Sex scandal in Italy; Appreciating Cardinal Lustiger; Latin Mass update; and a Polish radio priest

They probably also wanted to counter the idea that women have the right to abortion because its their bodies.

It is disconcerting to be falsely accused. One could assume that Father Gelmini is NOT guilty based on the fact that he is defending his accusers rather than himself by trying to find motives for their choosing to make a false accusation. One might understand his being inclined look for a way to account for their choosing to hurt him, because in order to help the many who have drug and alcohol problems he likely has developed a rather more positive image of them that has now been shattered.

I think it rather unfortunate that John Allen has chosen to present these stories in a way that makes it seem as though anti-Semitism was flourishing in European Catholic circles and that parts of Europe are only a stone's through from repeating the atrocities of the Third Reich.

How Will Benedict respond?
Good question.

The statement of "ethnic cleansing of gays" should immediately be addressed by the Catholic Church's leader, Pope Benedict, as being evil, unchristian. A swift statement against any kind of such hatefulness is called for.

This is not a good trend for a public official to come out with such a rancid call against any persons. Is the Italian deputy mayor of Treviso a Catholic? What a pathetic disgrace of a catholic if he is!

....And it would be more of a pathetic disgrace for the Pope to not say anything against such a barbaric statement.

Is there a link between some traditionalists and anti-semitism? It makes me think of Mel Gibson, who was raised in a breakaway traditionalist Catholic sect and his in vino veritas assertion that the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.

Frannie ~ There does seem to be a link between traditionalists and various forms of bigotry including anti-semitism. I don't mean this as a poke at traditionalists but the frequency of 'anti' seems relatively proportionate to fundamentalist attachments.

In fundamentalist pedagogy, including Christian and Catholic, it seems that the adage "if you are not for me you are against me" has been abused (as per, you are either with me or or with the terrorists), tolerance is not an easy road in this simplistic model, nor is the reality that in much of life choices are between more than good and evil.

There certainly seems to be a link between traditionalism and antisemitism in the minds of the two priests John writes about in this arcticle. I would imagine both men were formed in the seminary prior to Vatican II. Anyone who doesn't think antisemitism was part and parcel of Catholic formation prior to Vatican II didn't live in that era and is looking back it through Vatican II colored eyes.

The antisemitic elements of the traditional form of worship do not seem to be sufficiently prominent to account for its appeal to those holding antisemitic views, I think. However, praying for the Jews as a seperate group needing conversion, is more than antisemitic; it is praying against the tradition of Judaism out of which the tradition of Christianity was formed. It is adolescent in its tone as if Christians were praying that they do not become like their Jewish "parents", and yet those who pray it most fervently are in fact those most like their Jewish "parents" in their attachment to the letter over the spirit of Jesus instruction.

Colkoch, Frannie, Marie, I think you're unearthing some important cultural connections between anti-Semitism, right-wing Catholicism, and the potential recrudescence of fascism in some areas of Europe (and the U.S.?) today. Is it any accident that right-wing Catholics in both Italy and Poland seem emboldened to attack Jews and gays simultaneously at this particular point in history?

My posting yesterday cites some troubling examples in Italy. In Poland, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has just fired his Education Minister Roman Giertych, who had proposed a bill making it a criminal offense to "promote homosexual propaganda" in schools. If passed the measure would essentially censor all discussion of homosexuality in schools and other academic institutions.

Kaczynski and his government are under heavy scrutiny for their treatment of gays and lesbians. Last month, the Council of Europe Human Rights gave Kaczynski's government a failing grade and noted that its treatment of Polish LGBT persons was "abysmal".

Giertych's proposal would bar all LGBT organizations from schools and would fire all teachers who openly declare their homosexual orientation. The health ministry of Kacynski's government has reportedly commissioned a study of ways of "curing" homosexuality.

Why all this, and why now? Part of the answer, I think, is the increasing worldwide emergence of LGBT people into the open, as players on the stage of history. This event threatens those who see their social control waning for whatever reason. It galvanizes, particularly for male power structures (including those of the church), the battle for social control in which they seem to see themselves involved.

It's interesting, too, that throughout history both Jews and gays have been treated as "dirty" and as "infectious" in Christian societies. There's an ominous carryover in the rhetoric leveled by fascist groups against both of these persecuted minorities.

