Should the Pope resign for his part played in the scandalous child abuse cases within the Catholic Church? So many people are asking this question at the moment, but personally I find it quite insulting. To me the answer is a no-brainer — of course he should resign, and immediately.

Although one doesn’t need to be biased to come to that conclusion, I have to admit to more than a little of that in this argument. You see: for a religion based on the life and beliefs of one man who lived some two thousand years ago, a man so convinced his teachings were right that rather than hide from his persecutors he died for them, I find the very position of Pope itself quite preposterous. It can only be acceptable to those who live within a box prepared for them by this church.

Those who know me well will be fully aware: I never live within a box; it is something I refuse to do. It might be worth remembering here that the whole Christian religion is founded on a man who acted similarly; he jumped screaming and shouting out of his box, condemning the very likes of so much of what the Vatican stands for today. The scriptures may be dubious in many places, and open to interpretation, but here they leave no doubt whatsoever: neither Jesus nor any of his disciples put themselves up to be what the Pope is to people today. They openly decried such people.

So the problem does not lie with the faith, the word, love, charity, compassion, or any of the other good things Jesus preached, but with being in the box. Perhaps people should climb out of it and strengthen their beliefs!

Boxes can be dangerous places, and it is unfortunate so many people find comfort in them. I think if some truly evaluated their box they would find they have only chosen it not so much for comfort but for ease — as a way of not having to work things out for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions. For instance: people living within this church’s box believe in marriage as we know it today to be something Jesus was happy about, but jumping out of that box to research the facts proves no such contract existed in his time, and as far as the scriptures tell us: he never sought one. He lived in a time when history tells us of recorded same-sex unions happening all around the known world, and yet he never once spoke out against them.

In the time of Jesus people thought of marriage as a private matter, and it came in many forms, with no religious or any other type of ceremony being required. It was 110 years later that the church first became involved in marriage as a union, to claim it as its own and attach self-rewarding rules and regulations, when Bishop Ignatius of Antioch wrote to Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, saying, “It becomes both men and women who marry, to form their union with the approval of the bishop that their marriage may be according to God, and not after their own lust.” As Jesus didn’t himself actually preach such a philosophy, I have to wonder: was this bishop’s reasoning to enhance the importance of his church as an organisation, or merely to make money? Or perhaps both?

Though as a child my parents forced me to be a choirboy — a good one, who sang well and became a head choirboy — I am not a deeply religious person. I matured, looked out over the top of my box, and saw many things I needed to know more about. Once out of that box, I found I still believed, but better than that: I was able to live my life in the manner I know the man the Christian church has built itself on would really want. I am convinced: only when you have escaped from your box, and are free from all influence, can you ever truly come to know that man. Not being deeply religious, I may not be equally as convinced in a hereafter actually existing, however. But by leading my life in the way that man suggested two thousand years ago, should there really be one, then I know I’m in with a good chance of seeing it — and it won’t have taken a Pope to whom protecting the church was more important than protecting a young boy’s arse for that to happen!

I’m a gay man, and I’m pleased to be free of all the stupid constraints and preconceived ideas imposed on people living in boxes. My life, my beliefs, in fact: everything I am, all exist here in the real world, and I know both my God and I are very happy with that situation.

The way I see it: the office of Pope, if there has to be one, should merely be an administrative one, not something disgustingly rich and overpoweringly pompous with a massive organisation behind it to make up rules and regulations while being revered and worshipped as holy. Peter, the rock we are told Jesus decreed his church be built on, was a man as far removed from the Pope we have today as it is possible for anyone to be!

The role of the church, any church, should simply be to provide somewhere for people to learn, research, question, discover their faith and relate to their God, and to find peace. It should be a pathway, a place for the truth, but sadly very little of that exists in it today. Someone who once said he was the light, the truth, and the way also told us a long time ago what to do — yet still the church wanders aimlessly. Today we have many churches, and there are many routes, but even now I cannot find one that truly relates to the man I came to know, once free of that box.

A word of warning though, to anyone reading this and thinking they too would like to jump out of their box. Having such freedom immediately presents you with many questions, and finding the truthful answers to some of them may often shock. Cocooned comfortably in that box you don’t have to accept that the lifestyle we endure today, with all its inbuilt morals, is only normal for today, and it may or may not be any better or worse than many we have lived through in our history, or may have to come. When you learn that in the time of Jesus the furore over those Catholic priests, and what allegedly they did to those children, could never have occurred as people then considered such behaviour acceptable, and pretty much normal with not the slightest bit of shame or guilt felt by either party to it (so no ruined lives and suicides!), then you may want to jump straight back into that box!

Recreational drugs too present another hairy subject you need to address once out of that box. Many religions have relied heavily on drugs in the past, including Christianity where hallucinogenic drugs were once a major part of religious ceremonies. For countless millennia, going right back to early man, recreational drugs have never presented problems like they do today. They were legal, freely available, and everybody knew how to safely use them. Deaths were comparatively rare, and usually put down to ‘an act of God’. With all the gun-toting gangs of the massive underworld industry this market has turned into since outlawing these stimulants, are we really better off today? Again, when you need to find the answer, that box looks awfully comfortable, doesn’t it? Chickening out may yet be humankind’s best forte!