An interesting and historic court case is currently underway in Adelaide, Australia – one that is seeing the HIV/AIDS establishment defend its foundational paradigm: that Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the HIV retrovirus.
Yesterday (Monday, January 12, in Australia), Robert Gallo, the American scientist who purportedly established the link between HIV and AIDS in 1984, appeared for the prosecution in the application for appeal by Andre Chad Parenzee, a 36-year-old HIV-positive man convicted of exposing three women to the virus.
Defense witnesses in the case include medical physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and physician Val Turner. Both belong to a HIV dissident study organization called the Perth Group, and both testified that the science behind HIV is fundamentally flawed, that the virus has never been isolated, that HIV tests are indirect and unreliable, and that HIV is not sexually transmitted or the cause of AIDS.
According to Papadopulos-Eleopulos, who gave testimony in the trial last October, HIV has never been isolated, and was only identified in 1983 by a process called “reverse transcription,” which is said to create retroviruses. She noted that the reverse transcription observed by Dr Montagnier in 1983, the so-called “discovery of HIV,” was not specific to HIV.
According to The Australian newspaper, “Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos claimed AIDS was caused by [among other things] prolonged exposure to semen, which oxidised cells, degrading them, and led to numerous other serious illnesses - the AIDS-related illnesses - which end in death. . . . she [also] cited numerous scientific papers that concluded that vaginal sex did not transmit HIV.” (1)
During his testimony yesterday countering the claims of both Papadoplos-Eleopulos and Turner, Gallo said that the pair was using the case as “a ploy” to advance their theories – theories which he described as “beyond stupid,” “sad,” “deeply nonsensical,” and “extremely wrong.” (2)
I’m not so sure.
Now, before you dismiss me as an “AIDS denialist,” please hear me out.
Neither I nor, from what I’ve read, the scientists of the Perth Group (or for that matter any of the other HIV-dissenting individuals and groups I’ve come across) are saying that conditions and diseases don’t exist that undermine and destroy the body’s immune system. Yet many have grave doubts and serious questions about the orthodox HIV/AIDS establishment view that such a range of conditions and diseases can be the result of a single retrovirus.
Indeed, most of the so-called “dissidents” would concur with Dr. Gordon Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasglow, who in 1992 proposed that “AIDS . . . is multi-factorial, brought on by several simultaneous strains on the immune system – drugs, pharmaceutical and recreational, sexually transmitted diseases, multiple viral infections.” (3)
Yet it seems that anyone who raises doubts, questions, or alternatives to the HIV=AIDS paradigm is immediately dismissed and even ridiculed. Worse, they can be compared to “Holocaust deniers” by the HIV/AIDS establishment. This is a truly offensive and ridiculous charge. For a start, none of the so-called “dissident” scientists questioning HIV are, as I’ve noted, denying AIDS. What they’re simply doing is questioning the role (if any) HIV plays in AIDS.
Mathematician Mark Craddock has this to say about the HIV/AIDS establishment and its automatic and swift condemnation of any dissenting scientific view: “Science is about making observations and trying to fit them into a theoretical framework. Having the theoretical framework allows us to make predictions about phenomena that we can test. HIV ‘scientists’ long ago set off on a different path . . . People who ask simple, straightforward questions are labeled as loonies who are dangerous to public health.” (4)
In this post I’d like to address three specific aspects of this highly controversial issue: HIV testing, the work of Dr. Gallo, and AIDS in Africa. I’ll do so by asking five of those “simple, straightforward questions” that, as Craddock notes, gets many labeled as “loonies” by the HIV/AIDS establishment.
Yet I invite you to judge for yourself the “looniness” of my questions, and of the answers I’ve gained to them from some of those involved in the so-called “HIV-dissident” movement.
Question 1: Are those who question the role of HIV in AIDS dangerous to public health?
In 2000 David Rasnick, one of the most outspoken critics of the HIV/AIDS establishment, was asked this very question. Here’s what he had to say in response: “People call us dangerous, and I agree with them completely . . . I and the other dissidents . . . we are very dangerous people. The question is: dangerous to whom?”
He goes on to declare that, “We’re certainly not dangerous to HIV-positive people. We’re not dangerous to hemophiliacs. We’re not dangerous to Africans. But we are lethally dangerous to the HIV establishment; to the people who are on that $8 billion taxpayer gravy train [which] every year goes to AIDS [in the US]; the $1.8 billion that goes to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases only for HIV research. We’re very dangerous to those folks [and to the] careers and reputations of those 100,000 scientists and physicians who stake their careers and reputations on this bogus contagious HIV hypothesis.”
“But we haven’t killed anybody,” he insists. “As a matter of fact, as a consequence of our work, there are certainly thousands of people who are alive today that would not be alive had they been left alone with the insanity of the HIV hypothesis to drag them down in that spiral of taking the drugs that eventually cause the AIDS diseases.” (5)
Rebecca Culshaw, Ph.D. confirms, in part, Rasnick’s contention when she notes that “the leading cause of death in HIV-positives in the last few years has been liver failure, not an AIDS-defining disease in any way, but rather an acknowledged side effect of protease inhibitors, which asymptomatic individuals take in massive daily doses, for years.” (6)
Culshaw is also critical of the professional standards and qualities of HIV research. “To put it plainly,” she writes, “HIV science has sold out to the epidemic of low standards that is infecting all of academic scientific research. . . . Over the years, I have had plenty of opportunity to see exactly how research expectations affect the quality of the work we produce. It is clear to me that the pressure to obtain big government grants and to publish as many papers as possible is not necessarily helping the advancement of science. . . . This lowering of scientific standards and critical thinking has been apparent in many aspects of research for some time. . . . It is this decline . . . that I point to when I am asked how so many scientists and doctors could be so wrong. Given the current research atmosphere, it was almost inevitable that a very significant scientific mistake was going to be made.” (7)
Question 2: How reliable are HIV tests?
My interest in the complex and controversial issue of the role of HIV in AIDS stems from the fact that in order to complete my recent green card application process in Australia, I had to undergo a medical examination in Sydney – an examination that involved an HIV test, or more accurately, a test for HIV antibodies.
I had no reason to believe I would test HIV-positive (which, as it turned out, I didn’t), yet I was nevertheless concerned as I was well aware of the many questions surrounding the reliability of HIV testing.
For a start, I knew that no HIV antibody test has ever been verified against the gold standard of HIV isolation. I was also aware that none of the various tests are specific or unique for HIV antibodies. A number of factors can and do cause what is known as a “false-positive” test result – including a recent flu vaccination, naturally-occurring antibodies within the body, and pre-existing conditions such as hepatitis and malaria. Indeed, there are over fifty scientific studies that have identified at least 70 conditions that can cause a “false-positive” HIV result.
Second, because tests for the HIV antibodies are not standardized, people are often “diagnosed” as being either HIV-positive or HIV-negative on the perceived “risk” associated with factors such as sexual orientation and/or skin color. In short, factors such as these are often used to “interpret” HIV test results.