Finally, it seems to me that, whenever a faltering power system wants to shore up its power, it looks for some despised (dirty and infectious) minority to scapegoat. There are few better ways to get people on your side when your power is being questioned, than to make yourself look strong by beating up somebody weak -- especially if you can convince people that the one being beaten up deserves the beating.

I remain very troubled by Catholic complicity in these trends. Poland and Italy are Catholic countries. Some of the hate is clearly being fomented by the church itself -- perhaps a large part of it. Violent assaults on gay men are on the rise in Poland right now.

What will the church do? Is much of this scapegoating rhetoric a way of diverting attention from the sexual abuse crisis that is, contrary to church propagandists, worldwide, deeply entrenched in how the church does business, and far from justly and honestly addressed?

I am afraid so.

William D. Lindsey

I would like to be able to agree with your two posts, but this time I cannot. There simply is not enough reason to think that there is something in either Pope Benedict's comments or European Catholicism that proves an anti-gay bias or intent to divert attention from Church sex abuse issues.

Stating that gays should expect violence when they do not hide their lifestyle is like having said in the 1950's that black skinned people in the American South should expect violence when they do not defer to white skinned people. It is a legitimate warning and not the same as saying they deserve to be treated with violence.

By your own account, "In Poland, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has just fired his Education Minister Roman Giertych, who had proposed a bill making it a criminal offense to "promote homosexual propaganda" in schools." Clearly, this would indicate that this extremism isn't finding wide support. It is, however, the kind of thing that sells newspapers.

MarieR~ I would like to be able to agree with your post and disagree with William's. However, I cannot.

If Benedict's statement was that of a strong proponent of gay and lesbian rights and was cautioning the "troops" to be prepared for and stand against anticipated violence I would gladly agree with you. But I think not. Words take on the meaning of the speaker. For example if Martin Luther King Jr. made the statement about blacks expecting violence it would have an entirely different meaning coming from Governor Wallace. Not a nice comparison but I think it demonstrates my point.

While I would not think that he would condone that violence it is more like "you made your bed, now sleep in it".

As to deflecting attention from the The papacy seems more political than we would assume from a religious leader.

Dennis,

The document to which William refers never specifically warns anyone to expect violence. The only reference to violence is the following: "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such [homosexual] unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development."

The document also states this: "Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies 'must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided'. They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity."

William states that being referred to as intrinsically disordered is a form of violence. However, following the reasoning of the document, anyone who engages in sexual activity that is not open to procreation, such as the many couple who contracept using the pill, are relating to one another in a way that would be considered objectively and intrinsically disordered.

I agree with you that the source of a comment colors the meaning of it, but in this case there was not even such a comment!

MarieR ~ Having read your post and William's and then the document itself to which you both refer I am somewhat annoyed. My reading of the document and specifically the section 10 from which you both quote leads me to the same interpretation as William. Your posting states that "...there was not even such a comment", i.e., violence against homosexuals. You quote, sort of, one paragraph and William quotes both paragraphs of the same section which appears to support his interpretation.

The deliberate representation of diligent review and equivalent representation of the document in your post, addressed to me is to say the least questionable. I would expect that an appropriate response is warranted.

Dennis,

It is not my intent to misrepresent in an unduly positive light the statements that the Vatican issues. It is important, however, I think, not to focus only on those things that might be considered outrageous and to neglect to give credit to those things that are, in fact, properly expressed.

We are referring to document from the late 1980's. Then Cardinal Ratzinger's statement only suggests that whatever violence is done to homosexuals is excusable, but it does not call for violence to be done to homosexuals who make themselves known. It is, after all, a document about providing pastoral guidance to homosexual persons, and it is not out of line to urge caution with regard to having people make public assertions about themselves.

I think that if I felt someone were claiming a right to do something I think is degenerate, then I too would think it not surprising that people respond in an equally degenerate way to it. In this case, however, I think Cardinal Ratzinger ended up with the cart before the horse in concluding that because people respond in a degenerate way, it is properly presumed that the situation to which they are responding is degenerate.

My guess is that Cardinal Ratzinger watched one too many gay parades on television and based his opinion on a mental image of an in-your-face, promiscuous individual claiming a right to be offensive. My guess is that he does not see the much more typical, humble, thoughtful person who is victim of violence only because he is identified by others, rightly or wrongly, as homosexual. He did not, and may not yet, comprehend that homosexual advocacy is the reaction to the violence and discrimination, rather than the cause of it.

