Vermont Mother Tells It Like It Is

Following are excerpts from a letter that has been circulating for years on various LGBTQ listserves and on the Internet. It’s written by Sharon Underwood, the mother of a gay child in White River Junction, Vermont, in response to a number of letters to the editor of her local newspaper, the Valley News. The writers of these letters expressed opposition to gay marriage.

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Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people. I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was six.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that. . . .

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage. You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

To read Sharon Underwood’s letter in its entirety, click here.

Postscript: In 2000, The Advocate reported that: “The story has a happy ending: [Sharon Underwood’s] son, Ian LaRose, is now 28 and living happily in Boston with a boyfriend. ‘He has found happiness,’ she said. He told her that the only thing he regretted was that her letter left the impression that ‘being homosexual is a regrettable thing – and it isn’t. What’s regrettable is what you have to go through to find the peace that you should have been able to have from the beginning.’”


Recommended Off-site Link:
Family Pride’s Blog

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Catholic Rainbow (Australian) Parents
Voices of Parental Authority and Wisdom
Grandma Knows Best
The Changing Face of “Traditional Marriage”
The Real Gay Agenda

Engelbert Humperdinck: Not That Easy to Forget

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If I could catch a star
before it touched the ground,
I’d place it in a box,
tie ribbons all around,
and then I'd offer it to you
- a token of my love and deep devotion.
The world’s a better place with you to turn to.
I'm a better man for having loved you.

– “I’m a Better Man (For Having Loved You)”
Music by Burt Bacharach and lyrics by Hal David.
Recorded by Engelbert Humperdinck in 1969

When I was a little boy growing up in Australia I had a crush on Engelbert Humperdinck.

No, not the nineteenth century German composer but the suave, golden-voiced Anglo-Indian singer who rose to fame in the mid-late 1960s with hits such as “Release Me” (which broke the Beatles’ string of seven UK chart-topping hits), “Spanish Eyes,” “The Last Waltz,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” and my all-time favorite, “Les Bicyclettes De Belsize.”

My parents owned an LP record of Engelbert’s greatest hits with the typically lame early-1970s title of This is Engelbert. On the cover, Engelbert stands in an elegant garden courtyard: impeccably dressed, smolderingly handsome, and sporting his trademark sideburns. What gay boy wouldn’t be smitten?

Like the “mystery man” on the cover of the Dynamic Hits compilation album, this picture of Engelbert Humperdinck is one of my earliest memories of male intrigue/attraction.

And then, of course, there was Engelbert’s voice – sensually evocative and warmly enigmatic (the opening lines of “The Last Waltz” send shivers down my spine to this day! – “I wonder should I go or should I stay?” An important and relevant question, I’ve since discovered, in more ways than one.)

Another thing that as a sensitive young boy I think I appreciated about Engelbert, was the fact that while clearly a very sexy and manly man, he nevertheless wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable – either through his voice or through the lyrics he chose to interpret. Unlike the hyper-masculinity exhibited by, say, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck kept his shirt buttoned-up! And with a bow-tie at his throat resembling a great black butterfly, he sang without shame of the tears that flowed from the ending of a relationship (“The Last Waltz”), and of how loving another had made him a better man (“I’m a Better Man For Having Loved You”).

In retrospect, I realize that he wasn’t afraid to get in touch with and express both his masculine and feminine energies. I wonder why such integration and expression comes so effortlessly to some and not to others. Who knows, but perhaps in Engelbert’s case, it was his Eastern heritage that played a role. After all, as I’ve discussed in a previous post, the Eastern outlook on life, spirituality, and sexuality is generally much more open and adept at unifying the opposites: the feminine and masculine, the Yin and the Yang.

Without doubt, harmony and healing result from such union. Perhaps it’s not surprising then that as a young gay boy growing into awareness that I was “different” and thus feeling often fearful and uncertain about my future, I would find Engelbert’s voice both calming and affirming. Of course, why this was so I couldn’t discern or articulate at the time. I just felt it. And that was enough.




As a schoolboy in the early-mid 1970s, it wasn’t very cool to like someone as sensitive and polished as Engelbert Humperdinck. Instead, I remember a number of my friends being into the more ragged sounds of Dr. Hook!

I can recall the first and only time I shared my admiration for Engelbert. In response, a classmate made a crude gesture as he gigglingly repeated, “Humper-dick! Humper-dick! Humper-dick!”

If, at the time, I’d had the wherewithal (not to mention the vocabulary) I would have given this classmate an “I’m-so-not-impressed” look and muttered, “Moron!” In reality, my reaction was one of shock. How could anyone make fun of Engelbert?

Above: Some guy named Elvis (right), no doubt
getting a few tips from the great Engelbert.

Friday night being “music night” at the The Wild Reed, I’d thought I’d share a clip of Engelbert via YouTube.

