[Elijah Mee, PhD]

I'm sorry if this is old news to everyone else but years of catholic schooling made me a bit naive and I have to get it out of my system!

I went to a catholic school, way back before I found God, and we were forced to take reconciliation on a regular basis. It always bothered me. Some of that was because I didn't believe in God at the time but a far greater part of me just found the whole experience of confessing to a priest in order to be redeemed in God's eyes a bit silly.

Nowadays I understand that there is nothing special about this so called "sacrament" at all and that we can pray directly to God for forgiveness but still the bizarre catholic practice raised an eyebrow.

Recently, it finally clicked in my mind.

What do priests love more than anything? Molesting children.

And then I suddenly saw the brilliance of the whole thing: how better to groom children than to gain unfettered access to the darkest recesses of their minds? What better place to do it than the privacy of a confessional? What devoted catholic parent is going to perceive their child's gentle whimpering as anything other than the sound of repent? Many of these children probably don't have the courage to speak out against such a trusted figure, still more probably think the whole thing is simply a rock hard penance for their sins.

It's horrible to think that catholic parents and, in my case, catholic schools are willingly lining their children up like cattle for the prodding. They believe it's in the best interests of the kids which blinds them to the truth! The parents have a smile on their face as they send their little boys off to church to be taught why sodomy is bad. The teachers burst with pride in their brightest young girls as they send them in one by one to learn that catholics and condoms don't mix. And the worst part of it all is that they'll just be put back in those same positions over and over again until the authority figures in their lives realise what's going on.

I'm going to stop ranting now because I feel a bit sick. I can honestly say that for the first time in my life I'm glad I was an ugly child!