Time has passed since that document was released, and while the teaching of the Church has not changed--and William presents this appropriately in his parable--we should believe that it is possible for the Church to develop a "fuller understanding" of the homosexual individual, the behavior of the homosexual individual (and the contraceptive-using heterosexual individual), and the theology that at the present time uses only Old Testament beliefs--not expressed in any Commandments--to set the standard for very private sexual conduct for both homosexual and heterosexual individuals.

More than just the seeds for this improved perspective on homosexuality are present in this document that once energized gay activism, but which could be demoralizing if not read completely.

Marie, I do admire your attempt to give the 1986 document a positive reading. I think, however, that it was a mean-spirited, unmitigated disaster. It has brought into the discourse of the Catholic church the phrase "intrinsically disordered," which had not been used prior to this document. The phrase has now made its way into the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and it got repeated in statements made by the U.S. bishops in their last annual meeting--to their eternal shame and discredit.

There definitely have been postive pastoral statements that could provide a foundation for a more compassionate and inclusive approach to gay Catholics. The U.S. bishops themselves have made some of those statements.

However, as the party line has grown ever more rigid in Rome--due to a great extent to Ratzinger's own approach as head of CDF--those more inclusive and pastoral statements have fallen by the wayside. The U.S. bishops have a tradition of bowing to Rome whenever Rome speaks, in contrast to some other bishops' conferences.

A new book is just about to appear which strongly critiques the approach taken by both Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger to issues of sexual morality. I hope that NCR will be discussing this book in an upcoming issue; I feel confident they will.

The book was authored by retired Sydney bishop Geoffrey Robinson. Robinson says that the Catholic Catholic Church is not serious about confronting sexual abuse, but about only “managing” it. In his view, the abuse crisis points to a need for thorough-going reform in the church--and, in particular, reform in how it deals with issues of power, including issues of power in the area of human sexuality.

The book is entitled Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church. It argues that there is "a crying need” in the Catholic Church to reconsider such issues as sex outside marriage, contraception, and homosexuality. In Robinson's view, the church has sought to infantilize believers through a heavy-handed approach to sexual morality that privileges childlike obedience over mature, adult responsibility.

As a Lutheran, you may be interested to hear that Bishop Robinson proposes a kind of new Reformation in the church, in which the pope would speak formally on behalf of the church only after consulting the faithful.

I agree that the Catholic church may be a long way from moving in that direction, but I still live in hope. I can't avoid a political aside to illustrate my sense of hope: who'd have thought, a few weeks ago, that we'd so quickly be rid of Messrs. Rove and Gonzales?

One does live in hope, and God is a God of surprises. Unjust empires crumble amazingly fast when they begin to implode....

William D. Lindsey

William,

The letter to which you refer states that the term "intrinsically disordered" was coined in 1975 and referred to homosexual acts not to persons with homosexual inclinations or tendencies. The 1986 letter states further (unfortunately) that this was too kind and that it is necessary to be more specific and say that not only is the act "intrinsically disordered" but that the inclination is "objectively disordered", though not a sin.

I interpret "objectively disordered" as meaning that its object is not procreation. In no case, though, is there anything that calls a homosexual person intrinsically or objectively disordered, while there are plenty of other positive statements about homosexuals as persons. It seems to me, however, that publications advocating for homosexuals claimed that in this statement the Vatican, in essence, had called homosexuals freaks of nature, and I disagree with that interpretation.

Further, in light of Pope Benedict XVI's Deus Caritas Est descriptions of sexual behavior as providing a sense of Divine love, I do not believe it is necessarily true that the attitude in Rome has become more rigid in its understanding and acceptance of human sexuality. I think Pope John Paul II's attitudes and those arguments presented by the CDF during his time are not necessarily reflective of the current attitudes, and that the man who made the arguments is now in a good place to take them in a more positive direction.

It should be interesting when the book by Bishop Robinson comes out. I can't quite see the pope only speaking formally after consulting the faithful, however, and considering that it is the faithful and not necessarily this pope who are heading in the direction of less tolerance, it might be best that he not be required to consult them.

Marie, you're right, the 1986 document does cite the 1975 CDF "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics" of December 29, 1975. But here's the crucial point to note: it does so only TO QUESTION that 1975 document's restriction of the phrase "intrinsically disordered" to homosexual acts.

