Disclosure: Straight from the horse's mouth is where I get to be opininated.

We had a little brush with the real Magisterium this week.

My little ten- and eleven-year-olds go to catechism class when they are with their dad and stepmom. They told me that their catechism teacher (I have no idea who this person is) told them that they would "hurt God's feelings, that God would hate them, and turn his back on them" if they went to see this movie The Golden Compass, which, of course, they and several other kids in the class had already seen. In fact, I know my children's dad took them to this fantasy movie based upon a series of popular fantasy books, because Dennis and I wound up sitting with them (that old bobcat thing again) during the show, as we were all there at the same time, quite by coincidence.

As you can imagine, my children were upset by the teacher's statements, but they've got good enough heads on their shoulders to ask questions, which they did, of me, anyway. Initially, I was so amazed by the whole thing I told the kids that certainly a catechism teacher wouldn't tell kids that God would "hate" them if they did something or other like going to a movie. But they both confirmed that the teacher did indeed say that.

[ Pardon my snorting sounds of complete incredulity here ... ]

I teach my kids to think for themselves, but they are also kids, and vulnerable to people with agendas that are, in this instance, not very nice and who apparently aren't concerned about using some pretty severe scare tactics to push their agenda on innocent children. (Yeah, let's scare them into the fold.) I told the kids that a person like this wouldn't dare make a statement of this type to a group of thinking adults who are half awake. Because someone would say, "I disagree with you wholeheartedly." Heck, they might even get up and leave. I would. And if I had my act together, all the synapses and sparks firing, I would manage to do it politely. But kids are easy targets for this stuff, I told them. I told them that just because someone is in a position of authority doesn't mean they've cornered the market on the truth, or that they're necessarily even interested in it.

I told them that teacher was full of shit. (OK. I'm not always polite. You may have to squint your eyes to see the spark of the divine in me sometimes.)

Straight from the horse's mouth--It's not my church, but I've spent quality time with the righteous, and I'd bet you not one parent in the herd crowd said a word about that teacher's statement. (That convenient word infallibility, with all its trappings of earthly power, just leaves me cold. Chilled. To the bone.) And with the historical troubles with RCC priests here in this neck of the woods, I wonder who would bother to listen to their bleating?

I've decided to leave it alone and not call the church, since I'm not a member there. Taking on the system only sucks me in, which is not where I want to go. I patched this up with my own two kids, which is all I can do, and I think they even learned something important. As for me... Yes, I can acknowledge the sparks, even though they are buried somewhere deep down, layer upon layer, and I feel a sense of pity and loss for the person who is so sound asleep, so lost in the dream, that he/she made this terrifying statement to a group of impressionable little kids, but I stay as far away from these folks as possible.

Gentle as a dove and wise as a fox? Read that somewhere, and I kind of like the idea.

Good to get that one off the ol' chest.