Dr. Rebecca Culshaw, Ph.D., who for years studied mathematical modeling of HIV immunology before concluding that there exists solid scientific evidence to challenge the HIV=AIDS paradigm, notes the following about HIV antibody testing in her article “Why I Quit HIV”:
“The two types of tests routinely used are the ELISA and the Western Blot (WB). The current testing protocol is to ‘verify’ a positive ELISA with the ‘more specific’ WB (which has actually been banned from diagnostic use in the UK because it is so unreliable). But few people know that the criteria for a positive WB vary from country to country and even from lab to lab. Put bluntly, a person’s HIV status could well change depending on the testing venue. It is also possible to test ‘WB indeterminate’, which translates to any one of ‘uninfected’, ‘possibly infected’, or even, absurdly, ‘partly infected’ under the current interpretation. This conundrum is confounded by the fact that the proteins comprising the different reactive ‘bands’ on the WB test are all claimed to be specific to HIV, raising the question of how a truly uninfected individual could possess antibodies to even one ‘HIV-specific’ protein.” (8)
Rodney Richards, Ph.D. was a designer of HIV tests and a founding scientist at Am-Gen Labs. He’s gone on record as saying that, “The idea that there is a laboratory test that can determine whether or not a person is infected with the HIV virus is simply an illusion. The FDA has never approved a test kit that claims to be used for the purpose of diagnosing HIV infection.” (9)
Richards contends that, at best, the HIV antibody tests measure a condition called hypergammaglobulinemia which, as Rebecca Culshaw points out, simply means “having too many antibodies to too many things.” (10)
All of which leads Culshaw to state: “I . . . sincerely believe that these HIV tests do immeasurably more harm than good, due to their astounding lack of specificity and standardization. I can buy the idea that anonymous screening of the blood supply for some nonspecific marker of ill health (which, due to cross reactivity with many known pathogens, a positive HIV antibody test often seems to be) is useful. I cannot buy the idea that any individual needs to have a diagnostic HIV test. A negative test may not be accurate (whatever that means), but a positive one can create utter havoc and destruction in a person’s life – all for a virus that most likely does absolutely nothing. I do not feel it is going too far to say that these tests ought to be banned for diagnostic purposes.”
“The real victims in this mess,” continues Culshaw, “are those whose lives are turned upside-down by the stigma of an HIV diagnosis. These people, most of whom are perfectly healthy, are encouraged to avoid intimacy and are further branded with the implication that they were somehow dreadfully foolish and careless. Worse, they are encouraged to take massive daily doses of some of the most toxic drugs ever manufactured. HIV, for many years, has fulfilled the role of a microscopic terrorist. People have lost their jobs, been denied entry into the Armed Forces, been refused residency in and even entry into some countries, even been charged with assault or murder for having consensual sex; babies have been taken from their mothers and had toxic medications forced down their throats. There is no precedent for this type of behavior, as it is all in the name of a completely unproven, fundamentally flawed hypothesis, on the basis of highly suspect, indirect tests for supposed infection with an allegedly deadly virus – a virus that has never been observed to do much of anything.” (11)
Culshaw and others are also highly critical of the fact that few people, including many medical practitioners, are aware of the warning sentences in HIV antibody test kits – sentences that affirm Richards’ criticism of HIV tests and which announce, for instance, that:
“ELISA testing cannot be used to diagnose AIDS” (Abbott Laboratories test kit, 1997).
“Do not use this test as the sole basis for HIV infection” (Epitope Western Blot kit, 1997).
“The amplicor HIV-1 monitor test is not intended to be used as a screening test for HIV, nor a diagnostic test to confirm the presence of HIV infection” (Roche viral load kit, 1996).
Culshaw has also documented the “subtle but significant shift in the language used in HIV test kits since the beginning of the AIDS era.” For example, she notes that from 1984 until the very recent past, “test kit inserts contained the unambiguous statement ‘AIDS is caused by HIV.’ In 2002, [such statements were] toned down . . . to say: ‘AIDS, AIDS-related complex and pre-AIDS are thought to be caused by HIV.’ (Italics mine) But just this year, in a remarkable – and potentially significant – shift in thinking, the trend seems to be toward making an even less committal statement. For example, Abbott Diagnostic’s ELISA test insert contains the following sentence: ‘Epidemiologic data suggest that the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by at least two types of human immunodeficiency viruses, collectively known as HIV.’ Vironostika appears to be even less willing to support a true causal role, as their 2006 test kit insert says: ‘Published data indicate a strong correlation between the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and a retrovirus referred to as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).’ ” (12)
“What this is telling us”, says Culshaw, “is that twenty-two years later, we’ve still got nothing. As the recent Rodriguez et. al paper indicates, virus levels (as dubiously measured by viral load tests) have almost zero influence on CD4+ cell decline, and these are the cells that have so long been believed to be dying at HIV’s behest. As Zvi Grossman stated in a recent paper, ‘The pathogenic and physiologic processes leading to AIDS remain a conundrum.’ In other words, we still have no clue what HIV actually does. Where are the T-cells going? No one knows. What is viral load, anyway? No one knows.”
“After twenty-two years,” concludes Culshaw, “we’re back to correlation – back to epidemiology. Yet we’re still stuck in the same pattern of promoting these tests that may measure something – but no one really understands what it is. Worse yet, we’re using the results of these tests to literally ruin people’s lives. Something is very, very wrong.” (13)
Interestingly, when questioned about the accuracy of HIV testing as part of the current court case in Adelaide, Robert Gallo, speaking via satellite from Baltimore, lost patience with defence lawyer Kevin Borick, declaring, “You are driving me nuts with this. . . . No one knows more about HIV testing than me. I don’t expect a thankyou but I don’t expect to be provoked to that degree.” (14)
Question 3: Who is Dr. Robert Gallo and how reliable is his contribution to the HIV=AIDS debate?
Yes, what about Gallo and his contribution to the seemingly unquestionable HIV=AIDS paradigm?
In her recently published book, Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?, Rebecca Culshaw, PhD., observes that, “In order to truly understand how the HIV/AIDS connection became nearly universally accepted without question, one must revisit the early days of AIDS and the discovery of AIDS.” (15)
She notes that the first scientific papers claiming a definite causal role for HIV were published on May 5, 1984, in the “esteemed” journal Science by Robert Gallo and Mikulas Popovic.* Of the pair’s four papers describing the detection of HIV in a proportion of AIDS patients, Culshaw has the following to say:
“It is amazing that in the paper purporting to have frequently detected HIV in AIDS patients, actual HIV could be detected in only twenty-six out of seventy-two AIDS patients. . . . Gallo claimed that the reason for such a low frequency of detection (in spite of the title using the word frequent) was probably due to ‘sample contamination.’ It was later determined that his samples were indeed contaminated with mold, but one wonders how it is possible to come to such fundamental scientific conclusions using contaminated evidence! Regardless, it seems strange that finding HIV in fewer than half of AIDS . . . patients would ever qualify a virus for a pathogenic role, and indeed in the scientific papers Gallo’s team avoided using any absolute terms to indicate causation. However, he did use such words in the press conference that as held before the publication of these papers. By the time the supporting papers were published, the lay press had all but declared HIV to be “the AIDS virus,” and debate in the scientific arena was effectively stopped.” (16)
This is clearly both alarming and frustrating to Culshaw and others. “HIV researchers . . . know that the history of HIV/AIDS is littered with documented cases of fraud, incompetence, and poor-quality research,” she writes. “Yet they find it almost impossible to imagine that this could be happening at the present moment. They know their predictions have never panned out, yet they keep inventing mysterious mechanisms for HIV pathogenesis. They know many therapies of the past are now acknowledged to be mistakes (AZT monotherapy, ‘hit hard, hit early’), yet they never imagine that their current therapies (the ever-growing list of combination therapies) might one day be acknowledged as mistakes themselves. It’s time for them to wake up.” (17)
Question 4: What about the AIDS pandemic in Africa?
