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Tony Pasquarello
April 2, 1999
The Story Behind The Altar Boy Chronicles


Thank you so much. I think I’d be a bit more comfortable playing the piano for you. But, I’ll try. It’s been fifteen years since I retired. So I’m not used to public speaking.

There’s so much activist energy here that I hope I can claim the privilege of old age and say that they also serve who only sit and write. I want to thank Ellen and the board of directors for inviting me, and many thanks to Frank and Ann Zindler for all the work they did in bringing my book to fruition, and for their faith in me. It is a great honor and privilege to address and stand before the same organization which many truly distinguished writers and thinkers have addressed; and, of course, it is a great privilege to be published by the American Atheist Press and its alter-imprint, the Gustav Broukal Press, because they have published so much of value in the annals of the free-thought press.

I do not write easily, I do not research easily. I stand in awe and am humbled by those who do. I am forest green with envy of those who do. I am amazed at the spirit of inquiry and the ability to accomplish Herculean tasks from people like Frank Zindler and Conrad Goeringer. I count myself as incredibly lucky to be here among their company - where would our organization be without these authentic polymaths?

The Altar Boy Chronicles began about fifteen years ago when I conceived the idea of two or three simple, mostly autobiographical stories, short stories, in the humorous fashion, some of the absurdities and outrageous hilarities of my early Catholic days. I distinctly remember chatting with Robin and Madalyn at the 1984 convention in Lexington Kentucky. They were enthusiastic when I told them of my plans to send the stories for possible publication in the American Atheist. That journal had already published two of my articles. One was a long study of the non-relation between religion and morality entitled “Religion And Morality: The Odd Couple.” The other title was on “Avoiding That Last Visit,” a timely warning to all secularists that unless they take specific steps to avoid it, they will probably at death be visiting a church and receive a nice Christian funeral service and a good Christian burial. Madalyn told me at that time how much she had appreciated my message. I hope that she did avoid a good Christian burial, if indeed she is dead. At that time I had written the chapter “The VD Kid” as a stand-alone story. As chapters multiplied, the book format seemed much more appropriate and it seemed to be an attainable goal. Subsequent events, some quite surprising, interfered with the development of the book. I had three chapters complete, then put it aside for a long time, then I did three or four more chapters and then it lay untouched for seven or eight years. Finally I made extensive revisions and additions in 1997 and added a preface, last chapter, and postscript in 1998 when I was assured that our organization would be interested in publication.

In the meantime three of the chapters appeared in the American Atheist magazine - or journal as I like to call it. I hope some of you enjoyed some of them, and will want to read more. As for signing, I am so delighted to be the published author of a book, that it goes without saying that I would be overjoyed, I would be deliriously happy to autograph copies of my book. I am still basking in the afterglow of Robert Baker’s asking me to sign his copy of my “Proving Negatives” article. Robert Baker’s the famed skeptical psychologist at the University of Kentucky, and he is the author of the classic work on hypnotism; he’s written a dozen books and hundreds of papers. I’m still thankful and a bit amazed that he asked me for my autograph.

Of course I will sign any where any time. Please interrupt me in mid-sip at cocktail hour, mid-sleep in my room, mid-spoon at dinner, in mid-song at the piano, or even in mid-stream in the men’s room. None of these would be an intrusion. Any autographing would represent a book sale, and any future funds for the important work of our organization.

Why the Gustav Broukal Press, you may wonder; why not the American Atheist Press? The answer is simple. We decided, and I hoped, that the book might have a wider appeal and a broader potential than just the small freethought segment of the population. I’ve often believed personally that the entire population of Philadelphia can be our clientele. If so, we have an easy choice - rather than have someone take the book from the shelves, see the Atheist Press imprint, and fling it across the room before the contact could produce a skin rash, we would rather have someone leaf through the book, perhaps purchase it and absorb the Atheist message from having read it.

So long as the generalized public perception of Atheism is so negative and their current perception is such an ignorant muddle, it is prudential to be discrete - but forthright - in our use of the term. That is to say, be open and unafraid to call ourselves Atheists on any and all occasions where it is appropriate, but not open Sam’s Atheist grocery store and wonder why there are no patrons. Sad to say, the public probably thinks that we are here today to finalize our plans to vandalize churches, stone stained-glass windows, and violate nuns. They’re not quite sure whether we’re Communists, Nazis, Heaven’s Gate cultists, Satanists, Muslim terrorists, or Jews, and many believe that we’re all six.

