether it is the pompous
shield of a five-star general, or
the blue jeans/sweat shirt outfit
of a university student,
something which is in
consonance with a higher order
offers a neither true nor right
strength and belongingness
especially to those in search of
identity and devoid of a feeling
of inner stability. Frequently
short of the sentience of an
interior steadfastness when I
attended St. Bonaventure
University, I wore my military
garments, which presented an
unvarying appearance of
surface, pattern or color,
seeking a proper situation
which I had felt the want of. In
varying degrees, my military
garb made me consistent in
conduct or opinion, and offered
me the security and comfort of
the United States Army. I wore
my greens proudly as a cadet
in the Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps at St. Bonaventure
University and later as a
second then first lieutenant in
the real (regular) army.
(Paradoxically, a uniform is a
potentially dangerous
instrument. It commands
“respect,” automatic
duteousness. And it serves
propagandistic causes very
well. If one knows not what
doctrines or causes surround
the appeal of the uniform, the
uniform may serve to hoodwink
and confuse. Adolf Hitler, a
dandy dresser in his pre-war
activities, wore a simple—
emperor’s uniform, so to speak
—when he lead Germany along
the path of his perverted
destructiveness.)
My uniform attracted women,
gave me a raison d’etre, and
helped me surface above the
childishness of basketball
euphoria, drunkenness (illicit
drugs were not on the scene as
yet), and Playboy masturbatory
sojourns in the lavatory of
Devereux Hall.
It was exhilarating to polish
brass with Brasso, and spend
hours spit-shining my shoes
and boots until not just the tips
but the whole outer coverings
of my feet glistened with the
caked layers of black polish
which had seeped into the
pores of rough leather to
assume a glabrous, glass-like
finish. Even the visor of my
officer’s cap was spit-shined!
My gig line (the belt buckle
aligned with the fold over the
trouser’s zipper)and the
placement of my officer brass
insignia were STRAC (Stategic
Air Command, but also
jargonish for “in perfect
order”). Ready for inspection.
On line. Combat serviceable.
Perfect. I was the best of
adherents: loyal, believing,
proud, sensitive, and bored
with life and St. Bonaventure
University.
I needed to belong. I needed
my identity. I needed to be
devoted to something. I
needed to cause, to effectuate.
The uniform of the United
States Army temporarily
satisfied this existential
craving. I needed to show my
mother and father, my sister,
my brothers, my girlfriend, my
neighbors, my society, my
country, my world purview…
MYSELF!!! My uniform helped
me participate in a cause
beyond the simplicity of my
own indifference and
loneliness. It helped me cover
myself with a fixture designed
to protect not only my being,
but the essences of the
fraternity of individuals in this
world who required my
supervision and leadership and
support when I played the role
of officer.
In Vietnam, in the field, our
fatigues were exchanged and
burnt after seven to ten days’
use. The armpits were stained
with patches of white—salt
tablets having sweated on
through the santeen material
to blotch the hollows under our
arms. Boots were never
shined, there was no brass to
polish, we wore scratched and
dented steel helmets, and most
of the time we were unshaven
and dirty—stinkingly soiled.
Above and beyond the illusive
look of the uniform—in combat
or out of it—I had incorporated
the ideals of a conduct which I
would defend in razzle-dazzle
regalia or in putrid-smelling
military work clothes. I took
seriously my pledge to defend
the Constitution of the United
States of America, and it was
always my intention to try to
help innocent people fight
against the horrors of
centralized control by an
autocratic authority. I learned
quickly in Vietnam that I had
been suckered into another
form of totalitarianism, and
when I left Camh Ranh Bay and
Vietnam never to return once
more, I hoped that I would not
have to wear my uniform
again, and I was ashamed that
I had ever put it on.
C1. After the military ball, I
searched exhaustively to meet
a United States Army officer
who expressed verbally ideals
which would “defend the
principles of democracy, and
the God-given right of all men
(and women?) to live in
freedom and peace.” And if
actions speak louder than
words, I never saw an all-out
effort to help people in
Vietnam, but I did see actions
to abuse them and to exploit
them. I witnessed violations of
the Geneva Convention and I
witnessed illegal liberties—
taken under the pretext of war
condition red—to commit
inhuman, immoral and insane
deeds. And to point further to
this ridiculousness, I saw
Roman Catholic chaplains bless
B-52 bombers!
Most officers I encountered in
Vietnam were interested in
their promotion opportunities,
their next duty station, their
whisky and beer, their pay
checks, and their futile efforts
to make a year’s time pass
faster than it was meant to go
by. The Vietnam tour was a
thing to get over with. No one
approached the Vietnam ordeal
perceiving it to be an action of
salvation and redemption.
Everyone knew that the excuse
to penetrate violently the
sovereignty of Vietnam was
just a political smoke screen to
induce others to participate in
the imperialistic manipulation
of a decidedly weaker group of
peoples and nations who
lacked the ability and force to
preserve their own cultures and
destinies against intrusion by
the two desperate superpower
totalitarianisms of this world:
defunct respect for the
inalienable rights of the
individual, and passé deference
to the equitable distribution of
economic goods.
In Vietnam I lost respect and
love for my country. I came
face to face with the idea that I
had been conned by my own
people. I had been lied to over
and over again, and in Vietnam
this fact became so obvious, I
could not tolerate accepting
any longer deceptions from my
people, from my country. I
broke with them emotionally
and finally physically. I refuse
to accept their lies and
untruths. I cannot live in the
aura of stupidity and greed
which supports so well the aims
of a knavish imperialistic
capitalism which I was
instructed to defend to my
death. I feel as if my country is
a girlfriend I once loved deeply
and then lost: she is dead to
me…I wish her well…I have no
feeling for her…I want to avoid
her.