This particular clip is from the late 1960s – perhaps even from Engelbert’s 1969 television series with the ATV network in the United Kingdom. Described by SixtiesCity.com as a “showcase series for side-burned crooner [Arnold George] Dorsey [Engelbert’s real name] and produced by Colin Clews,  guests [on The Engelbert Humperdinck Show] included old pal Tom Jones. . . . Backing artists were the Mike Sammes Singers, the Jack Parnell Orchestra and the Paddy Stone Dancers.”

So here he is, Engelbert Humperdinck singing “Am I That Easy to Forget?” And, no, my beautiful man, you’re definitely not!

Last year I bought Engelbert Humperdinck – Gold, a double-CD compilation of Engelbert’s greatest hits. Imagine my surprise when I heard on disc one what can only be described as a lament for a lost gay love! No, honestly, it’s true.

The song is question is “Everybody Knows (We’re Through),” recorded in 1967. Written by Les Reed and Barry Mason, it’s the tale of a man coming to the realization that his relationship with his lover is over. The kicker is that the lyrics, as sang by Engelbert, make it clear that his lover is another man.





I remember listening to this song for the first time and thinking, I’m dreaming! He can’t be singing to another guy! But as you can see and hear from the lyrics, that’s exactly what Engelbert’s doing.

Wish they hadn’t seen him walk away,
And heard me beg him stay, please stay.
Why, why did we choose this crowded place?
They all know it, ’cause I show it in my face.

Everybody knows you said goodbye,
Everybody knows we’re through.
Now they all can see the tears I cry,
Running down my face for you.

They all said it’s too good to be true,
He’ll make a fool of you, one day.
I just laughed and said our love was strong,
But you left me, and they all know I was wrong.

Everybody knows you’re tired of me,
Everybody knows we’re through.
Though I’m on my own I can’t be free,
Baby, I just live for you.

Everybody knows you said goodbye,
Everybody knows we’re through.

Now, when recorded by the Dave Clark Five, the male pronouns in the above lyrics were changed to read as follows (emphasis mine):

Wish they hadn’t seen you walk away,
And heard me beg you stay, please stay.
Why, why did we choose this crowded place?
They all know it, ’cause I show it in my face.

They all said it’s too good to be true,
It’ll make a fool of you one day.
I just laughed and said our love was strong,
But you left me and they all know I was wrong.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that Engelbert is gay. After all, the guy’s been happily married to his wife for decades. Yet for some reason he chose to sing and record the lyrics to this song so that it depicts a man heartbreakingly singing of his failed relationship with another man. That’s obvious. But I wonder why he would do such a thing.

Was it a way for Engelbert to acknowledge his gay fans? Did he even have a large gay fan base back then?

Was it a way of showing that he has no issue with gay people? After all, here he is with that same velvety yet unmistakably manly voice of his many heterosexual love songs, now singing about a lost gay love – and in such a way as if this experience was a common topic in the songs favored by easy-listening radio stations! It’s really quite amazing (as is the story line of the song, when you stop and think about it. I mean, what fool would break-up with Engelbert?!)



But seriously, whatever the reason for Engelbert’s recording of “Everybody Knows (We’re Through),” it undoubtedly was a very brave thing to do in 1967 – and for a guy famous the world over as a “ladies man.” Then again, perhaps that’s how he got away with it.

I’m just grateful and happy to have discovered a song with such an obvious yet nonchalantly expressed gay perspective being sung by my boyhood crush, Engelbert Humperdinck.

Above: A recent photograph of Engelbert Humperdinck.
He and those sideburns look as debonair as ever.

NEXT: Classic Engelbert

Recommended Off-site Links:
• Engelbert Humperdinck’s Official Site
• Official Engelbert Humperdinck Gallery
• The Engelbert Fansite

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• One of These Boys is Not Like the Others
• A Lesson from Play School
• The Living Tree Trusting God’s Generous Invitation

And for more music at The Wild Reed, visit:
• Rules and Regulations – Rufus Style
• The Man I Love
• Fleetwood Mac’s “Seven Wonders” – My Theme Song for 1987
• Crackerjack Man
• All at Sea
• The Beauty and Wisdom of Rosanne Cash
• Actually, I Do Feel Like Dancing
• “And A Pitcher to Go”
• Classic Dusty Soul Deep
• Wow!

Rita Larivee on Being "Authorized by Baptism"

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Along with U.S. Catholic, The Gay and Lesbian Review, and Commonweal, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) is a publication I support via subscription.

In the latest issue of the NCR, publisher and editor-in-chief Rita Larivee, SSA, has a great editorial that provides a powerful yet succinct overview of the current state of the Catholic Church – along with an empowering reminder of the authority of our baptism. It’s a must-read.

Following is an extended excerpt.

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Lately, we’ve been speaking with many of our readers about their concerns for the church. Pat Marrin, an NCR editor, said it best: “These are difficult days for those of us who have invested our hopes and labors in the unfolding of the kind of church we thought was mandated by the Second Vatican Council. More than 40 years since the close of the council, whose keynote was “full, conscious and active participation by all the baptized,” we are witnessing an institutional retreat into clericalism and theological absolutism. For many progressive Catholics, the options seem dismal: wait out this ‘last hurrah’ or drift away from a sadly dysfunctional church to find life elsewhere.”