According to David Rasnick, there is no AIDS pandemic in Africa. He believes that AIDS in the US and Europe is largely “the clinical manifestation of the drug epidemic in both places.” In Africa, “it’s a completely different situation.” (18)
In fact, it’s so different that in 1985 the World Health Organization (WHO) came up with a different definition of AIDS in Africa, “because it didn’t look anything like AIDS in the US and Europe,” (19) says Rasnick. Thus the Bangui definition was born, named after an African town.
Commenting in 2000 on a recently completed visit to South Africa, Rasnick told the San Francisco Herald, “I don’t think there is any such thing as AIDS going on in South Africa. It’s just the same old things that Africans have been suffering and dying from for generations due to poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, bad water, that sort of thing. We’re calling it AIDS now, instead of by the old-fashioned names that were more honest.” (20)
Discussing further the Bangui definition of AIDS, Rasnick observes that this particular definition “doesn’t even require HIV” to be part of it. Thus a blood test is generally not required. Anyway, such a test is “totally unstable in Africa,” insists Rasnick, “because of false-positives with hepatitis B, malaria, tuberculosis” – all of which are endemic to sub-Saharan Africa. (21)
So how are people in Africa diagnosed with AIDS? “They use clinical symptoms,” says Rasnick. “There are four basic clinical symptoms in the Bangui definition; there’s 10% weight loss, there’s persistent fever and cough, and diarrhea. That’s it.
“Think about it. I was in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea and I had all of those. That makes me a long term survivor based on that definition of AIDS. Think of it, in a place like Africa, where you have random poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, bad water, and parasitic diseases – guess what the symptoms are. And tuberculosis, too. Tuberculosis is worldwide. Where you have poverty you have tuberculosis . . . It’s a disease of poverty, brought on by malnutrition. The world’s leading cause of immune depression is malnutrition, which is typically due to poverty. . . . In 1993 they actually added TB to the 1985 Bangui definition of AIDS. Isn’t that interesting? Regular TB which has been endemic there for how long, is now called AIDS in Africa.” (22)
For David Rasnick and others, AIDS in many ways functions, in the words of Rebecca Culshaw, “not [as] a disease so much as a socio-political construct that few people understand and even fewer question.” (23)
Rasnick is adamant that this “socio-political” dimension of AIDS is “American-made – a red, white, and blue epidemic.” (24)
“Europeans,” he states, “didn’t have the investment in it, psychologically, intellectually, financially, culturally, politically. They didn’t have the stake in it that the United States did. . . . We spend over a $100 billion in American taxpayer money on AIDS, Inc. to keep it going. That’s a gravy train they don’t like to see go away. So what do they do? They move it east. What did Texaco do when the oil dried up in Texas? They moved east to Saudi Arabia and places like that. Well, we go to Africa and tap into that potential goldmine for AIDS tests, AIDS drugs, and so forth. Then you crack India . . .” (25)
Question 5: Where to from here?
It seems clear to me that the so-called HIV-dissidents have raised many valid and important questions with regards to the connection between HIV and AIDS. To my knowledge, none of these questions have been adequately answered by the HIV/AIDS establishment.
Accordingly, I appreciate Rebecca Culshaw’s perspective on the need for genuine dialogue: “If the AIDS establishment is so convinced of the validity of what they say,” she writes,“they should have no fear of a public, adjudicated debate between the major orthodox and dissenting scientists. . . . Yet all the major AIDS researchers have averted such a public debate, either by claiming that the ‘overwhelming scientific consensus’ makes such a debate superfluous, or by saying that they are ‘too busy saving lives’.” (26)
“In place of public debate,” says Culshaw, “clearly politically-motivated documents such as the Durban Declaration remain the establishment’s standard response to dissenting voices. Even a cursory reading of this pathetic document reveals it to be a statement of faith, designed to divert attention from dissenters at the very moment when they were threatening to expose the orthodoxy in South Africa in 2000.
“Billions of dollars have been spent on HIV, and this has not led to a greater understanding of the virus, but rather to a series of unproven or incorrect speculations which have been widely trumpeted in both the scientific and lay press. Such a track record is indicative of institutional problems in modern biomedicine.” (27)
It remains to be seen what impact, if any, the “trial of HIV” currently taking place in Adelaide will have on the call for both scientific and wider public debate on this issue. All I can say for sure is that such a debate is clearly needed.
* On December 31, 1993, Philip J. Hilts reported in the New York Times that, “the Federal Office of Research Integrity [O.R.I] today found that Dr. Robert C. Gallo, the American co-discoverer of the cause of AIDS, had committed scientific misconduct. The investigators said he had ‘falsely reported’ a critical fact in the scientific paper of 1984 in which he described isolating the virus that causes AIDS. The new report said Dr. Gallo had intentionally misled colleagues to gain credit for himself and diminish credit due his French competitors. The report also said that his false statement had ‘impeded potential AIDS research progress’ by diverting scientists from potentially fruitful work with the French researchers. . . . On the standards of Dr. Gallo’s laboratory record-keeping, the report said, ‘Especially in light of the groundbreaking nature of this research and its profound public health implications, O.R.I. believes that the careless and unacceptable keeping of research records reflects irresponsible laboratory management that has permanently impaired the ability to trace the important steps taken.’”
1. Roberts, J., “Accused Denies Existence of HIV,”The Australian, October 26, 2006. 2. Roberts, J., “HIV Skeptics Beyond Stupid, Says Top Scientist," The Australian, February 13, 2007, p.7. 3. Spin, June 1992. 4. Craddock, M., “HIV: Science by Press Conference” in AIDS; Virus or Drug-Induced, Duesberg, P.H. (Ed.) (Dordrecht, Neterlands: Kluwer Academic Publishing, 1996), pp. 127-130. 5. Mahoney, G., “Out of Africa: An Interview with David Rasnick,” San Francisco Herald, October 2000. 6. Culshaw, R., “Why I Quit HIV,” LewRockwell.com. 7. Culshaw, R., Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?, (Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 2006), pp. 14-15. 8. Culshaw, R., “Why I Quit HIV,” LewRockwell.com. 9. Richards, R., in Lee Evans Speaks Out Against the HIV Test. 10-12. Culshaw, R., Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?, (Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 2006), p 13. 13. Culshaw, R., “Why I Quit HIV,” LewRockwell.com. 14. Roberts, J., "HIV Skeptics Beyond Stupid, Says Top Scientist," The Australian, February 13, 2007, p.7. 15-16. Culshaw, R., Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?, (Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 2006), p 19. 17. Ibid., pp. 21-22. 18-22. Mahoney, G., “Out of Africa: An Interview with David Rasnick,”San Francisco Herald, October 2000. 23. Culshaw, R., Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?, (Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 2006), p 7 24-25. Mahoney, G., “Out of Africa II” at www.sfherald.com. 26. Culshaw, R., Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?, (Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 2006), p 17. 27. Ibid., p.18.
** I say “current” because as Rebecca Culshaw notes in Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?, “the [scientific] papers on the molecular biology of HIV seem to have a very short shelf life - they go out of date very quickly . . . [T]his is a common occurrence in HIV research. Science, of course, is meant to be self-correcting, but it seems to be endemic in HIV research that, rather than continually building on an accumulating body of secure knowledge with only occasional missteps, the bulk of the structure gets knocked down every three to four years, replaced by yet another hypothesis, standard of care, or definition of what, exactly, AIDS really is. This structure eventually gets knocked down in the same fashion. Even more disturbing is the fact that HIV researchers continually claim that certain papers’ results are out of date, yet have absolutely no hesitation in citing the entire body of scientific research on HIV as massive overwhelming evidence in favor of HIV. They can’t have it both ways, yet this is exactly what they try to do.” (pp. 11-12)
Last Wednesday morning I resumed my participation in the weekly vigiloutside the corporate headquarters of Alliant TechSystems– the largest Minnesota-based contractor for the U.S. military.