The 1986 document makes an important (and very lethal) leap in a new direction: it applies the phrase "intrinsically disordered" to homosexual persons, rather than the acts that homosexual persons do. This is why the 1986 document is regarded as so toxic, as such an assault on the very humanity of gay human beings. It is a virtual declaration of war by the church, in its restorationist mode, against gay and lesbian persons. As I have noted previously, it was immediately followed by the expulsion of Dignity chapters from all Catholic premises.

Allowing Dignity to meet on church property was one of the few shreds of dignity still offered by the church to gay persons up to the time of the 1986 document. Those gay and lesbian Catholics still holding on by their fingernails felt at least a modicum of welcome, in that they could gather in churches and church places, discuss how to lead spiritual lives as self-respecting gay persons, avail themselves of the spiritual resources of the church.

Though these meetings were para-liturgical and still placed gay Catholics in a pariah status, at least they allowed many LGBT Catholics the solace of believing we still had some place, marginal as it might be, in the institution. The 1986 letter, followed by the expulsion of Dignity from church property and the punishing and silencing of its leaders, was a brutal slap in the face for gay Catholics who still held hope that the church might behave maternally towards us.

The passage to which you refer, citing the 1975 document, occurs in the prefatory part of the 1986 document, setting up its argument. In other word, the 1975 document is cited to OVERTURN its argument that we can distinguish the "disorder" of gay sexual acts from the personhood of those committing these acts. Here's how the 1986 document sets up the argument:

"That document [e.g., the 1975 one] stressed the duty of trying to understand the homosexual condition and noted that culpability for homosexual acts should only be judged with prudence. At the same time the Congregation took note of the distinction commonly drawn between the homosexual condition or tendency and individual homosexual actions. These were described as deprived of their essential and indispensable finality, as being 'intrinsically disordered', and able in no case to be approved of (cf. n. 8, sect. 4)."

The 1986 document then goes on repeatedly to demolish the acts-person distinction and to define GAY PERSONS and not GAY ACTS as intrinsically disordered. It states, for instance:

"Homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self-giving which the Gospel says is the essence of Christian living. This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves; but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent."

Note: "They confirm WITHIN THEMSELVES a disordered sexual inclination (emphasis added)...."

The document also states:

"Nevertheless, increasing numbers of people today, even within the Church, are bringing enormous pressure to bear on the Church to accept the homosexual condition as though it were not disordered and to condone homosexual activity."

"To accept the HOMOSEXUAL CONDITION AS THOUGH IT WERE NOT DISORDERED (emphasis mine)...."

And note the infamous phrase I've already quoted in the section decrying violence against homosexual persons:

"But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered."

Note how crucial, how damaging, is this move from describing homosexual acts as intrinsically disordered to describing homosexual persons as intrinsically disordered: it undercuts the attempt of the 1975 document to define a gay sexual orientation as morally neutral (and to accord gay human beings a dignity equal to that of straight human beings). It departs from a longstanding tradition within Catholic moral theology to condemn homosexual acts while affirming homosexual persons.

Defining any human being as intrinsically disordered is an act of profound violence. As I have noted, this document represents a kind of declaration of war against gay persons by what John Allen calls evangelical Catholicism.

Why did the church take this turn? In part, because increasing numbers of LGBT persons simply refuse to accept the definition of ourselves as disordered. In part, because the consensus of respected therapeutic and psychological groups is now that sexual orientation is a given: we come with our inclinations from the hand of the Creator. In part, because many cultures have grown increasingly accepting of LGBT persons, and intent to respect our rights.

But I have to say that I also suspect the turn to warfare against the gay community by the restorationist church is part of a more widespread cultural movement in which controlling male power centers worldwide need to use sex as a diversionary wedge issue to keep us from examining deeper questions of their abuse of power. For several decades now, sexual issues--and especially attacks on gay people--have been used in this instrumental way in the U.S. Raising the specter of moral decay and the decline of marriage if gay people are accepted and accorded equal rights has been enormously useful to the right wing of American politics.

It has functioned as a drumbeat to keep the faithful voting right, to keep money rolling into the coffers of these groups. It has also--and this is very important--diverted people's attention from obscene misuse of money and obscene enrichment of the very rich, from abuse of the poor, from destruction of the environment, from exploitation of people in developing nations, etc.

