Vengeance Is Mine: Looking Forward to Hell and Kicking the Shit Out of a Dirty Vicar

The Sunday afternoon conversation with my parents was trundling along quite normally?news of the family (nothing too dramatic there), the local weather, the improving medical condition of an old family friend, some soccer highlights. It was as fine and comfortable as most of these conversations are, my dad cracking jokes the whole while. n Then my mom caught me sideways with a zinger.

"Say," she asked, "do you remember that vicar who condemned you to hell?"

It's not a question you normally expect to be asked by your mom, but yes...yes, I had to admit, I remembered him well.

I was 13 years old, and part of being 13 when you're a member of a Lutheran church (moreover, one that's a sect of what's known as the Missouri Synod) involves studying for your confirmation. It's the Lutheran version of catechism class. Every Wednesday after school for three hours. The classes begin when you're 11, and end with the confirmation ceremony itself at 13.

Part of going to confirmation class also involves being obligated to do other things?regular participation in the youth group and weekly Bible studies. It's all part of the reason why so many 13-year-olds are such miserable creatures.

Our church's pastor was a very good and patient teacher?as well as an eminently reasonable man (despite his contention that most American literature?most literature of any kind, really?was the work of Satan). He'd passed over the "Bible study" part of the confirmation, however, to a young man named Michael, who was the church's vicar. (A vicarage, for those unaware, is sort of like practice teaching for pastors.)

I would guess, thinking back on it now, that the vicar was in his early 30s. Maybe not even that old. A pudgy, pasty-faced fellow, with a cool damp handshake, horn-rimmed glasses and a soft, effeminate voice. Nobody much liked him. He was strict, he never smiled (except in a snide way) and his interpretation of the Bible tended to lean more toward the Southern Baptist than toward Martin Luther. Being that he was the church's vicar, however, most of the other kids felt they still needed to give him some respect.

I never really ran into that problem. Bible studies usually degenerated into philosophical arguments between the two of us. As the weeks progressed, I could sense he was growing more impatient with me and my questions. At the time, I wanted to be a physicist, and so kept bringing science into religious discussions (which is about as bad as bringing religion into a scientific discussion).

Every week was "prove it," or "show me" or "where's your evidence?"

That's not what got me condemned to hell, though, although it may have erected a few road signs.

Somehow, one afternoon, the conversation had turned upon the significance of baptism. A few drops of water, a few words, a gesture or two and boom, you're saved. Without those things, it's the pit for you. The vicar told us that unbaptized babies?babies who are stillborn, or who die before their parents have a chance to baptize them?go straight to hell for eternity.

Well, I thought that was stupid and insane and cruel, and told him as much.

"Even the Catholics invented Limbo for cases like that," I pointed out.

For some reason, that triggered something dark in him. He grew furious with me, and demanded that I leave immediately and never return to his classroom again?which I gladly did. I gathered my things and went home. Had a snack and watched some television.

Not long afterward?maybe two weeks later?my parents received a letter from the vicar, informing them that I would not be allowed to accept communion as a member of the Lutheran Church.

Oh?and that I was going to hell, too.

We didn't even know that Lutherans excommunicated people?and neither did anyone else we spoke with.

But I guess they do.

So that was pretty much the end of my religious training. The pastor?again, an eminently reasonable man?allowed me to go through the confirmation ceremony with everyone else anyway, if only to prevent any undue humiliation for my parents. It just didn't count, is all.

Afterward, I continued along in my ungodly, evil ways, condemned to eternal fire, happier, I think, for the experience.

The vicar left our church a few years later and moved on to another. That's the way vicarages work. One day, if he was lucky, he'd end up with a congregation of his own. Those poor bastards.

Everyone at my parents' church was happy to see him go. I'm not sure how many other people he excommunicated during his stay there. I don't know if he took it upon himself to be a witch-finder. Perhaps he excommunicated dozens. Or perhaps I was the only one.

I hadn't thought about him in years. Pasty-faced creepy fucker. So when my mom asked me if I remembered the vicar who condemned me to hell, I told her, "Yeah, of course."

"Well, guess where he is now?"

"I've no idea." I was hoping he wasn't back at their church, if only for my youngest niece's sake.

"He's in prison!"

That made me laugh. "For what?" I asked. "Though I might make a wild guess."

"For, um," my dad popped in, "for playing around with little boys."

"Yeah, doesn't surprise me none," I told him.

"I don't think it really surprised anybody. He was pretty creepy, wasn't he?" my mom said.

"Sure was."

"John heard it on the radio while driving through Chicago yesterday. He just got sent away."

"He didn't try to do anything to you, did he?" my dad wondered.

If he had, he would've had more than a smart-assed kid to deal with. "Naah," I told them. "He didn't like me very much."

The conversation moved on to other things?their trip to Appleton the day before, the weather again. Before they hung up, though, I asked, "So?with him getting busted for molesting kids?does this mean that I get a reprieve? The whole hell thing, I mean."

They both laughed. "I think it must."

Funny thing is, you hear so much about Catholic priests not being able to keep it in their cassocks when they're around young boys. Hell, some insurance companies even pressured Egan to come out in June and tell his priests to stop doing it.

But priests and Protestant ministers are two completely different animals. Priests have that whole celibacy thing to contend with, while Protestant ministers are expected to get married and have kids. If they don't, well, then, people start to assume that there's a little something, you know, fruity about them.

I guess in this case, hmmm...

Maybe that's why he got so mad when I brought the Catholics up. I bet he was jealous!

After I hung up the phone, I thought about that whole "reprieve" business. Morgan suggested that it might be really funny to write a very straight-faced letter to whoever happens to be running the Missouri Synod these days, asking them about my status now.

"Dear Sirs:

I was excommunicated from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in 1978, when I was 13 years of age. Now, 23 years after the fact, it has come to my attention that the man who was responsible for excommunicating me is a nefarious..."

Well, you get the idea. While it would be almost unreasonably funny to receive an officially sanctioned reply concerning the current status of my spiritual being?something I could frame and hang on the wall?I think I'll pass.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm much more comfortable on that ol' highway to hell. And besides, when the end finally does come and I get down there, I'll be able to kick the shit out of that fat, creepy, child-molesting vicar!