Is it "alter ego" or "altar ego"?

Both, I think, based on far too many past examples and this story, "Fighting Tradition, A Catholic Womanpriest Leads Mass in East Village", on the WNYC.org site:

This is not a traditional church. In fact, it’s just the community room of a residential building in the East Village. Paper signs taped to entrance read “Private: Prayer Service in Session. Do not disturb.”

But on the second Sunday of the month, a small group gathers at 175 E. 4th Street to celebrate a Catholic mass, creating a sanctuary by dragging chairs into a circle and setting up a makeshift alter. A woman, Gabriella Velardi-Ward, leads the celebration, which is part of a growing movement worldwide that's changing who can lead a Catholic church.

“I was 5-years old when I told my sister I wanted to be a priest when I grew up,” Ward said. “She said ‘Ha, you can’t you’re a girl.’  I couldn’t put words to it then, but on reflection I realize that rejection formed my life.”

Ward was ordained in 2008 as part of a movement called the Roman Catholic Womenpriests. The movement dates back to 2002 when a group of women in Austria and Germany wrote to three bishops seeking ordination.  

Two of those bishops -- whose identities are not known to Rome -- conducted the first ordination on a boat aboard the Danube River.

Seven women were ordained and since then the movement has grown to 120 people globally.

To be fair, the piece is accurate about a couple of key points: priestettes are indeed fighting—attacking, really—Tradition, and that is hardly a small point when it is understood that Tradition is not some collection of mere patriarchal talking points, but the depositum fidei, or "sacred deposit" of the faith, handed on to the Church by the apostles, who were entrusted with the same by Jesus Christ; and, secondly, it is indeed a makeshift "alter". It might as well be a makeshift duck-hunting platform or a makeshift piece of post-modern sculpture for all it means when it comes to actually being Catholic.

What is particularly funny about the above piece is the shameless schizophrenia of it all: Womenpriests are against Tradition! They are sticking it to the Church! But they want to be part of the Tradition! They demand to be accepted by the Church! Perhaps they are looping that rousing Queen song during their "mass": "I want it all, I want it all. I want it all. And I want it now!" 

I suppose this is "normal" when you have an alter ego based around an ego that demands control over the altar rather than than placing oneself on the altar. It is the same sort of confused emoting that feeds much of the so-called "new atheism", which features a number of people who are intensely angry toward a Being they insist doesn't even exist. It has all been expressed poetically and memorably by comedian Jim Gaffigan, in a routine about meat and vegetarians:

I like meat, I do.

But you know who seems to be really obsessed with meat? Vegetarians.

For people who don't like meat, they seem to eat a lot of vegetables that are mashed up and shaped to look like meat. [In his "vegetarian" voice]: "I find meat repulsive. I'll have a veggie burger with fake bacon, and can you serve it to me dressed like a cow? I don't like meat; I just like to call meat late at night and hang up. Let's drive by meat's house. Does meat ever ask about me? [singing] I don't care! I ain't missin' you at all...missin' youuuuuu...."

You never see that the other way: [meat eater's voice]: "I will have the steak and can you make it taste like tofu?"

So, in the end, we are left with "news" articles about women pretending to be priests while standing around an "alter" that isn't an "altar", written by a reporter who is trying to alter what Catholics believe about service at the alter, while not appreciating the irony of working to destroy what is claimed to be prized most of all. How fitting that one definition of "alter ego" includes this: "A person with an alter ego is said to lead a double life."

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[Charles E Flynn]

Wymynprysts yn Mynnysota