D1. I have come to know the
faces of war veterans whether
they be drug-addicted Vietnam
vets helping to overthrow the
Somoza regime, or World War I
and World War II and Korean
War castoffs who are drunk in
Veteran of Foreign Wars’ beer
halls. They all possess the
same emptiness. And I do not
think their vacuous expressions
come from the memories of
exploding artillery rounds or
122mm rockets.
I remember ducking mortar and
rocket rounds one night in
Pleiku, and I believed the
display to be quite funny and
very thrilling—once cover had
been taken! Everyone was out
of his mind with excitement
during the attack, and we
tripped over each other like
kids scurrying out of school at
the ringing of the three o’clock
bell. Not a single individual
was hurt, except when some of
us fell and scraped our hands
and knees running to seek
cover in a bunker. A captain
even tape-recorded the event—
as if he had been on vacation—
to send back to his family and
friends!
No, the looks of despair
emanate from the knowledge
of how stupid war is, and the
shrewdness that everyone
knows it is crass, but will do
nothing to stop it. One is
induced to enlist under
pretenses which do not exist in
fact, but which sound logically
convincing: as if that is the
way things ought to be. And
then the worst happens: your
family members and your loved
ones abet the idiocy.
I know why there are so many
drug and alcohol addicts in the
armies of the world. These
harebrained organizations are
so emasculating and unnatural,
they are bound to drive anyone
to drink who stays long enough
under their spells of belief that
conditions in the social
organization are so bad as to
make destruction desirable for
its own sake independent of
any constructive program or
possibility. This viewpoint
which says, ultimately, that
there is no basis for any truth,
is a state which incites
depression and nihilism in turn
temporarily assuaged by the
abusive use of narcotics and
alcoholic beverages. It is
amazing to see how high the
reliance is on these sham
inducements to unreal joy. The
armies, the navies, the marine
corps, the air forces, all of
them, instilling boredom,
unfriendliness, emotional
instability, loneliness and fear,
pave the way to these artificial
escapisms. And with such a
powerful sense of scepticism
for things which are productive
and healthy leaning on the
crutches of substances that
produce addiction or
habituation through drugs and
alcohol, and affecting so many
men and women, one is made
to think from where comes the
body of persons having a
common activity—people:
sane, sober, skilful, and secure
—to guard, control and protect
the arsenal of the thousands of
atomic bombs we are told exist
to guarantee the survival of
democratic principles? Can
there be so many thousands of
atomic bombs if there are not
the thousands of responsible
individuals to control them? Do
these bombs actually exist? I
was trained to launch missiles
with nuclear warheads in them,
but I never ever saw a nuclear
round! (Do you think I
exaggerate? My dear readers,
my dear political science
professors at Harvard and
Georgetown, even you! Stanley
Hoffman and Henry Kissinger!
Swoop down into the nether-
nether land of the soldier of the
United States Army for two
years and wear the fatigues of
a private and not swivel in a
chair in a Pentagon war office!
See for yourselves! Ask to see
the thousands of atomic
bombs. Study the calibre of
men who are entrusted with
the national security of the
United States of America! Then
write about what you think is
causing the vanquishment of
the spirit of the United States
of America. Or do you, too,
want to put your feet up on
your desks and wait for better
days?)
II.
SEXUAL INDOCTRINATION
About sexual indoctrination, I
have the following mental
images:
E. On the second floor of
Robinson Hall (a dormitory built
with United States’ government
funds St. Bonaventure
University received for
incorporating the Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps into its
curriculum: a Christian, Roman
Catholic/military business deal;
the trade also included the
luxurious Friary for the school’s
Franciscans, and this edifice
was affectionately referred to
as “The Hilton” by all on
campus) there is a select group
of individuals who practice
anal-hoarding, and graph,
competitively, the number of
days they go without
defecating, and the number of
times they must flush the toilet
to rid the bowl of their
enormous, I suppose, turds.
Dino, the present leader of the
cultists, has affixed with a
magic marker, ceremoniously
and with the greatest feeling of
pride, “63X!!! 7 March 1964”
to the door of the toilet stall
where he broke all St.
Bonaventure University
flushing records heretofore held
to dispose of large, constipated
stools.
F. I have reported, as I do
every week, the number of
times I needed to surrender
sexual tension the last seven
days, and the priest has given
me the following penance: I
must say a complete rosary for
each time (three or four
weekly) that I masturbated.
And in order to avoid sinning in
the future, I must “grab hold of
my beads” when “that
sensation arises again” and
“pray to the Virgin Mary to seek
her intercession and special
grace to thwart the temptation
to commit a grievous, mortal
sin.” Lighting a candle—now
and then—is also a good idea.
I will never enter a confessional
again in my lifetime.
G. It is three o’clock Sunday
morning, and on the third floor
of Fal dormitory, a drunk senior
is banging at the door of the 3rd
Fal prefect, a young Franciscan
monk who is a brilliant
philosophy teacher in the
process of completing his
doctoral dissertation:
“Father, father!!! Help me!”
He acts frantically.
“I have that tingling sensation
again.”
He smirks at his friends.
“What must I do?”
He bangs harder at the door.
“Father, can you give me your
rosary beads?”
He looks at his friends and
covers his mouth to muzzle his
laughing.
“I need to pray. The tingling
sensation is getting bigger and
bigger, and so is my cock!”