Located in Edina, Alliant Techsystems’ products include depleted uranium munitions, cluster bombs, landmines and all three rocket motors for the Trident II nuclear missile.
Alliant Action, a coalition of justice and peace activists and organizations, has been organizing the weekly vigil, along with educational initiatives and direct actions, for ten years. I’ve beeninvolvedin this and other justice and peace issues since February 1997.
Last Wednesday, February 7, 2007, was reputedly our coldest vigil in ten years (-17 degrees). And it sure did feel like it! I find it amazing to think that just three weeks ago I was in Australia enjoying this.
Anyway, that’s me in the photo above in the back row at far left (which, I guess, some might say is kinda appropriate). My sign reads: “Stop Making Weapons!”
Of the estimated 1.6 million homeless American youth, between 20 and 40 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). Why do LGBT youth become homeless? In one study, 26 percent of gay teens who came out to their parents/guardians were told they must leave home; LGBT youth also leave home due to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Homeless LGBT youth are more likely to use drugs, participate in sex work, and attempt suicide. Also, LGBT youth report they are threatened, belittled and abused at shelters by staff as well as other residents.
Clearly, homelessness among youth disparately impacts LGBT youth.
Yet there’s hope in a new opportunity to help all homeless youth.
HR 601, the FAFSA Fix for Homeless Kids Act, would expand the definition of “independent student” in the Higher Education Act of 1965 to include homeless youth, and accordingly provide a pathway to college (and housing) for more homeless youth.
The bill was introduced by Rep. Judy Biggert of IL and is currently co-sponsored only by Rep. Ruben Hinojosa of TX.
If you’re a U.S citizen and reading this, please ask your Representative to co-sponsor this important legislation.
Over at Busted Halo, an intriguing post by Sister Mary Eve defends Eve Ensler’s controversialThe Vagina Monologues– the Obie Award-winning episodic play which always seems to raise the ire of some Catholics whenever it is performed on Catholic campuses.
“Sister Mary Eve” is, of course, a pseudonym. However, according to the editor of Busted Halo, she “is a member of a community of Catholic sisters who are known for their more traditional living of religious life. She has served in various forms of ministry in several cities in the United States and has carried out extensive research in the area of the history of women religious, the history of the concept of women in western thought, and other issues regarding women’s contribution in the Catholic Church and in society in general.”
Following are excepts from Sister Mary Eve’s commentary, “Remembering V Day: A Young Nun Defends The Vagina Monologues”.
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I have to admit that Eve Ensler’s provocative play was not on the top of my reading list but with the controversy that continues to accompany performances of it on Catholic campuses I decided to finally read it for myself.
What I discovered was how much I too was able to relate to it as a woman. Unfortunately, rather than valuing the Monologues as a presentation of women’s understanding of their bodies, some members of the Church have taken a morally defensive stance. I am afraid that this narrow understanding is also the way many members of my own community would approach the play. Any public discourse on the matter would be highly unapproved of. That anyone in our order would own a copy of it, relate to it or even welcome the experiences and insight of the women contained in The Vagina Monologues would be deemed improper for someone who has taken a vow of chastity. Therefore because of my community affiliation I need to remain anonymous....
If the vagina’s pop culture debut came in the late 90s, it seems to me that its male sexual counterpart had center stage all to itself for quite a long while. Having grown up with several brothers I practically needed a penis dictionary to translate the endless double entendres that poured out of them at such a rapid rate. At first I remember being grossed out. But then I gradually began to realize that that was their way of processing that part of their reality. They could talk about it and joke about it just like anything else. There’s something very healthy about that.
I, however, was not afforded the same luxury. My girlfriends and I generally didn’t talk about what our vaginas felt like, what it felt like to have our period, etc. Perhaps because our experience is a lot more internal than external, hidden even on a physical level, it remained an issue that we kept to ourselves and didn’t discuss. And when we did try to talk about it we learned that it was just not appropriate for women to discuss the functions of their reproductive system. This tendency is extremely detrimental to girls and women because it leads to keeping anything connected with our vaginas a secret—sexual abuse being the best kept secret among them.
The Vagina Monologues instead celebrates the beauty of the vagina, in direct contrast to the message that women have often had to internalize— that it is dirty and not to be touched. For the first time, women have a public forum in which to process their experience in a mature way. So, I am left with the question: Why has The Vagina Monologues — which isn’t intended to be sexually arousing or gratuitously vulgar — been protested by a vocal minority of Catholics when it has been offered on Catholic campuses? I wonder if the fully-cassocked seminarians who often participate in these protests understand the pain that many women carry because their sexuality is often denigrated, abused, and defiled? Do they have any sense of the experiences of women that brought the Monologues into existence?
Sadly, the Church will be unable to engage in a similar dialogue with those who perform, find meaning in, and relate to The Vagina Monologues until it comes to terms at the experiential level with the sacredness of each and every part of the male and female body. The polarization of the sexes that is so deeply imbedded in Catholic thought needs to be reassessed. Perhaps the most damaging has been the characterization of women as either “virgin” or “whore”, epitomized in the Church’s on-going comparison of Eve and Mary. Throughout the centuries, women have been continually reminded that they are intrinsically a cause of sin and ruin for men just as Eve was the cause of Adam’s ruin, and therefore, the human race. The Virgin Mary, on the other hand is presented as the New Eve, whose cooperation with the Blessed Trinity in our redemption completely reversed the effects of Eve’s choice.
To compound that problem even further, many theologians have taught that Mary’s virginity not only applies to Jesus’ conception, but also to His birth. In other words, some still cling to a belief that Mary did not deliver Jesus vaginally as every other mother delivers a baby and that her hymen remained intact. Though not a dogmatic or official teaching — as is the virginal conception of Jesus — this childish notion has embedded itself into Catholic imagination and theology and continues to have an impact today. An early written source for this belief is a second century text which the Church never accepted as authentic called The Protoevangelium of James. In this text the tale is told that as Joseph is returning with a midwife to Mary, they together witness a miraculous birth. The midwife has to ensure for posterity’s sake that Mary has indeed not delivered the baby vaginally, so, much like Thomas did to Jesus’ wounds, she examines Mary to make sure that her hymen was intact.
So Mary’s womb was worthy to carry the Son of God but her vagina couldn’t be the path that brought him to birth? Somehow the Son of God was not born the way that He Himself had ordained human beings to be born? If a woman’s vagina is penetrated by anything, including a baby, she loses her virginity?
This idea might be laughable today were it not still being taught. A friend of mine who is pursuing a masters degree in theology at a seminary in the United States was incensed a few months ago to hear her theology professor reiterating this teaching. I had a similar experience when a Monsignor smugly remarked to me that the recently released film The Nativity did not show a “Virgin birth.” Scripture, on the other hand, does not even hint at an unnatural or miraculous birth. Rather, according to Scripture scholar Raymond Brown, the very phrase that Luke used in Luke 2:23 — “Every male child who opens the womb…” — suggests a normal birth.
