Sins Of Commission, Omission, And Occasion - The Politician's Seduction By All Three

Father Brophy loved 9 o'clock Mass, for then he was at his best, a fire-and-brimstone prophet of the Old Testament with a messages from the New. His passion was for sins of the flesh, and the moral turpitude of his parishioners that could be seen on their faces every Sunday.  Fornicators, self-pleasurers, adulterers, addicted to unholy pleasures all. 

Father Brophy danced around his interest in young Peter Adams, chief altar boy at Sunday Mass, a fascination innocent enough, but not without desire.  As much as he groped his way up the aisle to the crucifix of Our Savior, begging for forgiveness and release from this seditious, damning passion, he saw only the sweet young Peter before him.  

'I am a sinner, Lord!, he shouted and heard his plea echo from transept to choir in the empty church. 'Hear my prayers.'

That is neither here nor there, for there was enough 'normal' sin in the world for a thousand sermons, and Brophy hammered away each and every Sunday with Sturm und Drang that would have impressed Abraham. 

The interesting thing about sin, reflected Father Brophy in the sacristy preparing his sermon of the week, was its diversity.  There were sins of commission, omission, and occasion - a deadly trifecta, the unholy triumvirate of the Devil.

Sin was everywhere, not just if you lifted a pack of gum or stood by when your friend did it, but the most insidious and dangerous of all - the occasion of sin.  Oh, he knew how many girls, as chaste and virginal as the new fallen snow had entered dens of iniquity with the confidence that God would protect them all the while hoping to be taken, abducted, penetrated.

Here Brophy's mind wandered again, and he could only see images of the ingenue Angela Booth with her skirt up above her waist, moaning in ecstasy as Bobby Perkins thrust himself into her.  'God forgive me', he said, grasping for his rosary and begging the Virgin Mary for moral sustenance. 

To be sure, the most titillating aspect of sin was that of commission - what Angela Booth and Bobby Perkins did in the cloakroom, and what his congregants were doing every other night of the week. What he heard in confession made his ears burn, and it was hard to keep his clerical resolution intact what with the tales of sinful sexual engagement told to him.  He had no idea of the vagaries of heterosexual sex, the infinite variety of lying, cheating, and vulgarity.  

He of course absolved the women who confessed - that was his duty - but only after exacting promises from them to abstain from their sinful behavior.  Privately he hoped that they would continue, for his prayerbook was annotated with the most impossible features of human sexual behavior, and he wanted to chronicle these brands of sin for future reference. 

The Church of the Redeemer of which Father Brophy was the rector, was a stone's throw from the Capitol where five hundred or so politicians debated the nation's welfare; but as far as Brophy was concerned, it was a sinkhole of depravity and deceit.  One had only to read the papers to watch the cavalcade of unthinkable depravity.  Everyone knew about Bill Clinton's fellatio, Mark Sanford's Argentinian fugue, John Edwards' bald-faced lies, and Newt Gingrich's hurried sayonara to his dying wife so he could catch a plane to Atlanta and be in the arms of his lover. 

The current governor of Minnesota sat back and marveled at the canny schemes of the Somali community which was bilking the taxpayer of millions, living off the fat of the land, and building a network of corruption.  'Not my problem', said Governor Walz who saw Somali activity as an expression of diversity and the immigrant's first step to integration. 

What could you expect from gun-running pirates? They needed space to grow and time to mature.  Meanwhile Omar Abdi and his family, friends, and colleagues all brought out the vote for Walz who justified the irregularity of their support by saying that the longer he remained in office, the more good he could do for Minnesotans at large. 

And then there was Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and their Caribbean island.  If there was a better occasion of sin, Father Brophy couldn't think of one; and yet politicians, world leaders, Fortune 500 businessmen, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and world's glitterati flocked there.  

'I just want to see what all the fuss is about', said a member of the British Parliament who despite his pedigree, wealth, and political standing had difficulty with women; and so wanted Epstein's tasty morsels there for the asking. 

Is it fair to judge politicians by a higher standard than the ordinary American?  Or for that matter condemn the Catholic Church for its buggery, pedophilia, and pederasty?  Of course not.  Politicians and priests are just men after all, and it would be unfair to judge the institution they represent by their individual and quite human actions. 

Yet when these men are caught with their pants down, it makes headlines.  After all, an affair between consenting adults is not news, but when the President of the United States gets blown by an intern kneeling under the Lincoln desk, the chutzpah, monumental ignorance, and the crass, gross sense of invulnerability is comic and epic. 

There is a well-known study of obesity carried out by researchers at the University of Texas which demonstrated the psycho-social dimensions of collective behavior.  Men who live, work, and socialize with obese men are likely to become obese themselves; and so it is with Congress. If you spend your time on a daily basis with men who are complicit in the worst forms of deceit, sexual impropriety, and underhandedness, you will inevitably become like them. 

So, Father Brophy's summary dismissal of the Capitol as a sinkhole of depravity wasn't too far off, so much so that theologians from the Vatican would have a field day studying the nature and variety of sin there. 

The irony of it all was that the Catholic Church and Jesus Christ himself were all about forgiveness.  If you honestly repented, the Church had no recourse but to forgive.  Of course there were mighty loopholes in that arrangement, for the perception of guilt is a very subjective affair.  

In Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy Clyde Griffiths plots and plans the murder of Roberta Alden, the factory girl he got pregnant.  He gets her into a boat on Loon Lake in an untraveled, desolate corner, but cannot kill her. Instead, he stands in frustration and anger, overturns the boat and watches while the girl drowns. 

Was he guilty of murder and had a mortal sin on his soul? Or was it an accident compromised only by a sin of omission - he didn't jump in after her?

The penitent leaving Father Brophy's confessional may believe that he has made an honest confession, but how can he break off his love affair with Marge from Accounting without destroying her heart and soul?  Surely a progressive withdrawal would be more considerate than an abrupt departure. 

The politician's life, a raft of sins of commission, omission, and occasion, is compounded by the most devious self-justification, shameless apologies, and quick return to infidelity, rutting, and misbehavior.  Politicians' bread and butter is Barnum & Bailey-esque. A sucker is born every minute and you can fool most of the people most of the time - the mantra of the talented politician.  Why the surprise when he is caught with his pants down and insists that they are not actually down, just that he is incompletely dressed? 

Father Brophy was a voyeur at heart.  He loved smarmy confessions, rumors of infidelity, images of Angela booth in the cloakroom with her panties down, and the imagined delights of Peter Adams.  He was lucky to have been stationed in the Washington area, the Nation's Capital, the heart and soul of America.  He wouldn't have it any other way, and to reach his audience with more relevance and insider know-how, he peppered his sermons with political wrongdoing.  His parishioners fidgeted and squirmed, so he knew he had hit home.