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Jan. 1 marked the 2,000th anniversary of Jesus' bloody brith mileh, the Jewish ritual that snips off an infant boy's foreskin approximately one week after birth. The cock-cutting of Christ is presently sanctified in numerous Christian sects as the "Feast of the Circumcision."

I was personally impelled to attend Mass on this particular Holy Day of Obligation when I was a young Catholic lad. I remember that my inquiry about the definition of the word "circumcision" received the white-lie reply: "It's when Jesus was given his name."

Renaissance painters frequently portrayed the reduction of Jesus' wiener in an exotic synagogue setting, like the lavish Temple of Jerusalem. In actuality, the meat-mincing of the Messiah undoubtedly occurred in a humble, private abode.

Early Christian missionaries tried to make the cap-lopping covenant ceremony mandatory in the burgeoning faith. The operation hampered adult gentile conversion, however, particularly amongst the proud uncut Greeks of Antioch. Eventually St. Paul and St. Barnabas convinced their slashing compatriots to drop the circumcision requirement at the Apostolic Conference in Jerusalem (A.D. 50, and in Acts 15 & Galatians 2). Today, only a few Christian sects such as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church require male genital mutilation for membership.

Circumcision is falling out of favor in the United States today after its gory-glory heyday in the 1950s and '60s when 90 percent of all boys born in American hospitals were nonconsensually shortened. Organizations such as Doctors Opposing Circumcision are working to exterminate the practice because there is no medical justification for the traumatizing surgery that removes over 30 percent of a penis' sexual pleasure. A guide book entitled "The Joy Of Uncircumcising" by Dr. Jim Bigelow even encourages men to grow back their lost tissue by stretching the adjacent skin forward over the desensitized glans.

Will Jan. 1 remain a Christian holy day if male circumcision is ever condemned as vehemently as its female clitorectomy equivalent? The Catholic Church, uncharacteristically, has already moved forward: In 1970, Paul Paul VI created a special feast day that simultaneously celebrates the Maternity of Mary and World Peace. Since then, this immensely gentler motive has replaced circumcision as the church's cause for rejoicing on Jan. 1.
salon.com | Jan. 4, 2000

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