. . . I wish our model for encountering this controversy was more in line with Jesus’ encounter at the well in the Gospel of John. When a “promiscuous” Samaritan woman approaches Him, what does Jesus do? Without any props to emphasize His divinity, He dialogues with her, asks her questions, touches her most delicate and painful reality—her sex life. Something about how Jesus addresses her deeply touches her. His demeanor communicates profound respect for everything about her. Women who have been used by men are sensitive in picking up the most subtle cues aimed at them but Jesus’ cue so thoroughly transforms her into an apostle that she goes back to her hometown and tells everyone about the new man in her life! She’s so convincing that they all welcome Jesus as their Messiah in whom they find the wellspring of eternal life. In John’s telling, Jesus is not afraid to come close to us in our most profound vulnerability to heal and save. Taking our cue from Jesus, if the Church stopped protesting the Monologues and instead started engaging women in an honest, healthy and mature dialogue perhaps The Vagina Monologues would no longer be necessary. Until then, I’m afraid we women will have to remain content with a monologue and pray that someone is, at the very least, listening.
To read “Remembering V Day: A Young Nun Defends The Vagina Monologues” in its entirety, clickhere.
For responses from BustedHalo.com readers to “Remembering V Day: A Young Nun Defends The Vagina Monologues,” clickhere.
At about this time last year, CPCSMandSt. Joan of Arc Catholic Churchhosted a three-part symposium entitled “Exploring Contemporary Issues Within the Catholic Church.”
The symposium featured internationally renowned expert on clergy sexual abuse, Dr. Gary Schoenerwho, through an insightful presentation on February 10, 2006, emphasized seldom reported facts concerning the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal –including the range of victims, the different types of abusers, and the impact of the abuse on the victims and their families. Gary also explored thescape-goating of gay priestsand the implications of the sex abuse scandal for the future of the institutional church.
The other keynote speaker of the symposium was Catholic feminist theologian and ethicist Mary E. Hunt(pictured below with myself and CPCSM-co founder David McCaffrey), who on February 17 presented “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: An Ecclesia for Our Children and Ourselves.”
In her talk, Mary envisioned the kind of church “we want to pass on to our children in light of the current institutional scandals, the increasing pluralistic religious setting in which we live, and the demands of justice in the midst of war, ecocide, and greed.” She relied on the traditional “marks of the church” to guide this analysis and visioning.
Following are excerpts from Mary Hunt’s insightful and inspiring presentation, “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: An Ecclesia for Our Children and Ourselves.”
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Our Catholic “Stonewall Moment” Excerpts from “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: An Ecclesia for Our Children and Ourselves” By Mary E. Hunt CPCSM/St. Joan of Arc 2006 Symposium February 17, 2006
The Sad State of Kyriarchal Affairs
The word “kyriarchy” is a good one to add to your vocabulary.* Recall “kyrie eleison” and you will recall that “kyrie” is the Greek word for “lord.” Kyriarchy means structures of lordship. Theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza coined the word so as to move away from simply understanding the world in gendered terms as “patriarchy” or “rule by the fathers” suggests. While sexism is a problem, as we in the Catholic Church can attest to from personal experience, it is hardly ever without its companion racism, which is hardly ever found without economic oppression, which is usually paired with imperialism and colonialism, and carries heterosexism as a constant. It is these forms of oppression that are interstructured and then used as the ideological foundation for social and cultural institutions that constitute kyriarchy.
The Roman Catholic institutional church is one of the most graphic examples of kyriarchy. It is a top down model with a handful of men making most of the decisions. Women are virtually excluded. Western men predominate; people of color are rarely in positions of power at the international level or in places where white people predominate. Since Vatican II there has been a studied effort on the part of liberal to progressive Catholics to change that model, to follow the Council’s lead toward more open, participatory, and egalitarian approaches. But John Paul II, then Cardinal Ratzinger, and other powerful Vatican figures, understanding correctly that such moves would result in a diminishment of their power and many changes in church life, began to backpedal. They insisted that the doors and windows that had been open at the Council were in fact opened in an experimental mode that was not meant to be permanent. Indeed, they declared that it was time to close them and get back to business as usual.
The opposition to their efforts comes from those of us in the women-church movement, in church reform circles, and in progressive parishes like this one that seek to act like an ecclesia, not a kyriarchy. An ecclesia is a congress or an assembly, we might say the community of those who strive to be a “discipleship of equals,” to use another happy phrase from Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.** We organize and hold ourselves accountable according to the participatory models we discern work best for us. So to the tired old excuse “the church is not a democracy” many people are saying “it ought to be and we will make it so.” Or, we might say, kyriarchy is not democratic but ecclesia is.
That struggle between those who want an open and participatory church which would be quite diverse and those, including now Pope Benedict XVI and other conservatives, who believe that a smaller, more homogeneous church would be better—what I have come to think of the leaner/meaner style—is a struggle that forms the context or the backdrop for most of our contemporary experience of church.
I will not rehearse the priest pedophilia and episcopal cover-up scandals because you have recently had a lecture by Gary Schoener, who I am sure covered the territory well. But let me observe that these unspeakable injustices brought the kyriarchal nature of the church to world attention. While sexual abuse is the primary problem which the whole community must face, acknowledge, and prevent while providing justice for survivors and judgment for perpetrators, the cover-ups are what leave the lasting impression that something is radically wrong with the system. It is the system with which I concern myself tonight, not the individual cases, each of which is deplorable.
. . . [T] the clear and consistent pattern of episcopal policy, bishops keeping such information from the police, passing offending priests from diocese to diocese, unleashing on unsuspecting congregations in their most vulnerable aspects persons whose professional ministerial competence was substandard, reveals three striking problems: 1) bishops enjoy unchecked power that frankly no one is competent to handle; 2) decisions were made that favor clergy as clergy rather than prioritizing ministry and the well being of parishioners, especially young people; 3) little has changed despite the magnitude of the problem.
. . . The . . . dynamics of top down decision making, clerical privilege, and successful resistance to pressures for change are evident on many other issues. Let us think about homosexuality, for example. The recent pronouncement against gay seminarians is an effort to link the criminal activity of pedophile priests with homosexuality, and to distract from the reprehensible behavior of bishops who covered up their misconduct. This is an absurd gambit on the part of the Vatican; homosexuality has no relationship to child sex abuse. Note those same three dynamics again:
(1) The Vatican pretends to pronounce on something that the community as a whole is not in agreement on, top down leadership at its worst. I would join them in efforts to eradicate heterosexism, the real problem at hand here, but short of that they are simply flexing their tired muscles, this time in vain.
(2) The Vatican trains its sights on seminarians, once again missing the forest for the trees due to the myopia of clericalism. Most Catholic ministers today are not ordained; eighty percent are lay people and eighty percent of those are women. So even as a way to solve the problem of sexual misconduct, smoking out a few gay seminarians is an inefficient approach. Providing all who work in our churches with training on professional boundaries and appropriate interpersonal conduct as offered by the Seattle-based Faith Trust Institute would be a good start. The issue is not the sexual orientation of seminarians, but the welcome, education, and training our community provides to all who wish to engage in ministry, not merely the small percentage who will be ordained. It becomes clear that clericalism, apart from being offensive, is dangerous.
