Catholic Fundamentalism began in the late 1980s. The man who began it had inherited 10,000 dollars, quit a tenured job as an elementary school librarian, and was starting a business.
While reading the Bible, he came across the passage: “It will be harder for a rich man to get into Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.”
He was moved to take the passage literally. “If a camel cannot get through the eye of a needle, then there’s no point in my starting a business. If I’m successful, I will not get into Heaven.”
Then, he considered: “I could incinerate a camel, in sections, in a crematorium. Then, I could dilute the twenty pounds or so of ashes into a liquid that could be pumped through a micro-tube that fit throught the eye of a needle.”
A thought appeared in his mind. “It wouldn’t be a camel. It couldn’t walk.”
“Well, then, it would be possible to make a huge, block-long needle. The camel would be able to squeeze through its eye.”
The thought replied: “That’s not a real needle. You couldn’t sew a button on your shirt with it.”
The man was stumped. He saw allegories. “The ‘Needle’s Eye’ was a gate in Jerulalem’s Wall. It was so narrow that a camel had to be unloaded before it could squeeze through.” The meaning was obvious, but the man was persistent.
“No. Allegories aren’t enough. I want an actual camel to go through the eye of an actual needle.”
He sat back. The same thought reappeared. “What you do,” it explained, “is similar to what is done in breeding livestock. You have an egg removed from an ovulating camel. The, you have it fertilized with a donation from a male camel. Take the fertilized egg and put it on a microscope slide in a drop of amniotic fluid. You will be able to see the fertilized egg begin to divide. While it is doing so, take the back end of a sterilized needle and put it under the fertilized egg.”
So far, it was easy to follow. The thought continued: “Lift up the needle. The fertilized egg will go through its eye just like a tennis ball through a basketball hoop. Then, put the fertilized egg back into the mother camel’s womb.”
“Then, what?”, asked the young man.
“Wait several months. The embryo will grow and will be born. When that camel is born, it will be a camel that has gone through the eye of a needle.”
From then, thirty five years ago, to now, Catholic Fundamentalism has been developing. It has made ever-greater sense to take seriously the idea that The Bible should be taken as literally as possible.
The young man who heard about a camel could go through a needle’s eye? His business did well, he became a Roman Catholic as his studies progressed, and he is nearing retirement. He has never forgotten: A camel actually can go through a needle’s eye. The Bible should be taken as literally as possible.
He is writing these daily columns on Catholic Fundamentalism, realizing that it is the first new approach to The Roman Catholic Church since Pascal developed Probability Theory and applied it to choosing a religion.
Now, The Scourge of God is falling. Mohammedans are invading the once-Christian nations. Catholic Fundamentalism is here.
