There is a specific brand of cowardice that only exists behind beautiful mahogany desks. Okay, who am I kidding? There is a specific brand of cowardice that only exists behind ugly, scratched-up, laminate desks… It’s the kind of cowardice that is dressed in poorly written legal jargon and demands your silence on all things past, present, and future.
The modern Catholic Church loves to talk about truth, beauty, and goodness, but it runs on the cold, hard math of a corporate spreadsheet.
This isn’t a new scam; it just started using different marketing techniques.
Back in 1514, Pope Leo X ran himself into a massive financial hole trying to build the ultimate status symbol: St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Around this time Albert of Brandenburg wanted to oversee multiple dioceses simultaneously. Back then, and still today, men were only allowed to serve as bishop of one diocese. Most importantly, Church offices are not and were not ever for sale or sold.
Pope Leo X granted Albert the permission he was seeking (to oversee multiple dioceses) for a fee.
Albert didn’t have nearly enough money, so he borrowed a very large sum from the well-known Fugger Banking Family. This paid for the papal fees. Now, Albert had all the titles, power, and prestige he wanted, along with a lot of debt.
Together, Albert and Pope Leo X, launched a fundraising campaign across Germany centered on indulgences. They found a monk, named Johann Tetzel, to be the main face of the campaign. Tetzel traveled across Germany selling pieces of paper called indulgences, which were presented as a spiritual benefit for the faithful.
The Church used financial mechanisms to buy moral immunity.
The pitch was simple: pay the institution, and your moral failures would be wiped away by administrative decree.
The money raised from the sale of indulgences helped pay Albert’s debt to Fugger’s and financed what was still needed to finish building St. Peter’s Basilica. Financial necessity became inseparable from spiritual promises. This unholy alliance between institutional debt and forced spiritual taxation is one of many reasons Martin Luther took a hammer to the door at Wittenberg.
Martin Luther didn’t simply object to indulgences because they involved money. Luther objected because the Church had begun treating grace as something the institution could administer, market, and monetize. Once that happened, reform became inevitable.
Five hundred years later, the ink has changed, but the habits haven’t.
When I was informed that I would be resigning from my role within the Catholic Church, I sat across from a priest who was sweating through his collar, trying to laugh off an attempted exile of my entire family.
Halfway through our meeting, which to this point consisted of him stumbling all over his words, he informed me that the Church had prepared a severance package for me.
He continued with how lucky I was to be offered that because they don’t do that for everyone. The “severance package” he handed me was nothing more than a poorly written Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
They thought a legal document could rewrite my memory. They miscalculated.
It was mind-blowing. They knew perfectly well that silence and I had known each other for a very long time.
An NDA is just a modern indulgence.
Only this time, instead of selling forgiveness to the public, the institution tried to purchase silence from someone who already understood the cost of it.
Both operate on the same dark premise: money and silence can cover up a multitude of sins.
I took the blue file folder that tucked the document safely away, looked at him, and said, “I’ll discuss this with my lawyer.” I didn’t wait for his smile to fade. I walked out of his office and gathered my things.
Few people realized how unlikely it was that I would ever work for the Church.
The diocesan leadership knew why.
That’s a story for another day.
It wasn’t just asking me to stay quiet about an employment dispute. It was asking me to return to a version of silence I had spent years fighting to escape. As I stepped out into the cold air after that meeting, the emotional whiplash hit me all at once. I was deeply hurt that an institution that I had forgiven, returned to, and faithfully served could treat my family with such calculated cruelty.
I was shocked by the sheer arrogance of their demands, and I was furious that they tried to use God as a shield for a corporate shakedown.
But beneath the anger and the pain, there was a massive, undeniable wave of relief. There was no way I was going to sign that document. I would never let them own my past, control my present, and they sure as hell weren’t going to dictate my future.
They wanted to buy my silence. They bought themselves a witness.
I didn’t sign their paper.
I went home.
Opened a blank document.
And began writing Anathema.
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