(3) Finally, the resistance to change. How long, oh God, must we rehearse the same old arguments from natural law ramped up in the anti-gay seminarian document to indicate that gay men can’t have proper affective relationships with anyone—please! Now we have the first encyclical from the present pope which does not inspire confidence. Actually, the second part of it was recycled from his predecessor. But the first part reads like a graduate seminar on love which is relatively benign until you realize he means hetero love. True to the Ratzingerian approach (general claim on the basis of natural law, theo-ethical explanation, public policy implementation), Deus Caritas Est lays the philosophical and theological groundwork for the ethical status quo and provides the rationale for public policy pronouncements against same-sex marriage, divorce and remarriage and the like. God, after all, is love and there is only one monogamous, committed, open to procreation package that fits God. To which I say, human experience happily admits of far more variety and it is good. Yet how do we get that Good News into the press and the pews?
I call this our Stonewall moment. The Stonewall was a gay bar in New York where, in 1969, patrons resisted arrest during one of the police’s regular gay-bashing raids. Rather than acquiesce to the harassment that kept up a “neurotic minuet” (a wonderful phrase from the theologian John Frye) between police and bar patrons, courageous lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people stood up, spoke out, and resisted. They probably surprised even themselves at the power of their own righteous indignation.
I believe that Catholics should respond to the latest Vatican bullying of seminarians the same way. After decades of the Vatican implementing a system that takes authority away from local communities and presumes to impose its will on Catholics who can think for themselves, it is time for Catholics to stand up, speak out, and resist not simply on issues of sexuality and reproduction, but on war, ecology, race, poverty, and the many justice concerns about which the kyriarchy has little credibility left to speak.
Evidence suggests that American Catholics do not support many of the narrow-minded tenets of our church. In opposition to the male hierarchy’s belief that ordaining women priests is theological treason, more than 60 percent of American Catholics say they would support women in the priesthood, according to the most recent Zogby/LeMoyne poll. Another poll, conducted by the Boston Globe in the Boston Archdiocese—where the incidences of sexual abuse by priests were among the worst—finds that nearly 60 percent of Catholics oppose a ban on gay priests. Combine this with American Catholics’ clear disregard for the church’s medieval views on marriage, divorce, and birth control, and increasing numbers of Catholics who think abortion is morally acceptable under certain circumstances. Then it becomes obvious that we find ourselves in a church that does not speak to our everyday concerns in any meaningful way, much less exert any effective leadership on issues of war, racism, economic injustice, or ecological destruction.
The Vatican, in its patriarchal echo chamber, continues to portray Western values of tolerance and equality as the fallen morality of a secular society. In so doing, the institutional church treats millions of faithful Catholics in America not as spiritual adults, but as perpetual adolescents in need of guidance from on high. The time has come for American Catholics to claim our full baptismal citizenship and publicly call for changes in church policies on sexuality, ordination, relationships, and ministry. Considering the enormous economic and political influence of the American church, if Catholics here really stood up to their bishops, loudly and in numbers, the Vatican would have little choice but to listen.
There is increasing evidence that despite the dissembling of the hierarchy, American Catholics are refusing to let the institution scapegoat gay priests, feminism, and modernity for the Vatican’s outmoded theology. For example, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, the leaders of the U.S. men’s religious orders, announced plans to send a delegation to Rome to oppose the anti-gay policy. In a welcome response to an inflexible Vatican regime, the superior of the New York Province of the Jesuits, Fr. Gerald J. Chojnacki, wrote: “We know that gay men…have served the church well as priests—and so why would we be asked to discriminate based on orientation alone against those whom God has called and invited?” This is a question that could be asked about women and married men as well.
Choices We Face
The Stonewall moment we face is not simply on the matter of sexuality. Rather, sexuality in all its grace opens the community to some new choices. The alternative is to struggle endlessly over the wrong issues—homosexuality rather than heterosexism, ordination of women rather than new models of ministry, power rather than cooperation.
Other religious groups have come to this kind of juncture where seemingly irreconcilable differences prevail. Protestants have a long and proud history of forming new denominations, and we can learn from them. Jews have figured out how to group themselves according to beliefs and practices that unite them as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist and to still all be Jews. We can learn from them as well.
Catholics, on the other hand, strive to keep ourselves in one organization, a goal that may prove to be beyond our ability this time. Of course we have the Old Catholic Church, and the American Catholic Church, and several other groups that signal their connection to the Catholic community without wanting to affirm their Roman ties. I understand their reasoning. But I think the power of the Vatican—its financial resources, its communications advantage, and its symbolic capital—is touched very lightly by such groups it brushes off as apostate or otherwise trivial.
I suggest there is a need for structural change that implies “claiming the center” as feminist theorist bell hooks described the task of those who are marginalized. The move from margin to center does not mean replacing one pope with another, one curia with another. Rather, it involves rethinking the center so that the many people who are now on the margins are taken more seriously as the whole configuration of church changes from a top-down to a horizontal model of interlocking communities. Pie in the sky, you may think, but let us explore this possibility, imagine and revel in the energy such changes would unleash before we capitulate to the current forces. In tomorrow’s workshop we will deal very concretely with strategies.
A Catholic Feminist Approach
[At the same time] I think there is a value in maintaining ties to our tradition, indeed, claiming that who we are and what we believe is central to the community’s life and well being. This is what Catholic feminist theologians have done; rather than leave the church we claim ourselves church, rather than even struggle with kyriarchy we seek to create ecclesia. I find it difficult and uncharted to do so, but I think spiritual integrity requires we do what we can. Otherwise I would opt for the Protestant approach which I respect, or the Jewish model which seems to work nicely for them. As a Catholic I want to keep trying without sacrificing my own integrity.
I may come to see the error of my ways, but for now I suggest we rely on the traditional marks of the church, that it is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic as we outline some parameters of a church we want to share with our children today as well as when they are celebrating in memory of us.
(1) One. Unity is sometimes overrated, I think. When it comes at the cost of conformity, violation of one’s conscience, offense to one’s spirit, I think it is not worth it. For example, I do not go to Mass regularly, certainly do not support a parish financially, knowing that I will be offended by the exclusive language, repulsed by some of the imagery, and reminded of the exclusion of women from sacramental leadership, all this before the sermon. But I think there are many ways to be Catholic, including the women’s base community (SAS, Sisters Against Sexism) in which I have worshipped and found support for more than twenty years. So “oneness” need not look alike in how we are Catholic. Our oneness is in our intention and practice to be in communion with one another.
Moreover, at a time when religious pluralism in this country is at an all-time high, when there are more Muslims than Presbyterians, it is rather fanciful to think that I am somehow something other than Catholic. Relatively speaking, the issues that divide us as Catholics are insignificant given our cultural and spiritual sameness in contrast to the very real challenges of understanding how a Muslim prays, what a Hindu believes, and the like that are the stuff of the exciting interreligious work we all have ahead of us. At the same time, I find more in common with progressive Jews and Muslims than I do with fundamentalist Christians, including fundamentalist Catholics. What were straight lines of tradition and denomination are now lines that crisscross in everyday life. I see this as Sophia Wisdom’s gift—pushing us to a oneness of spirit we can barely imagine but that a fragile planet requires for our common good.
(2) Holy. What of holiness in all of this? It is easy to lose track of the call to holiness that is part of religious consciousness when the trappings of kyriarchy are so distracting. Last year’s papal funeral and the conclave that followed left me with a deep sense of despair. In fact, women were consigned so far to the margins under their mantillas that a casual observer would have thought this was a religion that welcomed only men, clerics at that.