Of course, the down side to a limited prudential use of the term Atheist is that the day when it is considered just another normal term of classification like senior citizen or Republican. Well perhaps not that. Just a normal term of classification without heavy emotive overtones. That day is postponed. Each day Atheists must make judicious decisions as to when, how, and to whom to open the closet door. There’s no point in telling a bartender “a very dry martini, and I’m an Atheist.”

The term Atheist can’t be used more frequently until it is normalized. But it can’t be normalized until it is used more frequently. This is our burdensome version of the old paradox wherein you can’t get A without B, but you can’t get B without A. It’s the familiar job experience paradox: you can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience without a job. Of course, it’s also the familiar paper towel in the restroom dry hands paradox, you can’t dry your hands without a paper towel, but you can’t get a paper towel without having dry hands, because when your hands are wet they rip the towel before you get the entire towel. And there’s the famous lost spectacles and seeing paradox. You can’t find your glasses without having your glasses. The fact is that we do find our glasses, and we do dry our hands, and we get jobs; and this shows that these are pseudo-paradoxes.

Likewise the Atheist paradox is solved pragmatically and sensibly: mention it where it is natural or concordant or critical to securing our civil rights, or fruitful to our cause. My book states in no uncertain terms in at least six places that I am an Atheist. But yet potential readers learn that from reading the book, not from glancing at the cover.

For those of us whose Atheism is pretty much public knowledge in our communities, we have experienced the repercussions of that publicity. We have received the hate mail, the barely literate rantings and ravings. We have born the economic consequences of being out of the closet - in my case the loss of various piano engagements - but we have also received the quiet, but totally supportive letters of physicians, attorneys, and other prominent community figures who encourage us to persevere, but who for obvious reasons cannot advertise their Atheism. Nevertheless there are some groups who can be a bit bolder in proclaiming their unbelief with little danger of economic sanctions. For example, the lucky Senior Citizens: it is unlikely, at least for now, that Social Security checks to Atheists would be abrogated. Those teaching in educational institutions with a strong commitment to academic freedom can also openly embrace Atheism, without losing their jobs.

But there is another group that we might overlook. The group relatively immune from any serious consequences in taking unusual stances. In the perspective of older generations all they do is take unusual stances. I refer of course, to our youth - the theme of this convention. It’s most unlikely that loving parents, even Christians, would withhold feedings from a free-thinking fourteen-year-old. Any different position adopted by teens will probably be excused as normal rebelliousness and hormonal energy so characteristic of youth. Remember that traditionally it was young people who had the courage and freshness of vision before getting bogged down by societal conventions and political correctness. It was young people who “told it like it was,” in asserting that the Emperor had no clothes. In contemporary terms our youth should boldly proclaim that the pope and all varieties of prelates are sartorially challenged.

I would say to young Atheists or potential Atheists, “Welcome. Remember that it is perfectly natural to reject the supernatural in the modern condition. Our primitive ancestors, however, resorted to the supernatural. It was natural for them, because they lacked scientific causal explanations for a variety of phenomena - dreams and the figures seen in dreams, particularly those clan members who had recently been a saber tooth’s meal, but seemed very much alive and kicking in last evening’s nightmare. They could only cower before the raw power of lightening and thunder, floods, and fires and anthropomorphize them or the unseen forces behind them. They could not explain why a field was fertile one season and fallow the next. They could not explain these things. And so they resorted to, they invented the supernatural. But the point is, we can, science can explain all these and so much more. Poor supernatural, there’s nothing left for it to do. It’s unemployed and justly so.”

Not that the concept of the supernatural makes any sense at all. Madalyn, by the way has written about this very effectively. Consider this fascinating question. Assume you travel to another planet, another star, another galaxy. What would have to happen, what would you have to encounter, to make you exclaim, “Wow, this is supernatural!” It’s very difficult to answer that question.

That is essentially the story behind The Altar Boy Chronicles. I’m afraid it isn’t very exciting, and it’s certainly not supernatural. I hope that you are not misled by the partial title “The Story Behind The Altar.” If we stop there you might have problems thinking it was going to be a National Enquirer type exposé à la Boccaccio or the Marquis de Sade. I have and say quite explicitly in the book that I have no scandalous tales of debauchery, depraved priests, or deprived nuns. From my perspective, nothing was going on behind the altar. What was taking place at the altar was scandalous enough. Adult men - no women - imbibing real blood and gnawing on real human flesh. For they are doctrinally committed to believing that those are precisely the substances they are ingesting!

