Hammer and schlongs

In which your intrepid columnist does a Hercule Poirot in the Vatican. It’s a story that says much about the taboos and twaddle that characterise Catholic views on sexuality.

As a hunter-gatherer of antiquities, albeit on a more modest scale than the popes, I visited the Vatican in the early ’70s to see their collection – and found as many naked marble blokes lining the corridors as there are entombed terracotta warriors in Xi’an. A regiment of Greek and Roman nuddies that, strangely, had all suffered identical wounds: the brutal hammering-off of their generative members. This indignity had been inflicted on them by their enemy, the Church. You could almost hear the hammering echoing through St Peter’s, an Anvil Chorus accompanied by Gregorian chanting.

Knowing that the Vatican keeps extensive archives I assumed the damaged dongs would be somewhere on the premises, presumably in a crate in a catacomb, and hoped that a more enlightened papacy might have a change of heart or policy and order their restoration. (One can imagine a team of nuns sorting through them prior to engaging in a variation of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey). I wrote to the Holy Father to suggest it. No reply. Then I wrote again asking to borrow the ancient off-cuts, the mutilated members, so that I could curate a blockbuster (ball-buster?) exhibition ofmembrum virile  at the National Gallery – of historic pricks, knobs, peckers, tonks, schlongs, whangs and John Thomases. No reply. So I sent a third epistle offering to buy the lot, planning to sell them as paperweights for wealthy executives. No reply.

Then someone leaked the correspondence (actually it was me, via a column) and finally I got a letter from Italy. Not from the Holy See but from a professor in Milan who confirmed that, yes, the fellows in the Vatican had preserved the phalluses and that, yes, they were in a big box in the basement. This was some years ago and I presume they’re still there. In penile servitude. Resting in pieces. How sad – and how symbolic of a Church with very unhealthy attitudes to the human body and the pleasures of congress. (Papal embarrassment over priestly peckerdilloes led to my theory of Benedict’s resignation – a plot to lure carnal cardinals into the Sistine. Whereupon Benny would say “Gotcha”, lock’em in and throw away the keys of St Peter’s. Having got them off the streets, he’d then withdraw the resignation and resume work.)

Sexual dysfunction isn’t unique to Rome – all religions seem chocka with rules and regs – but the RCs have done more to hammer away at sex than any other. Virgin birth, immaculate conception, unmarried and celibate priests, vetoes on contraception and a stained-glass ceiling to keep women under the thumb. The Vatican, the faithful and the victims of priestly predation have paid a heavy price for sexual prohibitions. So let us pray that the new pope calls the troops together and says it’s time for condoms, the pill and some fun. Down into the basement! Drag up the crateful of Greek knobs and Roman todgers and start mixing the Araldite! And might I suggest they don’t bother saving the fig leaves? It’s time! Time to free those poor penises from imprisonment – to proudly point percys in the papal precincts.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/hammer-and-schlongs/story-e6frg8h6-1226601837488