He takes out his penis and
begins to jerk away in front of
his friends. There is no
response from within the office
of the prefect.
H. I am walking along a
section of unused railroad
tracks behind the main campus
of St. Bonaventure University,
and I am with a pretty “townie”
high school senior with whom I
have been kissing and
embracing for the last two
hours. It is a beautiful Spring
day and the fresh breezes
flowing down from The Hearth
make it “an almost” sweater
afternoon.
In front of us, almost two
hundred meters away, two
Franciscan monks are
promenading our way enjoying
the wonderful Seedtime
afternoon and the Alleghany
mountains. At first I can only
make out their brown uniforms
which are distinguished by
huge white cords jostling
against their sides.
In a while I begin to cringe with
a gust of anxiety which hits me
fine in the intestines and forces
me to think hard about the
impending meeting between us
and the very words I will utter
to pay respects to my
metaphysics’ teacher—one of
the Roman Catholic church’s
most important Scotistic
philosophers and a William of
Ockham expert. An impulse to
drop the hand of my girlfriend
moves with sudden speed
across my mind, but I will not
be a traitor to myself or to her.
We meet, I bid an adieu to my
philosophy professor and his
friend, and then come upon a
railroad switching place, where
I am reminded that I may take
one of two directions: the way
to follow in the footsteps of this
sparkling representative—also
holder of an agrégé from
Louvain University—of Roman
Catholic philosophy; or, the
way to follow in the footsteps
of this beautiful, kind, young
girl who has given me her
attention, her passion, her
sense of humor, her friendly
smile, her love.
Now to further realities…
E1. The anal-hoarding
character is stubborn, orderly,
cheap, punctual, obsessively
clean, rigid and deficient in
ideas and originality. Because
they see the world as hostile
and dirty, they preserve their
mental balance by keeping
things at a distance from them,
by controlling external events
as forcefully as they can, by
rejecting that which does not
agree with them, and by
holding in what they do not
want to release so as to please
others. Anal-hoarders are
fanatic conservers of time and
space, seeking order and
security in their lives which
they feel is victimized and
beleaguered by forces which
are against them. These
characters have no sense that
their psyches flow through a
series of ups and downs in
between which they may
collect their strength to prepare
to meet more of life’s
onslaughts. Anal-hoarders are
always safeguarding
themselves because they
believe their lives may be
destroyed at any moment.
They persevere to prevent
things from going out, and in
the process defeat their own
purposes, for things rejected
physically (feces and other
waste products) and mentally
(fears and doubts) no longer
serve life in the human body
and spirit and, eventually, find
their departure routes from
that which impedes. This
personality often crosses into
the domain of the perverse
impulses of sadism.
I can only speculate why an
anal-hoarding cult would come
about at St. Bonaventure
University. (There were other
cults there: military games
players, black mass liturgists,
athletic specialists, students
who studied to attain superior
grades, heavy drinkers, and
more.) I cannot “prove” that it
existed as a result of the
Roman Catholic university’s
effort to exploit women, but I
suspect this. (I remember one
Franciscan monk, my world
history professor, instructing
five girls in our class, whom he
had placed in the front row, to
“cross your legs and shut the
gates of hell.”) I think it would
be easy for another researcher
to corroborate this theory.
The ratio of men to women was
approximately 1:15. A
predominantly all-men’s
university—or all-women’s
university—is an institutional
contrivance which can only find
existence under the sway of a
large force: a religion, a
government, a multinat
company, or another
powerfully influencial entity.
That the Roman Catholic
church continues even at this
writing to institutionalise the
separation of the sexes in a
highly awakened sexual time,
attests to its political strength.
Trying to keep “control” of the
feminine sex is part of the
gargantuan organization’s
modus operandi.
Dino was expressing—in a
perverted, regressive way—his
reaction, his protest, against a
larger influence which was
emasculating his genital
responses in order to
perpetuate its depravity. In
doing so, he became an
exploitative character, who had
to manipulate in order to
achieve a pleasure he was
denied in an abnormal social
ambience. Dino’s rebellion
found adherents to the cause
because so many others shared
in its dissent against sexual
frustration.
The Roman Catholic church
may have had the mission of
aborting normal sexual
enjoyment at St. Bonaventure
University, but beneath the
subconsciousnesses of
hundreds of men, and a
handful of women frightened
by a massive, uncontrolled,
misdirected sexual energy,
emotional beings coped with a
life devoid of sexual adeptness,
hoped for the day when they
would enjoy normal
heterosexual relations, and
sobbed for St. Bonaventure
University’s four years to pass
by at which time they would
seek with ardour their sexual
freedom and prolific sexual
experiences.
F1. There are two generally-
accepted concepts of guilt:
moral guilt and legal guilt. The
first derives from the
commission of a breach against
the ways of conduct which
encourage what is commonly
considered good; and, the
second from the violation of a
law which involves a penalty.
But a third, feelings of
culpability for imagined
offences or from a sense of
inadequacy, often tortures
minds so persistently the sense
of guilt, grossly out of
proportion, keeps individuals in
a state of constant
unhappiness. This phenomena
is caused in part by the tension
which exists between
traditional concepts of
conscience and the new which
promulgate less complex
explanations vis-à-vis the
manifold proclivities of
psychoanalysis. The remorse
for violating God’s law is now
defined, generally, as
disapproval or punishment in
the superego. Yet “modern”
psychoanalytic theories
acerbate this conflict because
superstitious moral ideas
(particularly those affecting
sexual mores) still hold
formidable sway and influence
among people who are not
aware of psychological
fundamentals or even
interested in knowing about
them. There is a conflict that
exists between the two.