This instrumental use of anti-gay rhetoric is waning now. It is waning because young folks, even conservative ones, no longer buy into gay bashing. It is also waning because the family values crowd are going up in flames as yet another and another of their ilk is caught with his pants down in a public washroom or cavorting with prostitutes while preaching the sanctity of marriage.

Sadly, the church has placed itself on the wrong side of the moral arc of the universe in this battle, and has forfeited all respect for its sexual teachings, as it has done so. It has also decidedly not placed itself on the side of the angels. Those U.S. bishops who used gay marriage and "pro-life" issues to urge the American faithful to elect the worst federal administration in American history have much to answer for, at the judgment seat of history. What can they have been thinking? What kind of moral leadership do they believe they have given us?

And will their assaults on gay rights continue to be regarded favorably by U.S. Catholics, as we learn more and more about the misuse of power and money to cover up the abuse of children by priests?

William D. Lindsey

In a separate train of thought regarding the Church's perspective on homosexuality coming to be dominated by the growing social conservatism in both society and the Church, I would like to point out that this dominance grows when people read more into the Church's statements than is actually there.

I think after those elements of the gay community that are less flambouyant become known in society and society realizes that they is not a threat, then looking back at this document outside of its present context, it will be evident that the foundation for accepting homosexuals as not disordered will be found in it.

I believe that the biggest change in the Church affecting the status of homosexuals will have come from changes in the perpsective the Church holds on sexuality in general--once it recognizes sex as the way we bond in order to procreate or parent and not merely as an expression of baser instincts needing to be mastered in order to please God.

Lyrics to "One" by U2:

You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without

You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

Thank you so much, Bill, for giving U2 a 4. I think it's such a perfect expression of what's going on, but it looks like you're the only one who agrees. Bono wrote the song about the group's potential breakup, but like all good poetry it has applications far beyond the original intent and here, I think, it says it all.

You're in my heart.
Frannie

Frannie, for some reason the U2 song "Stuck in a Moment" keeps popping into my mind.

Thank you, William, for your patience and the additional information on how the Church treats gay and lesbian populations. I still don't think I will be able to accept that when its says the "condition" is disordered, it is saying the person is disordered, simply because it does state that sexuality is only part of a person, and not the defining part, something with which I strongly agree.

Nevertheless, I would agree that the Church at the parish level has become less hospitable gay and lesbian persons, and that may be the result of how this letter was interpreted. I am not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but many years ago, before the Reagan years, I worked in religiously affiliated library. At that time, a very conservative group out of California was soliciting information as to what moral issues would incite the followers of that religion. I presume they solicited this information from any and all religious institutions with a certain degree of success. The top issue was, of course, abortion, but it would not surprise me if sexual promiscuity was next, and that homosexual sex fit that description in the minds of many. I'm sure you remember the five supposedly non-negotiable issues for Catholics that were so much a part of the 2004 election--what caused this list of issues to be developed?

That I am not more a part of the Church is largely due to the direction it took in supporting this administration, but I refuse to leave it where it is so long as my children are part of it. Even though Dennis takes exception to this, I think Church leaders were very vulnerable to manipulation by sensationalised news reporting and even whisperings that Catholic gay and lesbian outreach programs were the equivalent of certain parks, rest areas, and gay bars. I think the 1986 letter was strongly reactionary, but that it can be redeemed to a sufficient degree so that it becomes less significant in defining the Catholic position regarding homosexuality.

Marie, I’m grateful for your patience with me. An advantage of these “long” conversations is that one gradually sees with the eyes of the other. I now begin to appreciate a bit more where you’re coming from in your response to my thoughts about the 1986 Roman document.

As you know, it’s hard for me to be concise. I’ve even thought of beginning a new thread to continue our discussion, in case we’re boring others who came to this thread to discuss John Allen’s article about the Italian sex scandal. I’ll try to summarize some thoughts now, and if it seems worthwhile that we continue the discussion, I would propose a new thread with an expanded statement of what I’m going to say below to start the thread. Re: that proposal, I’ll welcome feedback from anyone interested.

First, I think you and I are at a point where we’re beginning to see we may not agree on the issue of the church’s treatment of the gay community because we are coming at the issue from different life experiences and different starting points. I now understand part of your concern: that an overly negative interpretation of church teaching on homosexuality may harm young gay Catholics who seek welcome by the church.