The all-male nature of the conclave seemed lost on the media. A Franciscan sister observed to me, “When those in power claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, we look to see if there are white feathers outside the door, a sure sign that she flapped her wings against the glass but never made it inside.” I observed a pile of white feathers outside the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, a big pile, after the gathering was over and a pope was elected. The conclave was a process so utterly flawed, bereft of any input from women, lay people, children, undemocratic and elitist beyond any reasonable limits. The papacy is meant to be a symbol of unity, not a person with authority.
I realized that about the only thing that could have rescued the sorry Vatican scene from what I predict will be history’s harsh judgment would have been if the doors had opened and an African woman, HIV positive, with her baby in her arms had come out onto the balcony proclaiming the love of God for all of creation. What a symbol of unity she would have been. Behind her we would have seen the cardinals tiptoeing out, taking off their fancy clothes as they left. Their heads would be bowed as they tried to blend into the crowd, lest anyone notice them and realize that they had been involved in such a scandalous process of cloning themselves to create another person with authority rather than lifting up a person, this woman, as a sign of unity. Then and only then would the presence of the Holy Spirit have been clear—her wings flapping freely, her feathers intact. Our tears of joy at such a miracle would have cleansed this world. According to my fantasy scene, then, we would have been a Catholic Church worthy of its name. I mourn the failure of religious imagination as much as anything else. It is there that holiness dwells, in our collective imagination, there that we draw resources to make all things new.
(3) Catholic. So “Catholic” takes on new meaning in our time. I am not suggesting that we back off of it, that we cede the title to others. Rather I think we need to insist that just as we were taught that “catholic” means “universal,” we can learn that “catholic” comes in many forms. For example, the death penalty is an issue on which there is a diversity of opinions among committed American Catholics. So it is possible, I consider it ill-advised but still I must admit there is a Catholic way of thinking about the death penalty that concludes in the affirmative. I do not happen to share that view but I am sure that those who hold it do so as Catholics. Or, Catholic judges who pronounce it do so without risk of their faith, much as I wish it were otherwise. Imagine the same kind of thinking on abortion or homosexuality or any number of matters on which we have a rich diversity of views. I believe that Catholic is not so much a lockstep agreement on issues as it is a commitment to do justice and return again and again to the ecclesia’s table to offer thanks with bread and wine, to garner strength, and to unite in love with companions who share the same commitment.
(4) Apostolic. The apostolic dimension of the ecclesia is at once the most conflicted and the most obvious. On one side, the matter of apostolic succession in priesthood, the concern over papal lineage border on theological fetishes. They came from a worldview in which the biological rather than the symbolic was in vogue. Such biologistic quantifying—the hands that touched the hands that touched the hands—is intellectually embarrassing but still very much alive and well in kyriarchal circles. On the other side, the apostolic spirit that has infused our tradition from the beginning remains alive and well in ecclesias. We want to serve; we want to share; we want to break bread and drink wine in memory of her and of him, and one day it will be done in memory of us. This is the stuff of apostolic Catholicism. It is worth sharing.
How Do We Make This Happen With or Without Upsetting the Applecart?
I submit that the applecart is upset. Just ask Catholic women, lgbtq Catholics, divorced and remarried folks, former priests, young people struggling with how to be faithful in the 21st century. So don’t worry about upsetting the applecart; that has been done. The question instead is how to share the apples and who owns the cart. The sharing question is complicated—who says what Catholic is, are there any limits, can one be Buddhist and Catholic at the same time? But the ownership questions are even harder—who decides what can happen on Catholic property, who pays the bills when corporate Catholicism goes bankrupt, and far more painfully, who belongs at the table when it is time to celebrate? I suggest these are some of the issues we need to address.
Who Are Our Allies?
In doing so, I look first and foremost to my allies, the ones who want to make this “discipleship of equals” happen in our lifetime, not simply for our children and grandchildren. Some allies are Catholic, and some even are part of the kyriarchy like Bishop Gumbleton and a few priests who risk their privilege for the ecclesia. Many are people like ourselves, whom I have come to think of as lifers for social justice and permanent rebels for love. Some allies are as far from Catholicism as one can imagine—either pushed or moved away by the kyriarchal content, or simply having found in other traditions the same impulse toward a just human community and powerful divine presence. Frankly, I’ll take them all without distinction, grateful that the ecclesia is big enough to welcome all comers and persuaded that variety reflects the uncountable dimensions of the divine.
Conclusion
My analysis of our current situation, and my proposal that we do major and not cosmetic surgery on the kyriarchal model of church, is but one approach. I look forward to our discussion and to our workshop tomorrow when we can deal concretely with some of the issues I have raised. For now let us practice the ways of ecclesia by starting our conversation with everyone’s voice. Tell one person next to you your first reaction to some of the issues I have raised. That very action, perhaps more than anything I have said, will signal your commitment to taking these ideas forward into new ways of being church. Then we can give thanks for the Spirit’s warmth even on a cold night.
* “Kyriarchy” is a term coined by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. It means, literally, structures of lordship. It denotes the interstructured forms of oppression – gender, race, class, nationality, sexuality and the like – that result in power differences and injustice. Kyriarchy is used to distinguish the hierarchical, clerical model of church from the larger Catholic community. She includes a useful discussion of kyriocentrism in her Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001.
** In the same book Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza explores the “ecclesia of women.”
I’ve always appreciated and enjoyed unusual musical collaborations, especially when such collaborations seem unlikely and, accordingly, convey an element of risk and adventure and are infused with a certain energy of edginess and abandon.
I mean, think of country legend Johnny Cash collaborating with rock and rap producer Rick Rubin toreworkthe Nine Inch Nails song, “Hurt”, or legendary pop/soul singer Dusty Springfieldduettingwith techno-pop duo The Pet Shop Boys. In both cases great songs resulted, with the artists involved pushing themselves beyond their comfort zones and producing some of the most compelling music of their careers. And it's because they collaborated with others - a collaborating that some may even had initially advised against.
Recently at Cheapo Discsin Uptown, Minneapolis, I bought a copy ofLoretta Lynn’s 2004 award-winning album, Van Lear Rose - an album produced by rocker Jack White (of the bandThe White Stripes).
“To country and rock separatists,” notes one critic, “honky-tonker Loretta Lynn’s partnership with garage revivalist Jack White seemed like a freaky, fleeting alignment of planets from opposite ends of the solar system.”
Yet of such a seemingly unlikely collaboration, music critic Marc Greilsamer declares, “Yes, we all know the world is rapidly shrinking, but now we’ve seen everything. Most stunning of all – they nailed it.”
Notes Greilsamer: “White’s production – mostly stark and atmospheric – ranges from more-traditional country to straight-up White Stripes, with most tracks falling somewhere in between. White duets with Lynn on the rousing one-night-stand story “Portland, Oregon,” but he does not need to sing to leave his personal stamp. At 70, Lynn seems thoroughly engaged and delighted; at times she delivers some of the most emotionally potent singing of her career. A decade earlier, Johnny Cash turned to rock and rap producer Rick Rubin, and the move resuscitated Cash’s career. Now, Jack White has done the same for Loretta Lynn, another country legend whose music is simply too raw and honest for the contemporary country crowd. Van Lear Rose exceeds all expectations – a bold collaboration in which artists from two different musical universes forge a memorable work that neither could have created alone.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Luke Tornobserves that, “The artistic gambles are part of the album’s charm, and Van Lear Rose’s looseness and off-the-cuff spontaneity, dismally lacking in today’s technology- and money-driven recording industry, make Loretta Lynn’s entirely unexpected comeback a rousing success.”