While many men and women
are burdened by a personal,
individual guilt, others, perhaps
less affected particularly, share
indirectly in a contrived sense
of collective guilt. For
example: The actions
committed by man against God
in the Garden of Eden; the
notion of man’s original sin; the
first sins of man. We are
thought all to be sinners; even
the saints are tainted slightly
with something putrefying.
The principal location of the
idea of collective guilt is
organized religion, but in many
ways other persuasions
(patriotisms, corporate
behaviour codes, political
parties, et cetera) are usurping
religion’s tight hold over
superstitious morality and are
redefining, transposing, and
streamlining the knowledge
that man desires to expect
things from certain acts, that
he experiences tension while
waiting for these deeds to
terminate, and that he can—
while delaying in hope of a
favourable change—suffer
anxiety which in turn
precipitates guilt. Whether it is
a mother’s admonition to her
child who wants to play with his
penis, or the soldier’s refusal to
participate in the slayings of
women and children, the
feeling that one has gone
against the “herd” induces
irrational feelings of
blameworthiness and senses of
deficiency. These aggregated
sentiments of complicity have
not their points of reference in
anyone or anything particular,
but in the concept of the whole
of society and the totality of
human beings.
While the Roman Catholic
church and other religions
possess the patent for inducing
specious senses of guilt in the
individual and organized
groups of humans working
together, the slow losing of
their grips on guilt to social
technicians of the totalitarian
ilk, offers small consolation.
One must not lose sight of the
fact that this phenomena is a
dangerous entity and is subject
to extreme abuse. In all cases,
these emotions of guilt have
the potential to lead to the
victimization of countless
numbers of ingenuous
individuals. Within the
hierarchy of twentieth-century
political machinations, the
individual is considered both
expendable and in need of
control for the common good.
Nothing substantiates these
notions more than the idea that
this world is inferior in design
compared to a mythically
divine world, that men are
sinners worthy of punishment,
and that happiness cannot be
achieved rationally in our own
time. The disciples of these
assumptions are those among
the truly guilty for they
abrogate and ignore the
challenge of all men to join
together in freedom, peace and
friendliness in order to build a
better life in this world, which
according to them, is always
destitute of a happiness which
can only be found in life after
death.
G1. It was often bragged
about at St. Bonaventure
University that in addition to
having, seasonally, a good
basketball team, the St.
Bonaventure University student
body drank consistently a
higher percentage of beer than
most other universities. In fact,
this interesting statistic had
been once advertised in a
popular men’s entertainment
magazine. The sights on the
faces of youthful men at
brunch Sunday mornings
indicated that alcoholism
among the young was a serious
problem at this “institution of
higher learning.”
Yet I suppose that if statistical
accounts about masturbation
could have been taken, these
records would have also
revealed another highly used
self-gratification to escape the
abnormal social ambience
established at St. Bonaventure
University. And the definite but
often vague awareness or
impression of guilt which was
foisted on these hundreds of
frustrated young men and
women in favor of the guise of
the hypocritical ethical
teachings of the Roman
Catholic church, caused a high
degree of inauspiciousness
among individuals seeking a
graceful place in this world.
This “heroic” distich, found
carved in a door of the
bathroom closest to Room 235
Devereux, attests to the
exasperation and is a comical
retort to a morbid way of
expanding intellectually and
emotionally:
“This is a tepee to do
your pee-pee;
Not a wigwam to beat
your tomtom.”
I do not suppose that if all men
and women at St. Bonaventure
University had had access to
normal sexual activity, a kind of
utopia would have flourished.
But I do think there would have
been less heavy drinking and a
pleasanter atmosphere within
which to study and grow more
contentedly. The mental and
physical age of the
undergraduate university
student is sensitive and
impressionable. To live in an
environment of sexual
normalcy contributes greatly to
the healthy formation of minds
and bodies.
The contrary was too much the
reality. Scores and scores of
young men and women were
feeling sensations of in-
appropriateness. There was a
common consent of sadness. It
was as if there was the
conviction that in being
unhappy one possessed some
extreme, important advantage.
Depression and long hours of
afternoon “escape” sleeps were
common. These wretched
minds sought rupture from a
source more powerful than
them, but there was no way
they could create their
identities unless they rebelled
or left St. Bonaventure
University. (A high percentage
did after freshman year.) The
spate of rock throwing against
the new administration building
on graduation day, 6 June
1966, signalled the intensity of
the pent-up hatred which had
to find expression even
minutes before the university
diplomas were handed over, I
assume, very grudgingly.
Directly under the repressed
selves of hundreds of men and
women kept social, emotional
and intellectual prisoners for
four years, there was the
knowledge that the
manipulative forces of the
Roman Catholic church sought
not to seek a future of promise
for men and women, but
hunted, rather, to impinge
upon everyone’s freedom—by
way of its necrophilic reliance
on superstitious morality and
erroneous philosophic premises
—a controlled servile system.
And what is a greater indication
of a symptom of perverse
influence than the attempted
control of a particular person’s
sexual activity?
H1. Before I met my
metaphysics’ teacher along the
railroad tracks holding a girl’s
hand, I had enjoyed a satisfying
professor-student relationship
with an almost legendary
Roman Catholic thinker who
was also a kind, gentle, and
personable man. In my last
year at the university, I had
under my belt sufficient
Philosophy course hours with
which to tackle the difficult—
probably the most arduous of
all philosophic disciplines—
metaphysics (ontology). I was
fortunate to have an individual
well-versed in this difficult
subject and his knowledge of it
was indeed impressive.