Then there was all that bowing and scraping and kneeling and prostrating and groveling - unworthy of a free human being. What is worship anyway? Is there any more there than the echoes of those same primitive ancestors’ fears intending to placate forces beyond their comprehension? In contemplating both the music, the light, the personality of Johannes Brahms, the composer, I experienced a religious - if I may use that term - a religious sense of awe and reverence as deep as any experience I have ever had. Others have similar feelings for starry nights, ocean vistas, Darwin, DaVinci, Newton, Galilee, VanGogh, Einstein, or Shakespeare. One of my fantasies - one of the few that can be mentioned in public - one of my fantasies is that Brahms is resurrected and I am to be his companion. What would I do? I would ask him what he really thought of Wagner and Bruckner. I would ask him if he could play Liszt’s B-minor sonata. I would ask if he had any plans at all for a fifth symphony, and what it might sound like. But I would not be crawling at his feet. Nor would I be kissing his cigar butts. If I may paraphrase Groucho Marx, I wouldn’t worship any being who needs my worship. This is the paradox of worship. Any being that commands, demands, or desires worship is thereby proven unworthy of worship.

This was the moral dramatized so well on so many Star Trek episodes. The crew often encountered gods or godlike beings, but the moment those beings insisted on being worshipped, it was clear to Kirk and Spock that they didn’t deserve to be worshipped. This study of worship is one of about fifty papers that I have in process. I have discussed what was behind the altar, and told you nothing. And what was behind the Altar Boy Chronicles? Only one permutation is left, the story behind the altar boy.

And that’s what the book is about. To learn that, you’ll have to read the book. However, since it is Good Friday… (I have a very close friend, Tim Berra, a very very well-known evolutionist, and author of one of the major books against creationism. Whenever I say it’s Good Friday, he says “it’s good every day.”)

However, since it is Good Friday I thought I’d close by reading those passages from the book that are especially appropriate for this special day.
The idea was to cause pain, as much of it as was conceivable and bearable for a befuddled ten or twelve-year-old. I certainly hadn’t yet mastered all the subtleties of Catholic theology at that age, but I had observed one paramount tenet of Church teaching: Pain is Good. It is very, very good. Any pain could be “offered” to Jesus and suffered “in His Name.” Though merely infinitesimal imitations of his agonies on the Cross, they were still noted and deeply appreciated by the bloody, thorn-wrapped Sacred Heart.

Our nuns and priests had made certain that we understood that Christ’s death was no ordinary, humdrum expiration. Surely not. Crucifixion, they told us, was the most horrific, excruciating kind of death, especially when inclusive of the entire scenario - the Via Dolorosa, Christ’s painful walk to Golgotha carrying this monster cross. (Which had definitely not been sanded smooth.) Then there were all the other indignities and insults memorialized in The Stations of The Cross.

We were encouraged to meditate upon each separate incident and empathize to the utmost. Imagine your side being pierced with a spear and watching your last remaining vital fluids gush out. What could it be like to be wearing a circlet of pain, thorns penetrating the complete circumference of one’s skull? Or being given a sponge full of vinegar when you wanted some water? (I could never see why that was so bad; the only salad dressing we ever used was vinegar and oil. And that tasted pretty darned good to me.)

To be truthful, I always felt that the Stations were really padded. There was enough pain there for seven or eight Stations, but definitely not fourteen! No way. Consider, the very first one is just that Christ is condemned to death. Now that would certainly cause mental anguish or distress, perhaps severe depression, but not really much pain. Then, there were three “falls” thrown in; again, while they couldn’t have been pleasant, they certainly weren’t excruciating.

Gradually, as the war wore on, [the Second World War], I even came to doubt - we all did - that the Crucifixion was the zenith of possible agony, as it had always been portrayed. There were just too many rumors, half-whispered, dimly-comprehended tales of Nazi and Jap atrocities. At least some of those unspeakable horrors seemed to be a bit worse than crucifixion. I dare say that, once having been assigned the task, an active, though not necessarily fiendish imagination, could come up with scores of sorrier ways to die. Hell, all you’ve got to do is extend the duration of the torture segment and you’ve got something worse. A week-long crucifixion - a few nails a day - has to be worse. So does slow roasting. On a spit. Or flaying. Or any of the dastardly refinements that Vlad, the original Dracula, contributed to the fine art of impaling. Subsequently, as I acquired the complete, forbidden writings of the Marquis de Sade, I realized that he detailed a far worse torture every few pages!

Please. I do so hate to be misinterpreted. Some staunch believers, on reading this, will report that a blasphemous lunatic is claiming that crucifixion is a piece of cake.

