MANILA (Catholic News Network)—An influential church faction known as the CBCP, or the Censorious Bishops Collegium of the Philippines, on Tuesday declared full support for the return of ejaculation.
A spokesman for the group, however, warned, “Ejaculation must only be done with rhythm.”
With this declaration, the CBCP, already embroiled in the Reproductive Health bill debate, waded into another controversy.
This time it’s over the new official translation of the Roman Missal, which hews closer the conservative Latin text abandoned in the ‘70s in favor of a modern version.
The new missal translation revives some parts of the pre-Vatican II liturgy, including a fully restored mea culpa ejaculation–defined by the dictionary as an “abrupt, exclamatory utterance”–in the Penitential Prayer of the Confiteor:
“Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault” is a direct translation of the Latin phrase “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” of the old Latin text (which also instructed participants to “ejaculate and strike your breast three times.”)
Father Soltero Celibe, a spokesman for CBCP, said the ‘70s revision had discarded the thrice-repeated mea culpa in favor of owning up to one’s sinfulness only once, which was “a form of artificial contra…I mean contrition.”
“People must abandon contrition-lite and genuinely ejaculate again. And do it with rhythm—bam, bam, bam, thank you ma’am. Why is that so wrong? Why are revisionists reading too much into it?”
Many Catholic priests and lay people, especially in Europe and the United States, have criticized the new translation of the missal as a retrogressive step.
“It’s an attempt to nullify the reforming spirit of Vatican II,” protested Gianni Ventitre, a lay leader and resident of Padua, Italy. Vatican II, he explained, made the Mass more accessible to worshipers.
He said that “revving up the social conscience of the church, not reviving old ritual,” is what’s needed today when poverty due to social injustice and overpopulation is so prevalent in many parts of the world.
Celibe disagreed, explaining that beyond being faithful to the Latin text, “it is good to emphasize one’s sinfulness and acknowledge Man’s fallen nature especially in these times.”
Interviewed while sitting in the driver’s seat of his brand-new donated Pajero (“It’s actually secondhand, it turns out”), he explained that the Vatican is returning to the Church’s roots in the face of rampant revisionism.
Celibe said more worshipers today also are steeped in loose morals, engaging in premarital sex, sex for pleasure, kinky sex, sex video sex, imaginary sex, phone sex, Internet sex, sex for hire, and same-sex sex.
“We’re not asking people to be like priests, but worshipers should try to live without sin by ejaculating thoroughly and ejaculating often.”
In addition to actor Mel Gibson’s father, seven congressional supporters of former president Gloria Arroyo, who is out on bail, also opposed retaining the previous version, which downplayed ejaculation.
House Minority Leader Danilo Suarez said if people stop ejaculating naturally “we are in danger of diminishing Heaven’s labor force and increasing migration to Hell.”
Suarez opposes the Reproductive Health bill in Congress on a similar basis. Before addressing the overflow crowd of desperate jobseekers waiting in his office, Suarez expressed fear that promoting artificial contraception could lead to an insufficient Philippine labor force.
Meanwhile, Fr. Tomasito Torquemada, CBCP director of information, sternly announced that a news website reporter will face excommunication for “blasphemy, heresy and spreading satirical interpretations” of church affairs.
“We’re already reserving a bunk in Hell for him, very close to the boilers,” Torquemada warned.
Manila’s newsgathering circles are buzzing with speculation about the identity of the condemned reporter.-CNN