Unfortunately, the metaphysics
I was to try to digest was
metaphysics à la Roman
Catholic church.
The chosen book for our course
was Jesuit Leo J. Sweeney’s A
Metaphysics of Authentic
Existentialism. I remember
being lead judiciously but
remarkably genteelly through
the pages of this incredible
textbook at which I eventually
threw up hands in frustration.
The mental effort was
formidable, and each class left
me drained and perplexed. I
resisted passionately my
instinct to reject first hand
what I did not understand more
or less after a second or third
reading. If I could not
understand what I was
studying, why was I studying
it? I wanted to dominate this
subject. I could not. I feel
lucky today that I had the good
sense to abandon this mental
jigsaw puzzle that was leading
me nowhere.
The vocabulary of Roman
Catholic metaphysics is
implausible. The subject is not
a viable discipline. It is
constructed on its own jargon,
and to master even that special
lexis of ambiguous terms is in
itself an abnormal task. Roman
Catholic church metaphysics is
a mysticism, and in the hands
of narrow-minded Thomists, it
is a barbarous mental
indoctrination falling short of
denying the existence of God,
falling short of dropping off a
mystical cliff, and falling short
of permitting at least the
mental expansion it so
tantalisingly encourages.
When I was “caught,” then, in
front of my metaphysics’
teacher holding a charming
girl’s hand, two incompatibles
surged: Roman Catholic church
metaphysics and the
acceptance of the sexuality of
my girlfriend—the second
being a rejection of the
defenders of the principles of
Roman Catholic philosophy. My
break with Scholasticism was a
break with anti-feminism, and it
was an ascetic self-denial of the
gullible falsities of the Roman
Catholic church. I was on my
way to being intellectually free.
III.
PHILOSOPHICAL
INDOCTRINATION
About philosophical
indoctrination, I have the
following mental images:
I. The ecclesiastical law of the
Roman Catholic church (Canon
589:1) requires that students
for the priesthood study two
years of philosophy and four
years of theology “following the
teaching of St. Thomas.”
Further, another (Canon
1366:2) instructs teachers in
seminaries to structure their
lectures “according to the
method, teaching, and
principles of the Angelic
Doctor.”
Thomas Acquinas (1224-1274)
played a daunting part in my
Scholastic philosophical
training at St. Bonaventure
University, and aside from a
few intellectual explorations
into Scotism and Ockhamism
by “rebellious” Franciscan
monks who knew very well how
far they might proceed,
Thomas Acquinas, the reworker
of Aristotelianism, in 1966, still
defended his control over the
interpretation of Roman
Catholic philosophy and
theology. The famous
methodologist of sacred
doctrine, after more than seven
hundred years of influence,
today rules supreme whether
through conservative sorting-
outs of the Holy Doctor’s
dogmas, or “revolutionary,”
limp-wrist decipherments of
them. The Christian Stagyrite, I
was repeatedly told, embodies
the “true philosophic way,” and
if there was any doubt about
his philosophical
conceptualisations, he had on
his side the dictums of Roman
Catholic theology which re-
substantiate his questionable
precepts of which there are
many. Roman Catholic church
students of life believe there is
no more potent voice in the
annals of philosophy, and
Acquinas enjoys ex cathedra
status.
J. I am in theology class with
my fellow students seated
alphabetically so the theology
professor may count absentees
more easily and monitor the
three “cuts” each student is
allocated before dismissal from
the course may be adjudicated.
Theology courses are not
popular with students at St.
Bonaventure University, and a
number of them are mandatory
for graduation.
The Franciscan friar fidgets
with the enormous rosary
beads which dangle at his side,
attached to his big black belt,
and he grins sadistically as he
impresses the class with his
strictness in keeping
attendance. There are frowns
and looks of disgust on the
faces of most of my
classmates.
The priest introduces us to his
theology class explaining that
the belief in an ever-lasting
God who rules the universe and
harbors moral communication
with all men, is both a
theologically and
philosophically defensible
position.
K. I am in another theology
class, Bible Studies, again
sandwiched between men and
women whose last names
begin with letters before and
after the first letter of my
surname. I am being told that
the New Testament, the
important historical relic which
is one of the bases for all the
great Western religions, is
totally accurate, is the exact
word of God, and is for all men
and women to use to help them
live a good—naturally Christian
—life.
The class is so dull, students
regard it as a penalty to pay in
order to graduate. The eight
o’clock class is usually full in
order to get this hardship
course over with as quickly as
possible. The books we use are
insipid and traditional. And
within the hearts and minds of
bright men and women, there
is the frustrating desire to see
some continuity between these
ancient words and the realities
of the “falling apart” world they
abide in. It becomes a relief to
do away with the “theo” course
requirements.
L. I am again “alphabetized”
in my cosmology class which is
instructed by a nun who is said
to have been taught physics by
Einstein at Princeton. The
petite professor is adorned in a
religious habit of black and
white, and she galvanizes
everyone with her wit and
charm. A feisty one she is.
Her philosophic message is
this: If we admit to the
extraordinariness of things and
events in our world, we must
acknowledge a being (God)
whose reality is absolutely
necessary to explain these
complexities. There is a
mysterium tremendum et
fascinans which makes us
aware of our “experience.” We
feel very intensely about this
because our intellect is too
weak to take hold of such a
grandiose concept. (Her
intellect, of course, is not so
enfeebled to explain it!)
