“Oh Mother of Mary” … did Jesus really have a wife?
Written in the 4th century AD, 150 years after the crucifixion, Jesus’ little secret may be out. Or not? (reuters)
Sacre Bleu! Has this little piece of papyrus ripped a page out of the 2000-year-old Catholic story of misogyny?
Has the Vatican been wrong all along? Did Jesus embrace the marriage of priests and the ordination of women? Well, some women think so and they are devote Christian scholars who are more interested in yanking the Catholic Church out of the dark ages then being subjugated to stifling church dogma.
Recently, Karen King a professor at the Harvard Divinity School revealed a Coptic papyrus fragment that quotes Jesus as saying “my wife.” Wow! That’s news. But it didn’t have a lot of “legs” in the 24/7 news cycle and yet, it has the potential to open up new horizons – at least discussions – about women and the Catholic Church. And wherever men lord it over women. This certainly has been a good day for women and a not-so-good day for the Pope and his misogynist cabal. If Jesus had a wife – maybe Mary Magdalene – and she was also one of his disciples … well, it sure raises a few eyebrows and questions:
- Did Jesus believe women were as important as Peter and the rest of the apostolic gang?
- Is that why Mary Magdalene is sitting next to Jesus in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting, the Last Supper?
- Does this bring down the Catholic Church’s wall of ignorance that forbids women from the priesthood and demands that priests are celibate?
- Will this stop the Vatican from pursuing its archaic denigration of women?
- Does this mean that the Bible – or at least many parts of it – is as fictional as Dan Brown’s bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code?
- Will this discovery lead to releasing priests into the world of women, wives and their own children? And perhaps mitigate much of the unnatural predatory practices toward other people’s children?
- See more questions.
What’s a banquet without your wife at your side? Maybe Leonardo Da Vinci read the papryus before creating the painting? Now, the Last Supper becomes even more seminal.
Shake the faith?
What’s wrong with Jesus dining out with his wife and friends? It doesn’t have to shake a person’s faith. Because if you have faith, then you have it and no amount of scholarly findings should matter. But if you’re more of a church-going, Bible-thumping, blowing-in-the-wind type of follower (e.g., Rick Santorum, Ralph Reed Jr., Robert Jeffress, Pat Robertson, et al.), than this might be the time to start screaming out anti-blasphemous curses and sticking pins in facsimiles of the female Catholic scholars who interpreted the papryus. How dare they question the very essence of the platform on which you have built your career and made your fortune. Quick, to the ramparts, Rome is under siege.
Relax, keep the faith
Don’t lose faith; find insight in knowledge. It’s up lifting. Obviously, Jesus sleeping with the “enemy” is not a given – yet. Of course, it will never be accepted by the Holy See because it would cost too much to financially support all those wives and children that priests would welcome into their lives. But just the same, what a “Sermon on the Mount,” “Easter Morning,” “Lazarus from the Dead,” moment this could be. Not a miracle, just an intellectual breakthrough – an anathema in the Catholic Church but still quite refreshing. Watch this 2 1/2 minute video and keep the faith. Or not.
“People are the worst”
Coming 2026
My personal history is the stuff they write books about. And that's what I am doing. The working title, "Chains of My Father: Marry White."
"The ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds." - Barack Obama
This perspicacious line from the Prologue of Barack Obama's "Dream from My Father" wrenched my aspiration into action. I started writing, furiously. Unlike Obama's perspective, my pain had been for the opposite reason: I was not seen by whites as a "tragic mulatto," rather I lived every day of my childhood hoping whites were not "searching my eyes for some telltale sign" that I WAS mulatto. This is my story.
It's historical fiction because I cannot find enough records to substantiate all facets of the story. I've combed the genealogy, traveled to my father and grandmothers' birthplace, walked the graveyards, searched the churches and ... well, all the facts aren't there. I have written three books based on the genealogy of other families but my ancestors emerged from a journey that left too few records – slavery.
My paternal, great grandmother was a "freed slave." My grandmother, Amelia, was born to a mixed race slave named Mary (we do not know her last name) and a white, French plantation owner, the Count de Poullain, in Grenada, West Indies. Amelia was raised in the "Big House" and in adulthood, in an attempt to escape her black heritage disowned her mother, telling her, "Get out and never come back." Amelia, as a mother of twelve children, enshrined into the family commandments, "Marry white." Many did, including my father. My mother was a lovely, white, Anglo-Saxon protestant born in England. They met in Canada where my dad studied and became a doctor.
It has taken five generations for the descendants of Mary to free themselves from the stigma of their black heritage but today my children embrace it. Unfortunately, the past 250 years have been a wasteland of bigotry, racism and bullying. But, on closer look, we see not only the brutality, fear, violence, and murder but also the self-respect, dignity, love, kindness, perseverance and indomitable spirit.
As of the spring of 2025, the depth of historic perspective and the sweeping inspiration of oppressed people has created a two-volume duology of which I have only arrived at the middle of the 19th century. 1840 is the year my great grandfather was born, the beginning of Volume II, and he's pushing me to make sure our story is published by the summer of 2026.
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