So what if Jesus is married?

A HARVARD researcher Karen King, reportedly unveiled last September 18 an ancient papyrus fragment with the phrase, "Jesus said to them, 'My wife'". The papyrus also appears to refer to Mary Magdalene as that wife.

In the article by Ariel Sabar in Smithsonian.com, it reads, "The fragment's 33 words, scattered across 14 incomplete lines, leave a good deal to interpretation. But in King's analysis, and as she argues in a forthcoming article in the Harvard Theological Review, the 'wife' Jesus refers to is probably Mary Magdalene, and Jesus appears to be defending her against someone, perhaps one of the male disciples."

"She will be able to be my disciple," Jesus replies. Then, two lines later, he says: "I dwell with her," the article continued (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Inside-Story-of-th...).

I can only ask, as I asked when Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code ripped through the bestsellers list, "So what?"

Would He have been a lesser God in the Holy Trinity had He been?

The fixation that many have on Jesus' marital state verges on the ridiculous. The article anticipates such in its introduction where it reads: The announcement at an academic conference in Rome is sure to send shock waves through the Christian world.

I say, He was 33 when He died, for His sake! (He's Christ, so saying Christ's sake becomes redundant). At the risk of having a thousand fanatics lighting up torches to burn me at the stake, I say, married or not, Christ’s messages wouldn’t have changed a single bit had he had a wife, or even several wives. Did I just hear the thousand shouting, "Blasphemy!"

But really, a person's marital status should not get in the way of whatever it is that person represents.

I’ve read the Bible from cover to cover and cannot recall any verse where He said everyone who follows the path of His Father should be unmarried. He did ask the first of his apostles to leave their nets and be fishers of men. The last time I checked, nets and marriage were two different words although many a married man would disagree with me.

How sad it is if the faithful millions will lose their religion just because the Son of God is married.

It was already infuriating to know from non-Catholic friends that Jesus was not an only child of the couple Mary and Joseph when it was there in the Bible all the time, but many chose to skip that fact.

How sad it is to delude ourselves into beliefs that cannot even stand scrutiny and lose the whole message of Christianity, which in the first place upholds marriage as one of the Holy Sacraments.

Yes, I'm ranting as I always do when people try to gag the truth just because they think that is how it should be.

I'm not even saying that the papyrus fragment was even referring to Jesus Christ. There should have been a lot of men named Jesus in those days in the same way that there were Judases and Johns and Matthews. All I'm saying is that one's civil status should only get in the way when you put down all those who are copulating outside the sacrament of marriage and yet partake of such physical activity while wearing a cassock after taking a vow of celibacy.

What if I say I'm the better journalist because I'm not married? That you should hang on to every word I publish because of my single status?

Had I been married, would this message be any different?

I hope not, because this message is intended to be imparted in the same way had I had a partner or not.

I know. Not because I'm married, but because I'm not, a reality made worse because I'm a Filipino. A Filipino woman who remains unmarried way into middle age will always have to suffer the never-ending question of why we're not. As if it's any other person's business.

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