Without a doubt something out
there makes us feel humble
and groping. We are in awe at
our minuteness in the Universe,
and what else is there for us to
do but submit to the belief that
a unifying being (God) orders
and controls the balance of our
limitedness in a vast sea of
space and time. In class my
hands often sweat and tremble
as I listen to these conjectures.
She has put not only the fear of
God in me, she has included
the cosmoses, too!
Now to more realities…
I1. I acknowledge there is no
way to deny Acquinas’s
intellectual tour de force in
synthesizing Aristotelianism
and Christian dogmatic
principles. His effort is unique,
and his knowledge of Aristotle
surpasses most Roman Catholic
thinkers who came before him
and, too often, after him. His
manipulation of Aristotle to fit
the dictates of Roman
Catholicism has earned Thomas
Acquinas a pre-eminence which
has forced many Roman
Catholic philosophers to
submit, often unwillingly, to the
power of a traditionalism
entrenched in centuries of
single-mindedness and
uncritical devotion. To venture
beyond this “establishment” is
both intellectually suicidal and
emotionally trying for any
Roman Catholic thinker.
But those who do not accept
those declarations of Roman
Catholic faith which buffet
Acquinas’s ambiguousness
cornerstoned on a
philosophic/theological safety
valve of “divine revelation,”
have rendered Acquinas
philosophically impotent.
These thinkers, legion in
number, have reduced
Acquinas to a philosophical
non-entity. Recognizing his
brilliant coupling of Aristotle to
Roman Catholic dogma, they
have pointed critically to his
philosophic “cop out” into
theology—into the mindless,
inconsistent and insincere
dogmatism of the Roman
Catholic church. For those who
wish to dwell thoughtlessly in
the trappings of maxims and
hocus-pocus “divine realities,”
Thomism serves well. For
others who desire to forge
beyond and seek philosophical
truths based on reason and the
genuine philosophic spirit of
inquiry and fearless analysis of
the study of life, Thomism
holds out small consolation. I
bemoan the fact that Acquinas
did not have the intellectual
courage of some of the great
philosophers, and I deplore the
fact that he made so many
intellectual genuflections to
satisfy the demands of Roman
Catholic princes.
J1. I do not believe in a
supreme being—even the
Easter Bunny—or a good God,
for the following reasons:
J1a. From what I see in this
world, with all its injustices,
evils, and irrationalities, there
is more proof that if a supreme
being did exist, it would have
to be a devil and not a good,
just creature. I do not believe
in a devil. I believe that the
troubles which beset man are
caused by man, and that man
—given the opportunity to
express himself freely and
naturally—would choose to
lead a simple, rewarding life.
Man does not do so because he
is ignorant and frustrated. It is
not for lack of a God that man
is not lead to a happy life. It is
because of man. In order to
achieve joy in this world, it is
for man to pursue his state of
happiness on his own initiative
and not through the fantastical
notion that this possibility will
be fulfilled only in a rewarding
afterlife of eternal happiness
after a brief, but bitter,
sentence to despair and
suffering. Nothing perpetuates
man in a state of unhappiness
more than his belief that a
state of well-being and
contentment in this world is
unattainable because it exists
in another realm of reality. Man
is God.
J1b. There is no god because
all things must not be caused
by one cause. If a god is the
cause of all things, who or what
is the cause of a god?
J1c. I do not believe in a god
because most people I know do
not and they do not show me
that they have faith in a god,
nor profess—through their
actions—that they find comfort
in a supreme being who
occupies a life in another world
where they would be willing to
go as quickly as they could.
Most people I encounter, happy
or not, quest their
blithesomeness in this world,
they do not wish to die, and
they take Cyclopean
precautions to extend their
lives if they have the means to
do so. If there was another
domain where eternal
happiness dwelt, people would
act entirely different on this
planet, and they would leave
here jumping for joy to enter
that kingdom.
J1d. I do not believe in a god
because there are no facts to
prove his/her existence. I
believe in cold winds,
headaches, restaurant bills, the
need to get up in the morning,
work, and the oxygen I breathe.
If a god existed, it would be
ridiculous to deny that it did.
Yet many people deny its
existence. They do not deny
that Paris exists if they have
never visited Paris. A god’s
subsistence is not taken for
granted just as we take for
granted death or the love of
another person. If a god
existed, there would be
absolutely no doubt about it—
as there is no doubt about the
largeness of the Atlantic Ocean
which is incomprehensible to
most. A god “exists” in the
same way Santa Claus or
witches or UFOs
or the Easter Bunny “exist.”
We look for them, but we never
come upon them even
unexpectedly. We want the
spontaneity of invented
fantasies. (For children, this
might be good.) We want God;
but, He does not exist. We
once needed God to explain
the reasons for night and day,
to define our limits in an
unknown world, to give reason
for our fears and loneliness,
and to justify our indiscriminate
entrance into a world whose
rules and regulations will
decide our haphazard
departure. All of these matters
are now better explained
without any reference to God,
and the abracadabra of the
supernatural. Each day we find
more reason to believe in the
naturalness of our Earth and
the elements that surround it.
Before, we could only speculate
and we contrived reasons
which we thought had to be
beyond our own understanding.
I am happy to know my life is
controlled, for the most part, by
forces I know have their bases
in reality and fact, and not in
causes which I must accept are
outside the limitations of my
reason and understanding.
And I know each day brings me
closer to knowing more about
my world and myself.