I appreciate that concern. I share it, in fact. Nonetheless, based on my own experiences, I’ve concluded that, if the price to be paid for “welcome” is to overlook or minimize the damage of current teaching about homosexuality (the “intrinsically disordered” bit), then the price is just too high.

Part of the experience for those who grow up gay is ambivalence – tortuous ambivalence, in which all the major institutions in society bombard you constantly with one message, and your inner self begins offering you a different message. How to put the two together?

I begin with a fundamental theological assumption: church is home. Church should be home – always. When church expels anyone from home, it does the most savage thing possible to that person. When church pushes anyone from the table, it deprives that person of life in a profound way.

Home is, to paraphrase Robert Frost, where they’ll take you in no matter who you are. If you’re a young person confused about your identity, seeking, exploring, home is a place to affirm you and give you room to grow. It’s a place to let you be.

When home tells you you’re welcome, but at the same time that you’re disordered, it compounds your confusion. It welcomes you and maims you at the same time. For most gay Catholics, this double message is deeply unsettling. It seems to be a message of welcome aimed at someone else – not at that person who feels deep inside that he/she is not quite the “normal” person represented by the constant bombardment of signals from all around re: how normative heterosexuality is.

I realize that at a pastoral level, the church often expects parish priests and religious educators to “soften” the hard edges of the teaching about intrinsic disorder. The church’s chief pastoral leaders know that there’s often a kind of wink-nudge attitude re: the hard-line stances about sexual morality, as this stance is communicated to parishioners by “ordinary” parish priests.

To me, that wink-nudge attitude is just not enough. This parish-level muting of the hard-line stance doesn’t really do enough to take away the pain of the intrinsically disordered designation – not for thinking, struggling Catholics who want to live lives of integrity and self-respect, and who want to see the same integrity in their pastoral leaders.

I have come to the conclusion that the sexual teachings of the church are themselves simply awry. Not just the teaching about homosexuality. The whole ball of wax, insofar as it is based on an animalistic understanding of natural law. The teaching on artificial contraception is just wrong. It does not respect the experience of millions and millions of good Catholics for whom sex is about more than animal procreation.

What needs to be noted re: the gay issue, in particular, is a kind of Catholic exceptionalism. Though the vast majority of Catholics in the developed nations of the world long ago chose to ignore the teaching on artificial contraception (as well as re: premarital sex for heterosexual couples), there’s currently a fixation on the gay issue that goes beyond the theological foundation on which all Catholic sexual morality is based.

Since the same theological principles outlaw both artificial contraception and gay sexual behavior – and for precisely the same reasons – I have to conclude that the resistance to gay people (and the relative silence about the millions of married Catholics practicing contraception) has more to do with culture than it has to do with theology. In other words, the resistance to gay people and gay rights is more political/cultural than religious.

To this extent, you’re right to note that political studies have been done to demonstrate that the gay issue will play well among religious conservatives, both Catholic and Protestant, and will result in votes for those playing this card. I don’t think one’s entertaining a conspiracy theory to note this. The use of the gay card has been as strategic and as cynical as was the use of the Willie Horton race card several decades ago. Both cards were played for the same reason: to galvanize the moral majority base.

(By the way, the utility of homophobia as a political issue is waning, and a new scare tactic will have to be found. If fear of terrorism no longer works, I predict the next card will be fear of brown people flooding across our borders.)

Back to the church as home: in a political and cultural context in which the lives of gay folks are being made difficult – sometimes, dangerously so – by political games, shouldn’t church be precisely the place gay people can go to find shelter? Shouldn’t young gay people struggling to know themselves know that if they can go anywhere for understanding, acceptance, love, affirmation, church is that place?

In maintaining that rhetoric of intrinsic disorder, and in tacitly driving gay people from the table, the church is betraying its fundamental calling. If this betrayal is what evangelical Catholicism is all about, then I must dissent from the project of evangelical Catholicism. The meaning of core magisterial teachings is encapsulated not just in the words by which those teachings are proclaimed. That meaning resides, too, in how those teachings affect the real lives of real people. It also resides in how these teachings are lived by pastoral officials.

The church cannot proclaim in words a welcome and redemptive love that it does not live in practice. The church is not being authentically evangelical when it proclaims a message of love and welcome, but behaves in the opposite fashion.