I’m saying no such thing. For the record, crucifixion is an exceedingly nasty business. I simply question how it stacks up to the “Carrie” cases screamed by the headlines almost daily - “Girl chained to bedpost for six years by fundamentalist parents, found dead by authorities.”

At the time, however, crucifixion was considered the worst. We had to imagine it, concentrate on it, dwell upon every gory detail. Oh, if only we could bring that pain upon us; draw it over our heads and wrap ourselves in blood, slime, thorns and splinters, knowing that the worse it felt, the better for us it was.
And then a few pages later I talk about this season, Lent and this very time of year, Good Friday, and finally, Easter Sunday:
Add to this, interminable Lent itself and the twelve-hour fasts before receiving Holy Communion, and huge chunks of the year became meatless. And since I was a holy altar boy, serving Mass and probably taking Communion at each, two or three times a week, I was, in fact, doing all that fasting and abstaining. Who would dream of sending the God-Wafer down the gullet to slosh about in a meatball chyme? What level of severity could that sin have been? Probably way beyond mortal.

The only conceivable sin more heinous would have been eating meat on Good Friday. Naturally, we turned that into another opportunity for a deliberately torturous self-denial. Every Good Friday, well into the evening, we were up to our elbows in ham and ham fat. Literally. Every Italian family had to make these special Easter “pies” consisting of rice, ham, eggs, and raisins, in a really thick, unpleasant shell. Although a big fan of all the individual ingredients, except the dough, Italians managed to combine them to make something dry and tasteless, something considerably less than the sum of the parts.

We had to labor over these baked hams, separating the meat from the fat, then carefully dicing and shredding it. And you dare not taste even one micro-strand of that beautiful, moist ham; you dare not, even accidentally, touch your glistening fingers to your lips - the fat counted as meat. Just breathing that fleshy atmosphere, heavy with carnal droplets, must have been a venial sin, at least.

They baked dozens of those leaden pies on Good Friday so that they’d be ready for noon on Holy Saturday, the official end of Lent. I suppose some learned church theologians had long ago worked out Jesus’ out-of-body, post-mortem itinerary, though some points were still a bit murky. He is crucified at Noon on Good Friday; [about ten minutes from now] expires at 3 P.M. the same day; and rises from the tomb on Easter Sunday morning. But Lent is over at noon on Holy Saturday?

Well, the explanation seemed to be that by Saturday, Jesus - his spirit that is - was definitely already in Heaven. Therefore, we could start celebrating. Obviously, the Supreme Being would not want to remain embodied in that horribly abused corpse a moment longer than necessary. Besides, he had a few odd jobs to get done before returning for the Resurrection. First, he visited the various nether regions like Limbo and Purgatory and emptied them; immediately released the millions of prisoners there, and gave them all Heavenly passes, which they could use right away without waiting for Holy Saturday. (Maybe the supernatural realm was not operating on earth time.)

At any event, the redemptive power of the Sacrifice on the Cross was so enormous that it posted instant and complete bond for countless millions of souls. But if those credits were so profuse, why weren’t they sufficient to release the souls in Hell, too? At least, the poor sons-of-bitches who had tasted one sliver of ham on a Friday. But, perhaps that wasn’t a sin in those B.C. days; maybe there wasn’t a pre-Christian Hell. Yet, there just had to be because Cain and Delilah and all the Pharaohs had to be suffering somewhere.

Anyway, this Jesus-Spirit and his legions of shock-parolees then went straight to Paradise. He assured the gate-keeper (it couldn’t have been St. Peter; he was still living) that their passes were quite genuine and everything was in order. Then, it was off to the throne room to see his Father and (Brother?) the Holy Ghost, and calm their anxieties. Everything had gone well, according to the eternal plan. All things considered, he was in good shape. The next time he returned, he’d bring his body. For now though, let the party begin! And celebrate they did until early Easter morning, when Jesus apologized for being a party-pooper, but he simply had to leave in time to reunite with his body and rise from the dead, thereby founding the Roman Catholic Church.




Mr. Pasquarello is an emeritus professor of philosophy (The Ohio State University) and a professional pianist, boasting a repertoire of over five thousand works of the jazz, pop, and classical literature. His quasi-autobiographical The Altar Boy Chronicles has just been published by the Gustav Broukal Press, an imprint of AAP. (Click Here to purchase online.) A book-signing session followed this lecture, as eager conventioneers purchased copies of the book.

Online excerpts from The Altar Boy Chronicles can be found at: