Holding the Courage Apostolate Accountable

As I noted in a previous post, I’m very interested in seeing how the Roman Catholic Church’s Courage apostolate responds to the American Psychological Association’s recent repudiation of “reparative therapy.”


About Courage

As I’ve documented previously (most notably here), Courage seeks to help people move beyond “same-sex attraction” by encouraging a life of “interior chastity in union with Christ.” The apostolate labels itself a “pro-chastity ministry” and equates chastity with celibacy. Although Courage itself does not attempt to change adult homosexual orientation, its website has a link to the U.S.-based National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a sham organization of “therapists” that teaches that homosexuality is a disorder not only chosen, but changeable through effort and therapy.

The Courage website also links to numerous non-Catholic so-called “ex-gay” conservative religious groups — such as, Exodus International, Homosexuals Anonymous, Hope Ministry, International Healing Foundation, JONAH, People Can Change, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (P-FOX), and Straightway.


Important Questions

In light of the latest from the APA, why would Courage continue to endorse organizations that recommend and/or offer “therapies” aimed at changing people from gay to straight?

If the apostolate is going to link to resources offering psychological information and/or care, shouldn’t such resources be credible, i.e., in line with mainstream psychological thinking and practice?

Advocating celibacy for gay people, which Courage maintains is its main aim, is one thing. And for some gay people, such a response to their sexuality may indeed be appropriate* (although I question if celibacy is a serious option for healthy individuals with normal levels of desires). Yet aligning with questionable organizations that advocate “reparative therapy” is something altogether different, and something the Church should not be doing. And since the call to celibacy certainly doesn’t require such an alignment, why is it encouraged and tolerated by the Courage apostolate?


What You Can Do

The Minnesota-based Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (of which I serve as executive coordinator) urges you to join it in contacting Courage so as to raise and discuss these important questions.

Let us make contact as Catholics concerned that our Church is being linked to disreputable psychological theories and practices.

And please consider requesting, politely yet firmly, that Courage:

1) Publicly refute the pseudo-science of reparative therapy advocated by NARTH and other “ex-gay” groups.

2) Remove from its website links to any and all organizations offering such therapy.

3) Commit to actively dissuading its members from pursuing such therapy.

4) Educate its leadership and members on what the mainstream psychological establishment says about homosexuality and the impact of homo-negativity on psychological health,** and be open to allowing this reputable psychological knowledge to inform its theology of human sexuality.

Courage’s central office is located in New York City. Fr. Paul Check serves as director of the apostolate in the U.S.

Courage
c/o Church of St John The Baptist
210 West 31st Street
New York NY 10001

Email: NYCourage@aol.com
Phone: (212) 268-1010
Fax: (212) 268-7150

Local chapters of Courage exist in various dioceses. Here in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, Courage goes by the name of Faith in Action. The Office of Marriage and Family Life, which administrates the Faith in Action program, can be contacted at 651-291-4438.

After making contact with Courage, please consider sharing in the comments section of this post how your conversation went.


Update: I just got off the phone with Fr. Jim Lloyd, a clinical psychologist who for the last ten years has facilitated a Courage group in New York City. Fr. Lloyd also serves on the Courage Board of Advisors. We had a very friendly chat about the issues and questions I raise in this post.

Fr Lloyd, a member of the APA and a self-professed Freudian, does not believe that Courage will be adversely affected by the APA’s repudiation of “reparative therapy.” At one point he compared this repudiation to a mosquito bite. When I asked him if the apostolate will be removing from its website links to organizations that recommend and/or offer reparative therapy, he said that these organizations offer more than this particular type of therapy. There’s a lot of “picking and choosing” that goes on when it comes to psychology, he said. (Hmm . . . sounds like “cafeteria Catholicism”! Something of which I’m sure Fr. Lloyd wouldn’t approve.)

He reiterated Courage’s goal of helping people with “same-sex attractions” live chaste lives in accordance with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality, though concluded our conversation by noting: “Whatever position you take, as long as you believe in it.”

______________________________

* On the issue of celibacy as therapy Wayne Besen writes: “It is true that in extreme cases, a lifetime of celibacy may lead to a happier existence than coming out of the closet. These rare people, unfortunately, are often so damaged by fundamentalism that they are unable to express their sexuality in healthy ways. Indeed, they are stricken by excessive guilt if they enjoy any form of pleasure that is not sanctioned by their church. In such instances of irreparable damage to victims of faith-based oppression, celibacy may work (sort of) as a last ditch effort to help these people find a small measure of peace.”

** In September 2008 researchers at the University of Minnesota published a study showing that the degree of internalized homo-negativity (negative attitude towards homosexuality) among homosexual men is what predicts poor mental and sexual health – not the degree of homosexuality. The study appeared in the September issue of the Journal of Homosexuality.

According to Simon Rosser, Ph.D., a researcher in the School of Public Health and principal investigator of the study, the results of the study helps inform the debate of whether or not being homosexual is healthy. “This study is a missing link in our understanding of the relationship between sexuality and health,” he said. “It provides new evidence that negative attitudes towards homosexuality, not homosexuality itself, are associated with both poorer mental and sexual health outcomes seen in sexual minorities. Conversely, positive attitudes towards homosexuality are associated with better mental and sexual health.”

For more than 150 years, scholars and educators have debated whether homosexuality is an objective disorder or whether societal prejudice, not homosexuality, leads to the elevated rates of depression, drug use, and HIV/STD epidemics seen in studies of gay men. Rosser called this study groundbreaking because it directly tested both theories and found evidence that only one was accurate.

“Given the debates in many religious denominations about homosexuality, and in society about homosexuals and civil rights, it’s also timely,” Rosser said. “In particular, the old advice to gay men to fight, deny, or minimize their homosexuality likely only increases depression, greater isolation, and poorer sexual health. In short, viewing homosexuality as a disorder is not only inaccurate, it may be harmful as well.”


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• It’s Official: APA Opposes “Reparative Therapy”
• “Curing” Homosexuality
• Debunking NARTH (Part I)
• Debunking NARTH (Part II)
• What Scientists in the UK Are Saying About Homosexuality
• The Real Meaning of Courage
• The Many Forms of Courage (Part I)
• The Many Forms of Courage (Part II)
• The Many Forms of Courage (Part III)
• Beyond Courage

Recommended Off-site Links:
The APA Says “No Evidence” in Support of Ex-Gay Therapy - Wayne Besen (TruthWinsOut.org, August 5, 2009).
APA Passes Resolution Against Ex-Gay Therapy - Jim Burroway (Box Turtle Bulletin, August 5, 2009).
Exodus International Responds to the APA Resolution on Change Therapy - Jim Burroway (Box Turtle Bulletin, August 6, 2009).
NARTH Responds to the APA Resolution on Change Therapy - Jim Burroway (Box Turtle Bulletin, August 7, 2009).
Celibacy as a Therapy Goal - Wayne Besen (TruthWinsOut.org, August 6, 2009).

The Continuum Just Shrank

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Internationally renowned sexologist Simon Rosser
contends that the real story of the American Psychological
Association’s recent repudiation of “reparative therapy”
is that there is now a new continuum of acceptable care
for gay people seeking psychological help

In the wake of last Wednesday’s announcement from the American Psychological Association that mental health professionals should not tell gay clients they can become straight through therapy or other treatments, members of the Twin Cities-based Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) have been in dialogue with a number of local psychological and sexual health care professionals so as to educate ourselves further on this important development.

One of the professionals we’ve been conferring with is B. R. Simon Rosser, Ph.D, MPH, LP, Professor and Director of HIV/STI Intervention and Prevention Studies (HIPS) program of the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Following, with his permission, is the text of an e-mail Dr. Rosser wrote to us about the APA’s recent repudiation of reparative therapy.

___________________________________

In all, I read this as minor good news, not a major break-through policy wise. The APA has been doing a political dance since 1973 when it affirmed that homosexuality is not pathological, but left open the whole range of therapies for those who seek counseling troubled by homosexual impulses. Particularly troubling were therapies to cure something the APA had declared was not inherently problematic, since logically some would ask, “why fix something if it’s not broke.”

At the two extremes were psychologists who swore that helping men and women accept their sexual orientation (gay-affirming therapies) was helpful while at the other end of the continuum, there were ex-gay therapists swearing they could help the client change and overcome their attractions. Now, it appears that continuum just shrank, and that ex-gay is officially de-bunked. That’s the real story here.

The new continuum of acceptable care ranges from gay-affirming therapy to strategies helping persons to be celibate. It may seem a small change but requiring all therapists to counsel that there is nothing wrong with sexual orientation, that gay people can lead happy lives, and that there is no evidence therapy can change orientation, cuts out, I am sure you would agree, a lot of crappy bad psychology that has done a disservice.

Dr. Warren Throckmorton was one of the leading researchers in ex-gay therapies. I have met him (and debated him) and found him to be a very nice, engaging, intelligent colleague passionate about this area, even if we are at opposite ends of the continuum on this issue. He has focused his career on proving ex-gay therapy works. The fact that he is in print now giving up ex-gay therapy is also very significant.

The APA decision appears a political compromise between two groups: one that is tired of psychologists “enabling” dysphoric gay persons’ sexual orientation distress. This group would advocate that the results of gay affirmative therapy are so clear that all persons with sexual orientation dysphoria should be encouraged to come out, improve their mental health and get on with the business of living. Clinicians who promote anything else are ultimately dis-serving the client (i.e., providing crappy therapy). This argument has much merit and empirical support.

On the other side are psychologists and clinicians who may argue that it is more effective and ethical to adopt a patient-centered approach, allow the patient to set their own goals (from embracing their sexual orientation to trying to sublimate it), and to help the person achieve these goals, provided they are feasible, realistic and achievable. I would have to say this argument also has significant merit, and because it keeps the diverse family of psychologists – who run the full range from highly conservative to highly liberal – together, appears to be the one adopted by the APA.

Take the case of a Catholic priest who comes to therapy depressed, lonely and frustrated. The presenting problem is “gay attractions.” The priest states he is content with his vocation, wants to remain a priest, but finds himself so preoccupied with his attractions that he is stressed and finding it hard to function. APA’s decision allows psychologists to explore the full range of therapeutic goals from affirming celibacy to embracing some form of gay life. And specifically, the policy clarifies that no psychologist has to tell the priest he must explore his sexual attractions.

Clearly, this is not the end of this. Indeed, it may open a new focus on sexual therapy: whether encouraging/affirming celibacy is an effective intervention. It would be interesting to see if this body of work mirrors the findings on ex-gay therapy (e.g., increased depression and suicidality) or whether it can work. Given that there are a number of groups for whom society has interest in refraining from sex with their preferred partners (e.g, pedophiles, ephebophiles, rapists, incestors) and others who choose for personal or religious reasons to become celibate, that would be a fascinating area to study.


Recommended Off-site Links:
Celibacy as a Therapy Goal - Wayne Besen (TruthWinsOut.org, August 6, 2009).
Fall Out from APA Repudiation of Reparative Therapy - Michael B. Hamer (Michael-in-Norfolk, August 8, 2009).

For more of Dr. Simon Rosser at The Wild Reed, see:
It’s a Great Time to Be Catholic . . . and Hopefully Part of the Change That Must Come: A Conversation with Simon Rosser

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
It’s Official: APA Opposes “Reparative Therapy”
“Curing” Homosexuality
Debunking NARTH (Part I)
Debunking NARTH (Part II)
What Scientists in the UK are Saying About Homosexuality

The New Abolitionists

The following by John Dear, S.J. (pictured at right) was shared this morning as part of the second reading at the Spirit of St. Stephen’s Catholic Community.

__________________________

I confess it: I envision a world where the United States is not killing anyone, threatening anyone, or preparing to destroy the planet. I want to live in a world without war, poverty, and nuclear weapons. Yes, I know, such a world means the demise of the state. No more empire, no more Pentagon, no more nuclear weapons, no more military bases around the world, no more torture, no more F15s and F16s, no more Trident subs, no more bombs and guns and bullets. In my criminal vision, everyone will become nonviolent. We will be a nation of Martin Luther Kings, Coretta Scott Kings, Dorothy Days, and Thomas Mertons. We will love everyone, welcome everyone, care for everyone, and serve everyone, even spend our resources to eliminate hunger, end disease, and promote peace and justice around the entire planet. Yes, I admire those un-American abolitionists who worked for the end of slavery. I consider myself a new abolitionist, working for the end of war, poverty, and nuclear weapons.


Above: Participants in the weekly vigil outside the corporate headquarters of Alliant Techsystems in Eden Prairie, MN - Wednesday, August 5, 2009. Alliant Techsystems is the largest Minnesota-based weapons manufacturer and the primary supplier of landmines, cluster bombs, nuclear missile rocket motors, and depleted uranium munitions to the U.S. Department of Defense. In addition, the corporation has sales representatives in over 60 countries. For more information about this weekly vigil, click here.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Christianity and Nagasaki
A Dangerous State of Mind
The Challenge of Peace
All on a Beautiful Morning
Remembering Wilfred Owen
The Christmas Truce of 1914
John Pilger on Resisting Empire
Praying for George W. Bush
In Search of a “Global Ethic”

Christianity and Nagasaki

Earlier today my friend Lydia e-mailed me the following reflection by Dr. Gary Kohls.

She also informed me of something I did not know: the city in which I live, St. Paul, is a sister city of Nagasaki.

________________

Christianity and Nagasaki:
The 9th of August

by Dr. Gary Kohls

On the 9th of August, 1945, an all-Christian B-29 bomber crew, took off from Tinian Island in the South Pacific, with the blessings of its Catholic and Protestant chaplains. In the plane’s hold was the second of the only two nuclear bombs to ever be used against human targets in wartime. The primary target, Kokura, Japan, was clouded over, so the plane, named Bock’s Car, headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki.

St. Mary’s Cathedral [officially the Immaculate Conception Cathedral and also known as the Urakami Cathedral because of it being] located in the Urakami district of Nagasaki, was a massive structure and a landmark easily visible from 31,000 feet above, and one of the landmarks on which the Bock’s Car’s bombardier had been briefed on for weeks before the mission. The cathedral was briefly seen through the thin clouds and he ordered the drop.

The Urakami Cathedral was the oldest and largest Christian church in the Orient, and Nagasaki was the oldest and most influential Christian community in Japan, having been founded by the Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, in 1549. The Nagasaki Christian community is legendary in the history of Oriental Christianity because of its two centuries of catacomb-like existence during the horrible persecutions by the Imperial Japanese government – including mass crucifixions of faithful Christians who refused to give up the faith. Despite the persecutions and the formal outlawing of the religion (it was a capital crime to be a Christian – as it was for the original nonviolent form of Christianity – for over two centuries), Nagasaki Christianity survived and ultimately flourished – until 11:02 am, August 9, 1945.

What Imperial Japan could not do over two centuries of brutal persecution, fellow American Christians did in 9 seconds. The Cathedral was totally destroyed by the plutonium bomb and thousands of Nagasaki Christians were instantly killed, vaporized or incinerated.

Radiation-induced disease and deformities among the “surviving” victims and their progeny continues to this day as a gruesome testament to the horrors of nuclear war. And yet the spirit of Nagasaki Christianity lives on.

On the 9th of August, 1943, Franz Jaegerstaetter, a devout Austrian Christian pacifist, was beheaded by German Christians for refusing to join Hitler’s army. Because of his gospel-based conscientious objection to war and killing, he had been abandoned by his spiritual leaders, as well as his family and friends, all of whom had tried to convince him to do his patriotic duty and kill for “Volk, Fuhrer und Vaterland.” They all tried to convince him that his commitment to gospel nonviolence was futile – and fatal. Instead, being obedient to his God rather than to men, he did not relent and was murdered at Brandenburg Prison, at the hands of obedient baptized Christian soldiers, whose belt buckles read “Gott Mit Uns” (God With Us). And yet Jaegerstaetter’s spirit lives on.


On the 9th of August, 1942, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a Jewish Catholic Carmelite nun, was murdered by fellow German Christians at Auschwitz. “Gott Mit Uns” was also stamped on their belt buckles. Most of German Christianity had, by its collaboration and/or by its silence, endorsed the Nazi’s ruthless forms of nationalism, militarism, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and its “legal” right to kill. Teresa has since been sainted in the Roman Catholic Church, and her spirit lives on.


On the 9th of August, 1945, the United States Army Air Force’s 509th Composite Group, whose major responsibilities were to deliver the two nuclear weapons of mass destruction, had two Christian chaplains. The Catholic chaplain, Father George Zabelka, spoke of societal attitudes at the time: “The whole structure of secular, religious and military society told me clearly that it was all right to ‘let the Japs have it.’ God was on our side.” Father Zabelka knew what his bomber crews were doing to innocent civilians and their defenseless cities with conventional incendiary bombs in the spring and summer of 1945, and yet “I said nothing.” He regretted that silence for the rest of his life.

Father Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, the foremost apostle of Christian nonviolence in America today, and the person most responsible for Zabelka’s conversion away from biblical violence to gospel nonviolence, has dedicated his life and ministry to raising the consciousness of the church about the truths of Jesus’ nonviolent teachings. McCarthy says:

Today, as for most of the last 1700 years, most Christians continue to justify as consistent with the spirit of Christ those energies, understandings, and emotions which lead inevitably to August 9. Today most Christians still do not unequivocally teach what Jesus unequivocally taught on the subject of violence. Today most Christians still refuse to proclaim that violence is not the Christian way, that violence is not the Holy way, that violence is not the way of Jesus.

Every July 1st, to call the Christian community to repent and to return to the truth that violence is not the way of Christ, Father McCarthy leads a fast from solid foods for 40 days, breaking it on August 9th.

It is suggested that sincere Christian peacemakers remember all the victims of past August 9ths in their prayers on the upcoming anniversary commemorations on this year’s August 9th. It is hoped that conscientious Christians consider a day-long fast in remembrance of the hundreds of millions of war dead, the hundreds of millions of physically, psychologically and spiritually traumatized survivors of war violence, and the billions of those who may be spiritually dead, both soldier-perpetrators, their civilian or soldier-victims, the innocent and guilty bystanders and the second and third generations of those who continue to suffer from the starvation, poisoning, radiation exposure, homelessness, poverty, hopelessness and domestic abuse that follows all wars.

Gary G. Kohls, MD, Duluth, MN – for the Community of the Third Way, an affiliate of Every Church A Peace Church.




See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• A Dangerous State of Mind
• The Challenge of Peace
• All on a Beautiful Morning

All On a Beautiful Morning

The funeral of Harry Patch, the last British combat veteran of the First World War (specifically the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917), was held yesterday in Wells, England.

Notes the Associated Press:

Hundreds of people lined the main street to watch Patch’s coffin, shrouded in a Union flag, roll silently down the narrow road leading to the town cathedral. As the hearse passed, townspeople fell in behind, walking in silent tribute.

Patch, who died July 25 at age 111, only began talking about his experience of trench warfare in his last years. He had returned, wounded, from the Western Front and quietly lived out his life as a plumber. He outlived two wives, and both of his sons.

. . . Patch boasted that he hadn’t killed anyone in combat, but he did shoot at the legs of a German soldier who had charged with a bayonet.

“He called out something to me in German, I don’t suppose it was complimentary, but for him the war was over,” he said.

“I’ve often wondered whether he realized that I gave him his life. He was no more than 15 yards away when I shot him. I couldn’t miss, not with a Webley service revolver, not at that range.”

At least 8.5 million soldiers are reckoned to have died in the war.

“Too many died,” Patch had said. “War isn’t worth one life.”

All of which reminds me of the haunting anti-war folk song, “Two Brothers” – which the late, great Dusty Springfield performed September 5, 1967, on her BBC show. Today’s actually the twelfth anniversary of Woman of Repute, my website dedicated to Dusty. And since it's also Friday night, which is often "music night" here at The Wild Reed, it seems a perfect time to share the video of Dusty’s performance of this particular song.

So without further ado, here’s Dusty Springfield with “Two Brothers.”

Two brothers on their way
Two brothers on their way
Two brothers on their way
One wore blue
And one wore gray

One wore blue and one wore gray
As they marched along the way
A fife and drum began to play
All on a beautiful morning

One was gentle, one was kind
One was gentle, one was kind
One came home, one stayed behind
A cannonball don’t pay no mind

A cannonball don’t pay no mind
If you’re gentle or if you’re kind
It don’t think of the folks behind
All on a beautiful morning

Two girls waiting by the railroad track
Two girls waiting by the railroad track
For their darlings to come back
One wore blue, and one wore black

One wore blue, and one wore black
Waiting by the railroad track
For their darlings to come back
All on a beautiful morning

Recommended Off-site Link:
Private Harry Patch - Telegraph.co.uk, July 25, 2009.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Remembering Wilfred Owen
The Christmas Truce of 1914

For more of Dusty Springfield at The Wild Reed, see:
Remembering Dusty
Classic Dusty
Classic Dusty II
Classic Dusty III
Remembering a Great Soul Singer
The Sound of Two Decades Colliding
Time and the River
Soul Deep

Previous artists featured on “Music Night at the Wild Reed”:
Cass Elliot, The Church, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield, Wall of Voodoo, Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy, Pink Floyd, Kate Ceberano, Judith Durham, Wendy Matthews, Buffy Sainte-Marie, 1927, Mavis Staples, Maxwell, Joan Baez, Tee Set, Darren Hayes, Wet, Wet, Wet, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Cruel Sea, Shirley Bassey, Loretta Lynn & Jack White, Maria Callas, Foo Fighters, Jenny Morris, Kate Bush, Rufus Wainwright, and Dusty Springfield.

A Dangerous State of Mind

Following is a brief excerpt from an article by Daniel Ellsberg, written to mark the 64th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima – a bombing that killed 70,000 men, women, and children outright, up to 140,000 within the year, and an estimated 200,000 by 1950.

________________________

Most Americans ever since have seen the destruction of the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as necessary and effective — as constituting just means, in effect just terrorism, under the supposed circumstances — thus legitimating, in their eyes, the second and third largest single-day massacres in history. (The largest, also by the U.S. Army Air Corps, was the firebombing of Tokyo five months before on the night of March 9, which burned alive or suffocated 80,000 to 120,000 civilians. Most of the very few Americans who are aware of this event at all accept it, too, as appropriate in wartime.)

To regard those acts as definitely other than criminal and immoral — as most Americans do — is to believe that anything — anything — can be legitimate means: at worst, a necessary, lesser, evil. At least, if done by Americans, on the order of a president, during wartime. Indeed, we are the only country in the world that believes it won a war by bombing — specifically by bombing cities with weapons of mass destruction — and believes that it was fully rightful in doing so. It is a dangerous state of mind.

Even if the premises of these justifications had been realistic (after years of study I'm convinced, along with many scholars, that they were not; but I'm not addressing that here), the consequences of such beliefs for subsequent policymaking were bound to be fateful. They underlie the American government and public's ready acceptance ever since of basing our security on readiness to carry out threats of mass annihilation by nuclear weapons, and the belief by many officials and elites still today that abolition of these weapons is not only infeasible but undesirable.

To read Daniel Ellsberg’s article in its entirety, click here.


See also the previous Wild Reed post:
The Challenge of Peace

It's Official: APA Opposes "Reparative Therapy"

In an article in today’s New York Times entitled, “Psychologists Repudiate Gay-To-Straight Therapy,” the Associated Press reports that:

The American Psychological Association [APA] declared Wednesday that mental health professionals should not tell gay clients they can become straight through therapy or other treatments.

Instead, the APA urged therapists to consider multiple options – that could range from celibacy to switching churches – for helping clients whose sexual orientation and religious faith conflict.

In a resolution adopted on a 125-to-4 vote by the APA’s governing council, and in a comprehensive report based on two years of research, the 150,000-member association put itself firmly on record in opposition of so-called “reparative therapy” which seeks to change sexual orientation.

No solid evidence exists that such change is likely, says the report, and some research suggests that efforts to produce change could be harmful, inducing depression and suicidal tendencies. . . .

Hmm . . . who’s going to break this news to the Courage apostolate?

As I’ve documented previously (most notably here), although Courage itself does not attempt to change adult homosexual orientation, its website has a link to the largely discredited U.S.-based National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a sham organization of “therapists” that teaches that homosexuality is a disorder that is not only chosen, but can be changed through effort and therapy. The Courage website also links to numerous non-Catholic so-called “ex-gay” conservative religious groups — such as, Exodus International, Homosexuals Anonymous, Hope Ministry, International Healing Foundation, JONAH, People Can Change, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (P-FOX), and Straightway.

Given all of this, it’s not surprising (though certainly reprehensible) that Courage is yet to either refute the pseudo-science of reparative therapy that these “ex-gay” groups advocate or actively dissuade its members from pursuing such “therapy.” Here’s hoping that the latest from the APA changes all of that.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
“Curing” Homosexuality
Debunking NARTH (Part I)
Debunking NARTH (Part II)
What Scientists in the UK Are Saying About Homosexuality
The Real Meaning of Courage
The Many Forms of Courage (Part I)
The Many Forms of Courage (Part II)
The Many Forms of Courage (Part III)
Beyond Courage

Recommended Off-site Links:
The APA Says “No Evidence” in Support of Ex-Gay Therapy - Wayne Besen (TruthWinsOut.org, August 5, 2009).
APA Passes Resolution Against Ex-Gay Therapy - Jim Burroway (Box Turtle Bulletin, August 5, 2009).
Exodus International Responds to the APA Resolution on Change Therapy - Jim Burroway (Box Turtle Bulletin, August 6, 2009).
NARTH Responds to the APA Resolution on Change Therapy - Jim Burroway (Box Turtle Bulletin, August 7, 2009).
Celibacy as a Therapy Goal - Wayne Besen (TruthWinsOut.org, August 6, 2009).

Prophets of a Future Not Our Own

The following reflection was shared as the opening prayer at a meeting of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform that I attended earlier this evening. This reflection is often attributed to Archbishop Óscar Romero, but it was actually written by Bishop Ken Untener (pictured at right) of Saginaw when he was a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit under Cardinal John Dearden.

As someone dedicated to church reform (and thus the ongoing manifestation of the kingdom of God in our world), I’m aware that I can, at times, be quite discouraged by the seemingly intractability of reactionary forces within the church. I therefore find Untener’s words to be very wise, hopeful and inspiring. So much so that I thought I’d reprint them here at The Wild Reed.

________________________________________

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.

The kingdom of God is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our imagination.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
A step along the way,
An opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between
The master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

– Ken Untener

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
A Brave Hope
Staying On Board
To Whom the Future of the Catholic Church Belongs
The Emerging Church
Of Mustard Seeds and Walled Gardens
Dispatches from the Periphery
Something We Dare Call Hope

Trading with Frozen Truths

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. . . or why the contemporary Church is anti-intellectual

I don’t know who “Brian” is, but I definitely appreciate his thoughtful comment in response to William Lindsey’s July 24 post on his blog Bilgrimage concerning Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”).

Brian’s eloquent reflection reminds me of what Jesuit Philip Endean once wrote about the great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner's understanding of the authentically Catholic perspective that recognizes that “dogmas of tradition exist not as truths complete in themselves, but rather as resources for helping us discover the ever greater glory . . . of the God whose gift of self pervades all possible experience.”

Of course, as Endean points out, any theology informed by such an understanding of God’s active presence in human life will be open to “a permanent process of growth, interchange, and transformation.” It will be far from “frozen” (to use a metaphor of Brian’s) but rather life-giving and richly diverse in its flourishing.

Anyway, following is Brian’s comment from the Bilgrimage blogsite.

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People who have hitched their wagon to “the Truth” are, unwittingly, weakening the Church’s message and mission. They compare some dogma or papal utterance to, say, the immutability of 2 + 2 = 4.

IMHO, the “Truth” they talk about is, in fact, more of a reflection of human thought and language than of God and his love. The mind must freeze phenomena into concepts in order to understand the world, although the world keeps flowing by - flowing towards God, if you will. They barter and trade with frozen Truths with which they build a house with no foundation, i.e. Love.

I don’t want to belittle the importance of being able to construct and use a theological language. I just want to point out that many people mistake that language and its formulations for their religion, their object of worship.

When I was still in a conservative mindset, I, looking back now, put more emphasis on (what I thought were) accurate statements of data and less emphasis on loving action. Certainly, I was very much concerned with my own actions regarding myself (my thoughts, words, my body) but outward loving action to others, to the poor, always seemed like something you can do after you get all that data straight and adhere yourself to it firmly. To do otherwise would seem misguided - like the way I abruptly judged agnostics who did good works.

I feel that’s why the Pope, and people like the late Fr. Neuhaus, are/were always repeating the ‘complimentary nature of faith and reason.’ Fr. Neuhaus, especially, always sounded frustrated with how anyone could think otherwise. “So the earth was discovered to go around the Sun, no big deal. So human beings and other life forms evolve over time, no big deal, our truths remains unaffected,” etc., etc. Of course they have to take this attitude towards scientific revolutions as a defense mechanism – otherwise, such revolutions, taken seriously, might threaten their adamantine Truths - especially the ones that deal with Nature itself, i.e. statements of ‘Natural Law.’

When the Church finally allowed a historical-critical look at the Scriptures, we were blessed with an age of great theologians. What was never allowed was this: if we can review the Scriptures scientifically and find a better understanding of them, should we not also take a new look at those dogmas/practices which have rested upon the old/inferior understanding of Scripture?

That’s why the contemporary Church is anti-intellectual, because it must be in order to maintain the current power model. It can only maintain its feudal caste system by being a giant mountain of inconsistency. More and more, it will become obsessed with what will look increasingly like an alternate natural science. In short: the recent emphasis on Truth is just another arrow from the quiver of defending power. So is the recent push for ‘remembering our Catholic identity,’ which gives rise to homilies about how we’re ‘not like Protestants.’


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Comprehending the Fullness of Truth
• Stop in the Name of Discriminatory Ideology
• When “Guidelines” Lack Guidance
• Beyond Papalism
• “Uncle Vince” is At It Again
• A Church That Can and Cannot Change
• Uta Ranke-Heinemann on the Future of the Church
• What It Means to Be Catholic
• Rosemary Haughton and the “True Catholic Enterprise”
• The Catholic Challenge
• The Treasure and the Dross

Out and About - July 2009

Above: With friends at a July 1 talk by South African-born Roman Catholic Bishop Patricia Fresen.

Among other things, Bishop Fresen (pictured at right) spoke about the current state of the institutional Roman Catholic Church. “The male-only, celibate priesthood is on the way out,” she said, adding that we are witnessing in our time the end of clericalism, i.e., the “dividing of people in the church into the ‘nobility,’ who are the clergy, and the ‘serfs,’ who are the laity. That gap is closing.”

Bishop Fresen also believes that the “Roman imperialism, whereby the Vatican imposes Roman culture on all of us,” is similarly coming to an end. “Despite Vatican II’s emphasis on collegiality,” said Bishop Fresen, "the pope still rules the Church with the Curia, not with the college of bishops. But I believe that the Church’s feudal, imperialistic structures will go, and there will be - let me dare say it - a democratic Church.”

For more of Bishop Fresen, see the previous Wild Reed post:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis.

Recommended Off-site Link:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests



Above: On July 7 my friends (from left) John, Brian, Rick, and Bob joined me for a meal and movie. We watched the camp classic, Valley of the Dolls. And, yes, it really is “so bad it’s fabulous”!

A commentator on one of the documentaries that’s included as an extra on the DVD, notes that many gay men are drawn to either the character of the noble (a silently suffering) Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins) or the more over-the-top and bitchy characters of Neely O’Hara (Patty Duke) and/or Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward).

I’m actually drawn to a secondary character: the beautiful but hard-assed Miriam (played by Lee Grant, pictured at right). Hmm . . . I wonder what that says about me!

Actually, I think it’s Miriam’s determined purposefulness that I find appealing - especially in light of all the superficiality and selfish ambitions of most of the other characters. Plus, it’s Lee Grant! - a phenomenal actress who epitomizes for me a certain late ’60s/early ’70s cool chic. I also appreciate (and get a chuckle out of) what Michael Musto of the Village Voice says about Grant’s presence in Valley of the Dolls:

Lee Grant seems to have been beamed into this movie from a Greek tragedy or something. She’s always on the phone having these mysterious calls. . . . She’s always brooding [and] making these caustic, weird, bizarre comments like, “At night all cats are gray,” or “I’m heating up the lasagna.”

To see Valley of the Dolls stars Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, and Lee Grant interviewed on The View in November 2007, click here.



Above: Drinking a toast with my friends (just before heading off to heat up the lasagna!)



Above: The July 15 gathering of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform’s Synod 2010 work/study groups.

As I note in an article for the Progressive Catholic Voice, in serving as both a community-building event and an opportunity for the various work/study groups to report on their progress, the July 15 gathering marked an important stage in the ongoing preparation within the local church of St. Paul/Minneapolis for the September 18, 2010 Synod of the Baptized, “Claiming Our Place at the Table.”



Above and below: Down by the Mississippi River with my friends Kathleen & Joey, and John & Kathy and their three sons Noah, Cole, and Aaron.

For more images, see the previous Wild Reed post, A Delightful Summer’s Afternoon and a Moving Tale.




Above and at left: Visiting with my friend Susan and her niece Emma - July 25, 2009.

I’ve known Susan since 1994 - the year I arrived in the U.S. She’s teaching out east but is currently home in Minnesota for the summer break.



Above: A fish fry at the home of my friends Bob and John.

Bob, who is also pictured in photograph 3, is a priest with the Old Catholic Church. I’ve known him and his partner John (pictured at right with our mutual friend Emily) for almost two years.

For an interview with Bob about Old Catholicism, click here.

For an article that Bob wrote for The Wild Reed, click here.

For a review of Bob's recently released book on Old Catholicism, click here.



Above: My friend Jo holds a banner at the weekly vigil outside the corporate headquarters of Alliant Techsystems in Eden Prairie - Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

Alliant Techsystems is the largest Minnesota-based weapons manufacturer and the primary supplier of landmines, cluster bombs, nuclear missile rocket motors, and depleted uranium munitions to the U.S. Department of Defense. In addition, the corporation has sales representatives in over 60 countries.

For more information about this weekly vigil, click here.



Above and below: Kathy Kelly speaks at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis - July 30, 2009.

Kathy, a Catholic Worker, pacifist, and longtime justice and peace activist, currently co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare.

As a co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, she helped form 70 delegations that between 1996 and 2003 openly defied UN/US economic sanctions by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq. Kathy and her companions lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing by the US military.

More recently, she has visited Gaza and Pakistan, writing eyewitness accounts of war’s impact on civilians. At St. Joan of Arc on July 30, Kathy shared her experiences from her June visit to Pakistan.

“We’re hearing of imminent [Pakistani] army operations in South Waziristan that have already forced about 45,000 people to flee the region, joining about two million men, women, and children displaced by fighting in the Swat Valley and other areas,” notes Kathy. “People from Waziristan who flee from their villages, trying to save their lives, trying not to be seen by the omnipresent [U.S.] drones, will likely join the unseen, the displaced people whose lives and hopes escape international notice as they die slowly.

“President Obama has taken us into an expansion of Bush’s war on terror, presumably guided by the rationale that his administration is responsible to root out Al Qaeda terrorists. But the methods used by U.S. and Pakistani military forces — expelling millions of people from their homes, failing to provide food and shelter for those who are displaced, and using overwhelmingly superior weapon technology to attack innocent civilians — these methods will continue creating terrorist resisters, not defeating them.”

For more of Kathy Kelly, see the previous Wild Reed posts:
Walking for Peace, Witnessing Against War
Out and About - August 2008
Saying “No” to Torture and the Republican Agenda

Above: With my friends Joe Palen and Polly Mann - St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, July 30, 2009.

Polly is a co-founder of Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), one of the most influential justice and peace organizations in the Midwest.



Above: One of the many beautiful summer blooms in my garden.

Right: The cute little fella who’s taken up summer residence in my garden.

For more images, see the previous Wild Reed posts:
Summer Blooms
In the Garden of Spirituality - Jesse Lava
In the Garden of Spirituality - Geoffrey Robinson