I couldn’t agree more. But don’t take my word for it, listen (and see) for yourself with the following video clip of the “killer” track, “Portland, Oregon” – courtesy ofYouTube.com.
Recommended Off-site Link:Rolling Stone’sreviewof Van Lear Rose.
Joan Chittister, OSB, has written an insightful commentary on the recent “removal” of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton as auxiliary bishop of Detroit and pastor of St. Leo Parish.
As well as being an internationally-renowned advocate for justice and peace, Gumbleton (pictured above) has also long been asupporter and advocatefor lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons and their families. He notes that the experience of having a gay brother played a foundational role in his call to speak out on the need for change in church teaching regarding homosexuality.
The resignation/removal/whatever of [75-year-old] Bishop Gumbleton brings to the foreground some issues of church that no amount of canon law can ever dispel.
. . .The Urban Parish Coalition, a group under the umbrella of the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, placed ads in the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News that read “Bishop Thomas Gumbleton . . . Life-long Detroiter, Priest, Pastor, Bishop, Elder, Global Peacemaker, Visionary, Prophet, Spiritual Leader and Friend . . . We honor, respect and love you. . . . We are opposed to the decision to remove you as Pastor of St. Leo the Great Parish, Detroit.”
How many of those kinds of ads, ads praising a bishop, have we seen lately? It’s a far cry from the ads run in the Boston Globe, for instance, calling for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law. You’d think a church would be giddy with glee to see such a thing happen.
So, the question is not whether or not what has been done has been done legally. Of course it has. Rome has the power, we are reminded often, to do whatever it wants to do to the clerical personnel of the church. The question is only, “Should they?”
And that’s where the scriptures provide an eerie challenge to the news story of the day. “Let your light shine,” it reads. But how shall we recognize what is the light? The criteria is plain: (Matthew 5:1-10) The light is in those who are poor in spirit and gentle, who mourn over the suffering of the world and thirst for justice; who are merciful and pure of heart; who are peacemakers and persecuted for the cause of right.
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, international peacemaker, advocate for the poor and oppressed, proponent of justice and truth-teller of the church – even about the church – people everywhere are saying, meets that criteria with startling clarity. That only makes the situation harder to understand, more difficult to grasp. It’s not so much either the resignation or the loss of the parish, however difficult that may be for everyone involved, that makes us wonder. After all, there’s nothing wrong with change.
But in this case, at this time in church history, at this moment when the church has lost such public credibility, when the church needs priests, when this is one of the most effective proclaimers of the Gospel in the public arena, when this is obviously one of the most loved church leaders we have, why lose this one to the public face of the church?
If you read the comments of parishioners and colleagues which this story has evoked, it is the rest of the scripture that troubles them, it seems. “No one,” the scripture goes on, “lights a lamp to put it under a barrel; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house.”
“No pastoral office whatsoever,” the letter from the Congregation for Bishops accepting his resignation says. No position in the diocese at all? No office of peace and justice? No position as special envoy to anyone for anything? Strange, isn’t it? But if this is the case, what happens to the light?
When Cardinal Bernard Law resigned for not telling the truth about pedophile priests, Rome gave him a promotion, a position on five of the curial congregations of the church, St. Mary Major, one of the four principal churches in Rome, and a luxurious Roman apartment. On the other hand, this bishop, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, told the truth, even about his having been abused by a priest himself when he was a young seminarian. Most of all, he took the position that it is the obligation of bishops to bring transparency, accountability and justice to the plight of sex abuse victims, whatever the financial ramifications for the church itself.
From where I stand, it looks to me as if we won’t know for sure what really happened here till we see what they give Tom Gumbleton. But in the meantime, the question looms large for all of us: What is going on in a church that stamps out the light?
To read Joan Chittister’s “Gumbleton: Nothing But the Truth” in its entirety, click here.
Note: The above photo of Bishop Gumbleton was taken on February 6, 2002, and is from my website Faces of Resistance. The caption that accompanies it reads as follows:
Over a thousand people filled the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis to hear Bishop Gumbleton talk on “Peace, Patriotism and Nonviolence: Another Way to Confront Terrorism.”
Bishop Gumbleton is a consistent and outspoken critic of war and the social inequality that fuels it: “If we don’t close the gap between the rich and the poor, if we don’t try to make our world really one with [the] human family sharing all the resources that God gave for all and not just a few, [then] violence will only become worse.
“The poor of the world are outraged [that] this gap is getting larger and larger, a gap filled with violence that is killing them and a violence that will ultimately destroy us. We must do something to bridge that gap, to bring us closer to the poor of the world, to understand why they are angry and why they hate us so much.”
Bishop Gumbleton is also critical of his own church’s so-called “just war theory”: “[We should] take that ‘just’ war theology, put it in a drawer, lock it, and never open it again.
“As war is rejected as the failure that it always is and the [non-violent] way of Jesus is embraced, we will begin to experience the reign of God in our land. Any nation that continues to build up arsenals of weapons of destruction is a nation approaching spiritual death.
“It’s up to us to make the choice to follow Jesus and to make his way of transforming the world a reality. It's an extraordinary challenge, but it's one that with God’s help each of us can accept and live out.”
I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, “Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.” As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words “progressive,” “gay,” and “Catholic” seek to describe.
Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.
On September 24, 2012,Michael BaylyofCatholics for Marriage Equality MNwas interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.
"I believe your blog to be of utmost importance for all people regardless of their orientation. . . . Thank you for your blog and the care and dedication that you give in bringing the TRUTH to everyone."– William
"Michael, if there is ever a moment in your day or in your life when you feel low and despondent and wonder whether what you are doing is anything worthwhile, think of this: thanks to your writing on the internet, a young man miles away is now willing to embrace life completely and use his talents and passions unashamedly to celebrate God and his creation. Any success I face in the future and any lives I touch would have been made possible thanks to you and your honesty and wisdom."– AB
"Since I discovered your blog I have felt so much more encouraged and inspired knowing that I'm not the only gay guy in the Catholic Church trying to balance my Faith and my sexuality. Continue being a beacon of hope and a guide to the future within our Church!"– Phillip
"Your posts about Catholic issues are always informative and well researched, and I especially appreciate your photography and the personal posts about your own experience. I'm very glad I found your blog and that I've had the chance to get to know you."– Crystal
"Thank you for taking the time to create this fantastic blog. It is so inspiring!"– George
"I cannot claim to be an expert on Catholic blogs, but from what I've seen, The Wild Reed ranks among the very best."– Kevin
"Reading your blog leaves me with the consolation of knowing that the words Catholic, gay and progressive are not mutually exclusive.."– Patrick
"I grieve for the Roman institution’s betrayal of God’s invitation to change. I fear that somewhere in the midst of this denial is a great sin that rests on the shoulders of those who lead and those who passively follow. But knowing that there are voices, voices of the prophets out there gives me hope. Please keep up the good work."– Peter
"I ran across your blog the other day looking for something else. I stopped to look at it and then bookmarked it because you have written some excellent articles that I want to read. I find your writing to be insightful and interesting and I'm looking forward to reading more of it. Keep up the good work. We really, really need sane people with a voice these days."– Jane Gael
"Michael, your site is like water in the desert."– Jayden
An interesting and historic court case is currently underway in Adelaide, Australia – one that is seeing the HIV/AIDS establishment defend its foundational paradigm: that Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the HIV retrovirus.
