Excommunicate Them All! – Greetings from Scranton

by Steve Corbett

Let me play Holy Father here. 

In the good old bloodlust days of the Crusades against the infidels, as supreme pontiff I would have simply ordered, “off with their heads” for anyone who defied the rules of the Roman Catholic Church. 

We’re better off in the Dark Ages. Society needs to regress to progress. Go back to go forward. Devolution instead of evolution. 

In other words, the Pope should excommunicate Catholic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, my Scranton Catholic neighbor and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey as well as Catholic President Joe Biden, all of whom publicly support the mortal sin of abortion. 

Banish these pathetic pagans hook, line and coat hanger! Curse their godless souls! Exorcise the demons! Excommunicate them all! Let God sort them out! 

But swift pontifical justice won’t happen. 

The Pope’s a punk. 

The modern Roman Catholic Church lacks guts. 

My karma ran over their dogma. 

These prudish parochial pariahs wouldn’t even kick me out of the church when I dared them to banish my blasphemous soul from their dastardly denomination. 

One blistering day in July 1990, Scranton Diocese Bishop James Timlin issued a formal press release announcing he should excommunicate me because I publicly supported abortion rights. 

Timlin titled his statement “CORRUPTIO OPTIMI PESSIMA,” in which he wrote, “The Romans had a saying for it. Corruptio Optimi Pessima! The corruption of the best is the worst.” 

 “In other words when the best go bad it is very bad,” Timlin wrote. “When you have an Irishman with roots in Minooka coming out in favor of killing unborn babies that has to be pretty close to the worst.” 

Minooka is the old Irish neighborhood in Scranton, PA, where my grandfather built his life and family (including one daughter who grew up to be a Mother Superior in the Mercy Order of nuns) after emigrating from Ireland in 1905. 

Timlin was reacting to a newspaper column I wrote in which I characterized as “ridiculous” his having called a proposed local women’s health center a “death chamber.” 

“Obviously we got Steve’s attention,” Timlin wrote. “He lashed out in every direction with all the fury of a gangster with a machine gun.” 

I made a special point of daring Timlin to excommunicate me if he didn’t like my morality. 

Timlin agreed he should ban me. 

Hot damn! 

Even rabid San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone hasn’t proposed ejecting Pelosi from the faith after recently banning her from receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion because of her support for abortion rights. 

Then Timlin choked, saying he prayed I’d “return to the bosom of the church,” although he didn’t have much hope I would come to my senses. I’m glad he didn’t hold his breath. I long ago gave up beating my breast begging religious forgiveness. 

Decades later I’m more pro-choice than ever. 

That’s why I encourage Pelosi to join me in taunting the church. In Pelosi‘s case, though, I hope the Vatican does give her the jackboot and kicks her to the curb. I also beseech Pelosi to quit first, before she gets tossed like a Caesar salad in a highbrow Turin restaurant. 

What would Joan of Arc do? In the old days, Romans would have crucified me and burned Pelosi at the stake. Nowadays, everybody wants to have their communion and eat it, too. 

Though Pope Francis has called Biden a good Catholic despite Biden’s support for abortion, il Papa remains silent on the throne as his hit man underboss singles out for oppression one of America’s most powerful women political leaders. Since the Catholic Church remains the world’s worst foe of the faithful, now is the time to put up or shut up. 

The Pope needs to banish without question any miscreant Catholic who dares defy canon law. When I was a kid priests and nuns taught that the Pope was infallible. When did that change? Is Jesus still a Catholic? 

To return to the good graces of her church, Don Cordileone says Pelosi must ask for forgiveness for her sin of supporting abortion rights. Instead, Cordileone should immediately ask the Pope to eject Pelosi from the church, ban this feminist witch who dares oppose her Roman masters and their primitive patriarchal rules that keep women barefoot and stagnant in their medieval place. 

Truth be told, other than the threat of nuclear weapons, in 2022 the Catholic Church constitutes the clearest most present danger in the world. The Pope has more in common with Beelzebub than with the man in the clouds who is far more suited to flower power with his flowing locks, beatnik beard, sandals and flowing hippie robe than the overwhelmingly white male penis people who rule the College of Cardinals. 

It’s important to note that in recent years current Scranton Bishop Joe Bambera has banned Timlin from representing the diocese in public because of Timlin’s treachery in keeping quiet about pedophile priests in the diocese of which there are countless. 

Bambera said in a statement announcing Timlin’s punishment that a 2018 state grand jury report into pedophile priests had also “caused me to reflect on my own role in handling allegations of abuse in the church” and “to consider my role and past actions in protecting children.” 

Duplicity is Bambera’s confirmation name. As Timlin’s right hand man when Timlin was doing God’s work by covering up child sexual assault, Bambera never did nearly enough to protect children. Years ago I spent hours on the radio calling for Bambera’s arrest when I hosted a local call-in news show. 

Today I’m calling for both unholy serpents to burn in Hell. 

Corruptio Optimi Pessima, dudes. 

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned; it’s been ages since I last confessed my moral shortcomings before the watchful eyes of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. 

I’m a longtime collapsed Catholic which even outdoes a lapsed Catholic because I’m far beyond the point of no return. So don’t expect to see me in the confessional booth anytime soon. As one of the best, I truly do know better. On second thought, though, after all these years, I do have a confession to make. 

I had already quit the church when I taunted Timlin 32 years ago. I simply used the papal power structure in which I was raised for dramatic effect, a glorious feat of theatrical Gonzo journalism, if I do say so myself. 

In closing, I leave the Vatican with these words of the gospel according to women’s rights: “Corruptimo Optimi Kiss My Assisi.” 

May the Lord be with you.

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About Steve Corbett 22 Articles
Steve Corbett is a decades-long state and national award-winning newspaper columnist, radical radio talk show host and novelist. He continues to fight the system as an outlaw journalist and refuses to bow to the evil status quo establishment. Corbett lives in Scranton, PA, and raises hell wherever he goes. He can be reached at theoutlawcorbett.com