Pope considers letting some priests marry

Bunuel's Viridiana: An uncle keeps his niece from becoming a nun.

Long ago, I was working in a kitchen with a young woman who was pregnant. It was going to be a boy, and she had this idea. When he was thirteen, she'd hire a prostitute and tell him that she was going to leave them alone and he could have sex with her if he wanted, it was up to him.

"Do you think that would be wrong?"

"Well, yes," I said.

My impression was that she was only half kidding, But she had a husband who would put a damper on things, she had more than thirteen years to conclude that this might not be such a good idea; I don't think she'd know where to find a prostitute and I doubt many prostitutes would take that gig.

But I'll tell you my theory. I heard a story on NPR. In Latin America, it's common in bourgeois families for the uncles to hire prostitutes to usher their teen nephews into manhood. The boys really, really hate it.

I also saw a Spanish movie where it's up to a household servant to take the high school kid to a brothel. They did something like it in Murmur of the Heart.

My theory is it's a Catholic thing. These bourgeois families do it to make sure their sons don't become priests. Wealthy parents don't want their sons taking vows of poverty and wrecking the family fortune.

(The woman I worked with was Mormon by the way.)

This came to mind when I read that the Pope is considering letting priests marry in Latin America where there's a clergy shortage.

Entry level salaries for Catholic priests in the mid-western United States is just under $30 thousand and they can make up to $44 thousand if they stay in that part of the country. Not bad if you're single.