Perhaps two brief stories will make this point concrete. Not very long after I was pushed out of the closet by a Catholic institution that made it impossible for me to remain silent any longer about myself and my longstanding relationship, a friend of mine, a classmate in theology school, told me, “Well, now you’ll have to find communion in the gay community.”

I was shocked by this statement. I remain shocked by it. The religious sister who said those words to me did not intend to be callous or to hurt me. Of that, I am sure. She was simply mouthing an attitude that has become common on the part of the church: be openly gay and self-accepting, and leave the church. You can’t put the two together. Not in our church….

I find that message troubling in the extreme. Why should I have to find communion – home, family, the shared table – somewhere besides my church? In insisting on this, doesn’t the church betray its most fundamental principles? Doesn’t it betray the very meaning of the word “church” and of its central sacramental focus?

Second story: this pertains to the aftermath of the 1986 document, about which I have posted previously. As I have noted, the document itself calls for the expulsion of organizations promoting a “gay agenda” from Catholic premises. The aftermath of the 1986 letter was that, all around the nation, chapters of Dignity were shut out of Catholic premises.

In my hometown and home diocese, Dignity was expelled from all Catholic parishes following the 1986 document. A group of religious sisters in the diocese, however, chose to offer their hospital facilities – which technically don’t constitute a religious facility – for the meetings to continue.

This was brave and evangelical on their part. I commend them for it. Unfortunately, the message the 1986 document, coupled with expulsion from parishes, gave the Dignity members in the diocese was one of extreme unwelcome.

The entire Dignity group in the diocese became Episcopalian, en masse. The Episcopal bishop of the state was genuinely welcoming of gay people, even to the extent of permitting gay unions to be celebrated in Episcopal churches in this bible-belt state.

The church has been bleeding for some time now, due to its collaboration with ugly political games played with the lives of gay human beings. It has made the wrong choice in an important human rights battle of our time, and will be judged accordingly by future generations. It is losing talented, loving individuals who simply slip away, due to the unwelcoming atmosphere.

I myself do not encourage younger Catholics to subject themselves to this kind of treatment. If nothing else, participating in an institution that compounds an already painful ambivalence is psychologically harmful. To overcome ambivalence, one has to identify and avoid like the plague any person or organization that plays games with that neuralgic area inside from which the ambivalence is proceeding. Church can be toxic, when it wounds the psyche and one’s self-worth.

I’ve gone on and on – and I apologize to the whole thread for doing so – but these aren’t points easy to discuss in miniature. And your good post demands a real response, not just a few words from me.

I would add that it’s rather difficult to discuss the aftermath of the 1986 pastoral document for another reason: so much that needs to be said has been considered “para-journalism” by bona fide media outlets. There are many games going on inside the church and its hierarchy re: homosexuality, which sorely need to be brought into the open and discussed freely.

To get at those games, though, we have to get beyond media blockages that regard this discussion as distasteful, as intruding into the personal lives of the clergy and hierarchy.

I recently read a very interesting discussion of how the Internet is changing the notion of media objectivity, vis-à-vis the Larry Craig case. This Internet article pointed out that blogs and Internet discussion groups have forced the media to unblock its discussion of these “non-objective” issues – issues such as whether a man publicly opposing laws to protect gays against discrimination is cruising for gay sex in bathrooms.

A frank discussion of this sort needs to take place within the church, and about its clerical, hierarchical, and theological communities. I don’t see such a discussion taking place anytime soon, but if the real, authentic – as opposed to official and glossed over – history of the period following 1986 is ever to be written, it will have to dig to that level.

As Colkoch posted on another thread, she has seen first-hand some of the damage done to good priests who were gay-affirming in the period after 1986. In some cases, these priests became scapegoats and lightning rods as the pedophilia crisis began to break. This history needs to be remembered and recorded. From a theological standpoint, I can attest to the fact that the period after 1986 became increasingly draconian for theologians, and those theologians who were openly gay have not stood a chance in Catholic institutions – though hardly anyone is talking about this.

William D. Lindsey

I've done a lot of thinking about the why of this pastoral letter at that particular time and I think Cardinal Ratzinger may have been making a general statement aimed at a particular issue. That issue was the percentage of gay seminarians and ordained priests. By the mid 80's the percentage of gay priests in the Church vastly exceeded the percentage of gays in the general population.