K1. I enjoy reading the Bible
and its plethora of moral
homilies and short, pithy
statements which are both
enjoyable and helpful in living a
good, sensible life. Of course,
not all sayings of the Bible are
intelligent and propitious, but
these make some sort of sense
when taken in the contexts of
the times the “sacred”
scriptures were written. The
Bible is a marvellous inventive
prose narrative, and the King
James version, in particular, is
well-finished literarily.
Now to attest that the Bible is
the word of some supreme
being is ludicrous and
inopportune. The Bible reflects
keen insight and much wisdom,
and it is a credit to its
innovators that they sought so
cleverly to devise a master
work whose theme converged
to profess not only that one
God exists, that a religion with
faith in a God without a name
is the best type of religion, and
that the notion—that all men
may be joined someday in a
“happy hunting ground” of
peace and eternal joy—is a
viable alternative to the
frustrations and confusions of a
life wallowing in “sin and
unhappiness.” This is
tremendous fiction.
Prevarication at its best. The
Bible sells well. There are
bibles for Islamics, for Roman
Catholics, for Protestants, for
Jews. Nevertheless, few
religious adherents read these
texts. All of the works lead
individuals who read them
along a primrose path of hope
in an eternal life much the way
cheap novels lead lonely hearts
to believe that romantic love is
the silver lining of that dark
cloud which hovers over the
desperateness of people
without affection and
tenderness.
The Bible is a literary placebo
given to millions of people to
assuage their feelings of
psychological separateness. It
is time we value the Bible for
what it is: a compilation of
wise and unwise sayings
written by men over the
centuries during which time the
experiences of life seemed
consistent, during which time
wise men accumulated
wisdom, and during which time
intelligent individuals began to
proscribe axiomatic
expressions about their relation
to an unknown world beginning
to teem with explanation.
L1. My cosmology “teacher”
was not the first runt of a nun
to frighten me with the
awesomeness of the eerie, but
she was the first to do so with
ideas of science. The
impression—once so terrifying
to me—that I fit so minutely in
a system so complex it had to
be invented by a supreme
being (my cosmology teacher’s
Roman Catholic god), fits well
with the Roman Catholic
church’s penchant to instil fear
and guilt in the hearts and
minds of millions of people in
this world. Guilt! Such an
effective control device! But
just as psychoanalysis emptied,
finally, the confessional boxes, I
am assured that meteorology,
oceanography, geophysics,
seismology, planetology, and
other pure sciences will
descend on all churches
throughout the world and close
their shrines of foolhardiness
and false notions.
It is estimated that our Earth
began 5,000,000,000 years ago
when the Solar System was
formed from a cloud of dust
and gas in interstellar space.
The Earth, our Earth, orbits
around our Galaxy which is one
of millions of other galaxies in
the Universe. Each day more
information is accrued to define
our place in the Universe.
Stout-hearted men venture
beyond our planet to secure
more technical data. These
men and women are not
impeded by worries which
would shackle them to Earth
with millions of other
individuals—content with their
religions—believing that the
profoundness of our physical
position in this world lends
itself to the need to genuflect
before a supreme being. No,
gratefully, these folks press for
scientific realities, and find
strength in their rationality and
unwavering respect for the
potential of the individual to
understand and grow in
intelligence. These persons
reject supernatural trappings,
and they look to the cause of
things. They do not stumble
into
the abyss of closed-
mindedness and nihilism—
contrary to that which is
progressive, variable.
* * * composition to the Embassy of
We are finished, my dear
reader. Have I delighted you?
Have I enlightened you? I
would be pleased to know that I
did. As I review this essay, I
feel that perhaps I have not
expressed enough the anguish
and uncertainties which for so
long have tortured my psyche
often so full of militaristic,
sexual, and philosophical lies.
My heart has pounded many
long hours under this stress,
my hands have sweated many
days with these tensions, my
mind has endured many
sleepless nights with depressed
thoughts and beliefs. Believe
me when I tell you it was
difficult for me to live in a
Roman Catholic gulag.
I must leave you now to follow
my convictions which cry out
for superior actions. I cannot
advise you what to do, but I will
tell you what I am going to do.
My responsibility and yours are
great, indeed.
Firstly, I formally renounce my
belief in God and the Roman
Catholic church’s idea that it is
the one, holy, catholic and
apostolic church. I respectfully
excommunicate myself from
this daft organization.
Secondly, I present this
the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics in Caracas,
Venezuela to inform Soviet
officials that just as there are
concentration camps in Siberia
surrounding people with barbed
wires, there are gulags of
educational indoctrination,
gulags of unemployment lines,
gulags of racial discrimination,
gulags of waste and inflation
and deflation, gulags of
pleasure-seeking, gulags of
drug and alcohol dependence,
gulags of mass media control,
gulags of obsessive life styles,
gulags of boredom, gulags of
management control, gulags of
unhappy marriages based on
obsolete moral ideas, and
gulags and gulags and gulags à
la United States of America.
These gulags are not designed
with fences with twisted wires
armed with barbs and sharp
points, but they are
distinguished by the barbwires
of fear, moral superstition, and
the “great” falsehood that
something or someone beyond
the limits of our own reason
and nature gives us cause and
manipulates us.
I present this article to the
Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics to dispel political
hypocrisy, and I wish that it will
help in the building of a bridge
over which both Soviet and
Northamerican might walk to
eventually join each other in an
embrace of goodwill and
friendship. I wish that all
people might enjoy their lives
in a spirit of generosity,
lucidity, and freedom.
Anthony St. John
Apartado 51357
Sabana Grande 1051
Caracas, Venezuela
23 August 1981
* * * not a Roman Catholic hospital
EPILOGUE
Since my “release” from St.
