where the unknown god abides, part 2
S.A. Sizemore
The second part of the series of plays entitled where the unknown god abides is set approximately 20 years after the Pope has allowed women into the Catholic priesthood. The three-play series centers around two main characters, Reverend Margaret and Reverend Kate, and the various problems they encounter in their personal lives, and in their roles as priests. In part 2, Margaret has been made pastor of St. Mark's, the parish she grew up in, and Kate is her assistant. Because of conflict between Margaret and her daughter Elizabeth, Margaret has requested a transfer, end as a result, Kate has been made pastor of St. Mark's parish. This speech occurs directly after Margaret has informed Kate of the upcoming changes, and Kate questions Margaret's motivation for asking for a transfer, believing that Margaret is purposely avoiding her problems with Elizabeth.
— summary by Denise Santoyo
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MARGARET:
(almost in a hysterical tirate) Don't you dare judge me until you've fought the same demons that grapple me!! The doubts. Lapses of faith. Questions. Unbearable questions! Why should I be allowed to be a priest if it's going to make someone else feel rotten? Why am I supposed to have such spiritual authority if I have such doubts and animosities?! The demons come at night with selfishness and uncertainty. Tempting the power I have. I question things now that I NEVER would have questioned before! What if — What if God is sitting up there laughing at us?! No, not laughing. Pitying! Pitying our pretentious conventions, our ignorance hugging the hope of purity and peace. Maybe even angry at our arrogance. We created all this! We created this institution of Church and priesthood. And we had to lace it with gold and crystalline repetitions. Make it grand and mystical. Theatrical. That is the legacy I left my daughter to contemplate?! How can I expect her to justify my life with that?! How can I expect her to accept me when I CHOSE this collar over her? I — I alone — took away her faith and left her to be alone with the demons and the questions! How can she have faith in an infallible Church if she knows full well just how fallible I am?! So would someone please explain to me what to do now before my head explodes?!! (She calms down as she realizes she has whipped herself into a fury.) I'm sorry. I'm not making any sense. I'm tired.
KATE:
Sometimes I wish I didn't know as much as I do now. I wish I still had the ignorant, innocent faith of a child. The reckless nature of the uneducated's belief. We're sent to the Sem, pumped full of Church history and dogma, told not to question it because it's infallible, and we come out knowing it is all fallible because religion is man-made, not God-made. So we, who are supposed to be the most certain of our faith, become the most questioning and uncertain of it. Because we know how it works. I know too much now, which was written by men who were biased by their times, that the Church started off in one direction and went completely in the opposite direction once power became an issue, that the sacraments and the Mass weren't created until Medieval times, and that we tried to create something divine with fallible hands. But I also know that there is a God, that there is a truth behind all the madness, and that I can only account for my life in this world. The point of life isn't to only be true to ourselves or only be true to others and deny ourselves. The point is to figure out how to compromise the two. Be true to ourselves and respect those that share the same path with us.
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