By now, you've probably heard about the Frederick priest busted for doing some nude laps around a high school track earlier this summer.
And if you haven't heard about it, congratulate yourself for avoiding the media horde careening up I-25 and U.S. 85 to find out how something so outrageous could happen. And, for lack of better B-roll fodder, television reporters interviewing the goal posts to find out if this public indecency has shaken their psyche just weeks before the football season begins. This story isn't enough for the imagination. We need some footage of the track because, when you think nude jogging priests, you think as ... phalt.
These are the kind of stories that the media lives for. Not only will they make a good tease for your 10 p.m. news because everybody wants to know more about Father O'Flasher but it is the type of story picked up by news outlets across the country eager to to fill a minute or so on their own news casts even though they don't have a clue where Frederick is.
Let's face it, stupidity sells.
And, all by all accounts, this was just a dumb decision. Of course, the hunt is on now to find out if this was stupidity for stupidity's sake or if this was, even worse, insidious stupidity. We must find out if this kind of thing happened before, if there was some warning we missed. We have to play that “What if” game. If only we would have known, maybe we could have put barbed wire on the track fence or put up flood lights. Well, cover your ears for the latest revelation, kids, it sounds like he bared all in his own shower, too.
Granted, in light of the recent uproar over sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic church, a priest should know better than to do a poor Playboy bunny impersonation near a public education facility, even in the middle of the night.
I always think back to those great car insurance commercials where people are doing things like attacking bee hives with weed wackers (rest assured I tried hard to avoid that word in this piece) and the voice over says, “We all do stupid things.”
I'm not rationalizing what this priest did. Priests should keep their clothes on. Sumo wrestlers should keep their clothes on. I should keep my clothes on.
These stories get big play and the media feeds them to you because they know you'll eat up every bite. But, after all the outrage or laughter (the choice is, of course, yours) subsides, do we stop and wonder why this is a story.
Although a ticket was issued, there was no public safety threat here. He wasn't chasing anyone.
I can only chalk it up to being a nation of people who suffer chronic, low self esteem. On any given day, we commit any number of questionable, bone-headed things. Do they fall into the category of running around a track naked? Probably not. Though in college, it wasn't met with such horror, I think we called it Thursday. Seeing somebody else doing something dumb if not dumber than you is a real morale booster.
Sometimes, I'd like to imagine all of the stupid things I do put in the news or, at least in a sitcom. I really think there is a market for someone almost crashing their car because a bee flew in his window or falling off the toilet to reach an extra roll of toilet paper.
So get your chuckles about a naked priest on a high school track.
But then take the dumbest thing you've ever done and picture it rebroadcast over and over again on TV stations across the country, printed in newspapers and hung up on the office watercooler.
Now, who's laughing?