Bonaventure University on 5
June 1966 and the writing of
this essay which was presented
to the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics’ embassy in
Venezuela on 23 August 1981
and the excursus you, my dear
reader, are now reading in
2003, the Roman Catholic
church has received so many
blows and from so many sides,
I cannot believe that it will ever
recuperate enough to regain its
top position in the ratings as
the Number One World Church
—a standing it had benefited
from for centuries. The
damage it has brought upon
itself has been almost fatal.
There is not a diocese in the
world which has no difficulty in
recruiting men and women to
serve as priests and nuns.
There is not a Roman Catholic
teaching institution in the world
that has not been constrained
to assume lay personnel to
carry on its efforts. There is
in the world that has not been
forced to rely on the laity to
administer its services.
In Italy Roman Catholic
churches, neglected and un-
nurtured by parishioners, are
falling down. Non-visited
confessionals are used to stock
brooms and cleaning
paraphernalia and other church
supplies often gone unused.
Some Italian mothers and
fathers decry their Present
wishing that commanding
priests and nuns of the Past
existed once again so that
those clerics could beat their
spoiled children into a Roman
Catholic obsequiousness
instead of seeing them waste
away in states of boredom,
unemployment and highs
brought on by legal and illegal
drugs.
The air is filled with
hopelessness. One Italian
racist of world renown, Oriana
Fallaci, filled with rancor and
frustration, from her mid-town
New York apartment, is calling
to arms complacent Italian,
Polish, Portuguese, and
Spanish Roman Catholics
cautioning them that their very
lives are in danger from an
Islamic invasion! Beating her
pots and pans, she is
demanding that Roman
Catholic spineless men, many
of them in their 60s, 70s and
80s and dying to know from
where their pensions are to
come in the very near future,
form a sort of New Crusade to
do battle against those she
calls heathens! This is only one
of the many pathetic overtures
un-embarrassingly proffered to
salvage the smacks of the
European Past sucked upon
incessantly by neo-Fascists and
“neo-Liberalists” in their
reckless endeavour to reign
supreme throughout the
continent during one of the
world’s most trying times. (Do
you smell Opus Dei-like
machinations here? I do!
[Opus Dei is a secret
organization of Roman Catholic
oligarchs across the world one
member of which is Giovanni
Trapattoni, coach of the Italian
national football team, who
sprinkled holy water on the
football pitches in Asia—
seeking divine intervention—
before his encounters with
opposing teams! According to
Central Intelligence Agency
(The World Factbook) figures,
an almost whopping 70% of the
populations of the eight
European countries, who
offered their blessings and
lighted candles to the United
States of America in support of
its intention to wage war with
Iraq, is Roman Catholic!])
Fallaci knows very well that it
will be United States’ troops,
hoodwinked and blackmailed
by Europe’s nauseating history
and the ghosts of its sordid
Past, who will shed their blood
to prop up corrupt, heathen
Vatican, Inc. cardinals in their
positions of economic
supremacy, who will protect
empty, cob-webbed Roman
Catholic churches, and who will
give more entrée to the Roman
Catholic church to avail of Time
to let its sins slip into the Past
denying all the while, naturally,
that the Roman Catholic
church’s pedophilia scandal—
like The Inquisition—is as
stupefying as one might
imagine! Fallaci, a most
dangerous cryptic-religious
demagogue, not only feeds
very well the fires of hate and
intolerance against Islamic
peoples, she serves up to us
also—with her invective and
disdain for others of different
races or religions—the extreme
anxiety of the Roman Catholic
church in decline, in enormous
difficulty.
Other events bear me out. In
Southamerica, once considered
a bastion of the Roman Catholic
faith, NEITHER CHRIST, NOR
MARX signs are inked defiantly
on corporate and embassy
walls throughout the continent.
Southamerican bishops and
cardinals, pals of dictators and
bank presidents and television
executives, have left poor
Southamericans to wallow by
themselves in their gruesome
living conditions while the
churchmen collude with
oligarchies girded by bribes
offered by multinational
corporations which, in turn, are
braced up by the United States’
Department of State and other
self-seeking maverick economic
interests (Opus Dei) spread
throughout the world.
It is not history or the weak
flesh of the Roman Catholic
church that will eventually do it
in. The final punch to the guts
of the Roman Catholic church
will come from Science and
what It will do to eradicate the
potentate’s superstitions and
false precepts. (The time will
come when Bill Gates will
change water into wine!)
Already, Science is on the
move. For example, if we
examine the history of the birth
control pill, we see immediately
how much “faith” Roman
Catholics have in their church
once a sensible—always
controversial according to
church princes—product is
produced to help individuals
lead a more rewarding life. The
Pill has served very well to
threaten the authority of the
church fathers who are always
contrary to new scientific
investigations and studies—
those realities which challenge
their dogmatic proclamations.
Science will pull the rug out
from under the Roman Catholic
church. It will show that there
is hope for us. It will show that
ancient church concepts were
based on fear and the
impetuosity to understand. It
will also give a warning to the
Roman Catholic church that it
no longer has carte blanche to
terrify its members into
submission or to crash through
the line with its wealth
garnered from tax-free
properties and stock portfolios
filled with equities that remain
anonymous to Roman Catholic
parishioners who were the ones
who at first supplied the funds
to purchase them—Roman
Catholic, blessed nest eggs
which would be used to silence
victims of priestly sex offenders
in preference to bringing them
to Justice in non-Roman
Catholic courts.

Anthony St. John

Casella Postale 38
50041 CALENZANO FI
Italia

31 January 2003

* * *