In that sense Bill, the Church had truly become a 'home' for gays. I am not including pedophiles or ephobophiles in this discussion, as those particular sexual inclinations are not in an of themselves a product of a homosexual orientation--a point the heirarchy would like to keep confused in the minds of the laity. I suspect this situation was viewed with alarm by the hierarchy, not just as a symptom of the rejection of the priesthood by straight men, but also as a direct assault on the natural law sexuality of the church. There's s question of authenticity when your sexual law for heterosexuals is being delivered by a sometimes 'obviously' gay male.

In this sense, I saw this particular letter as an open salvo not just on gays in general, but on gay priests in particular, and on the seminary system which ordained them. It seems to me it's typical of the western mind to attack the symptom while giving scant attention to the causes for the symptom. Oh, and not give much of a hoot about the systemic damage. Kind of like the way we treat some forms of cancer.

A little off topic here, but might the gay priest not be the better priest to minister to women, because his not being moved by a woman's physical attributes eliminates the tension--unmarried women in my former workplace used to enjoy going places with the gay employee because he looked like their boyfriend but was more like their girlfriend (same interests and perspectives). Just like the theology of the body presented a one-dimensional view of women as sex objects and reproducers, perhaps this assault on homosexuality also failed them.

Your estimate of the percentage of gay priest vs. the general population is I think correct. But it makes me wonder. Why did Larry Craig become a republican? I know the church and the GOP are both attractive closets. And I know that self-hatred can be turned outward in these venues. But what amazes me is how people can hurt members of their own family while they're hiding.

William, I think we agree that the sexual teachings of the church are themselves simply awry! I appreciate how difficult it must be to find oneself out of sync with such a huge part of our culture and to have that sense of exclusion seemingly confirmed by having it said that one's condition is objectively disordered and thus one's behavior in expressing one's condition is intrinsically disordered, but I am almost positive that this is the result of the Church's trying to avoid facing reality and not meant to exclude a group of people who can, at worst by the Church's standard, be considered handicapped.

Of course, the reason we are discussing this here is because of what spewed forth in response to the sex abuse accusation, and I agree with you that the Church needs to revisit in a comprehensive way a topic that, I think, the individuals who lead the Church find very uncomfortable or tiresome. It may in fact be the case that most of them simply do not have that much interest in the subject and find that their interest in God more than makes up for whatever the rest of the world thinks they are missing--it is the case that the parts of the brain that respond to sexual and spiritual matters are adjacent to one another.

However, I think we are at odds as to what we expect when we think of home. For me, growing up, home was where they tell you what's wrong with you, where they need your help, and where, when they hurt you, you have to reassure them that you don't hate them. In that way, the Church is currently exactly like home.

William~ Your concept of the Church as "home" hit me hard. I will try to be brief but this is difficult. Growing up in a traditional, tough, community, dominated by church and its divisions, about the only thing just about everyone agreed upon was that "homosexuality" under all of its perfidious terms and expressions was not just dispicable but "open-season".
My family was relatively "enlightened" but Catholic belief and teaching and the context of those teachings with all of its authoritarian, emotionally charged asides and wider cultural dimensions had its effect.
Like most who strive, more or less to be good/decent I have struggled with the issue, over the years. Knowing some gap people and associating with more enlightened young people who did not share my baggage helped me greatly. Two things however solidified my (still incomplete)process of emancipation.
First, as a parent of growing children I had to consider the "what if" my son or daughter declared that he/she were gay? Without hesitation, on both volitional and emotional levels I acknowledged with equanimity that my love and acceptance in mind, heart and home would be no less than the moment before.
Second, the process of parliamentary consultation, debate and legislative process on same-sex marriage here (in Canada)forced me to think some things through again and deal with the issue intellectually and socially, and not just personally. My thinking took me back to 80's era reading and study of Aristotle, Rollo May, Fromm, Aquinas, etc. My rehash was aided immensely by the outrageous repetition of traditional natural law arguments, "marriage and the family" principles and emotional and spiritual blackmail by the ecclesiastical rightists.
What clinched it though was the simple, inexorable conclusion that if my child were welcome in my "home" so would be his or her lover, so should he or she or they be welcomed equally by church. So should you and you and you.... The rest, as difficult as it may be, is just dealing with the consequentials.