Yet Dennis Coday, another NCR editor, reminds us that we are not the only generation to face institutional intransigence or failed leadership. One of the lessons of the past is that those who wait to be told what, when and how to live, quickly themselves become part of the lethargy and discouragement they are trying to get past.

And so we are invoking Dorothy Day as model and mentor to us because she trusted in the power of her baptism, the promise of the Spirit to give her the charism she needed to accomplish the works of justice and mercy she saw all around her waiting to be taken up.

“The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe
in this life and end up being moral failures” – Dorothy Day

As co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, she once said she never needed a bishop to tell her how to live her Christian faith. Her point was not that we should ignore the hierarchy, but that we don’t need to wait for an authority figure to tell us to pray, find community, consider the gospel command to love and serve others in our own circumstances.

What authorizes us is baptism. Be open, welcome the stranger, share what you have, be grateful. This is Day’s message to all of us; this basic self-authorizing approach that led her into the more mature works of protest and service that characterize the Catholic Worker movement, rising up out of the hardest years of the Great Depression and within a monarchical church that often ignored or resisted her controversial stands on pacifism, social change and lay empowerment.



She was both deeply spiritual and realistic. She drew inspiration from the Eucharist and from Catholic social teachings, and she drew from the works of the great Russian novelists Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, whose words inspired the title of her autobiography, The Long Loneliness. “We have all known the long loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes in community.”

Day found here a description of the human journey we all make if we take seriously our own baptismal promise. God calls us out of isolation into relationship and into community for the sake of service. This journey makes us church in its simplest terms. And this becomes the place from which we move the world.

Rita Larivee, SSA
National Catholic Reporter
August 17, 2007


Image 1: Andrea Sansovino, “Baptism of Christ” (1502-05). Marble, 282 and 260 cm with bases; Florence.
Image 2: Robert Shetterly (from his Americans Who Tell the Truth collection).
Image 3: Dorothy Day facing her last arrest for civil disobedience during a demonstration organized by the United Farm Workers in Fresno County (1973). Photo by Bob Fitch.

Recommended Off-site Links:
National Catholic Reporter
The Catholic Worker Home Page
A Brief Introduction to the Catholic Worker Movement
A Radical Lay Catholic: An Introduction to the Life and Spirituality of Dorothy Day

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Thoughts on Authority and Fidelity
Holy Spirit Absent in Attempts to Revert to Latin Mass
Joan Chittister on the Restoration of the Tridentine Latin Mass
James Carroll on Pope Benedict’s Mistake
Making Church Reform Optional
Chris McGillion Responds to the “Exacerbating Actions” of Cardinal Pell
Beyond Papalism
Authentic Catholicism: The Antidote to Clericalism
It’s Time We Moved Beyond Theological Imperialism
Reflections on the Primacy of Conscience
The Question of an “Informed” Catholic Conscience
To Whom the Future of the Catholic Church Belongs

The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace

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“Four Hands, One Heart” by Steve Walker

Our richly diverse Christian tradition is filled with stories of God, or angels of God, coming to us in various guises – for example, the guise of a poor beggar. The important message of such stories is, of course, that the loving and healing presence of God is in all, and that we are called to recognize and celebrate the manifestation of this sacred, transforming presence in our own lives and in the lives of others.

Sounds simple, I know. But it can be a difficult message to absorb and allow to inform our lives and our dealings with others – especially those with whom we may find ourselves in disagreement.

I was reminded of such stories when I read two reflections on the recent national conference of the Courage apostolate. Courage, as I’m sure many of you know, is a ministry of the Roman Catholic Church that purports to help people move beyond “same-sex attraction” by encouraging a life of “interior chastity in union with Christ.” The movement labels itself a “pro-chastity ministry,” and equates chastity with celibacy.

Although Courage acknowledges that the “inclination” of “homosexual attractions” is “psychological understandable,” such attractions are nevertheless considered “objectively disordered” – a view promulgated by the hierarchical church.

Courage discourages the use of the term “gay,” believing it reduces individuals to their “sexual attractions” and carries with it a whole set of ideological commitments – “commitments” defined by Courage and which (surprise, surprise!) reflect many of the stereotypes associated with gay people – in particular, gay men.

Instead of “gay,” the term “same-sex attracted” is employed by the Courage movement to describe and talk about the homosexual orientation – which, when you think about it, doesn’t make a lot of sense. After all, the term “same-sex attracted” does a far better job reducing people to their sexual attractions than does the word “gay”!

And of course, as I’ve noted in a previous post, it’s ludicrous to think that the term “same-sex attraction” and its substitution for the word “gay,” doesn’t itself connote certain ideological commitments. For proponents of the Courage apostolate, chief among these “commitments” is an unquestioning obedience to the Magisterium, i.e., the teaching ability and authority of the Pope and those bishops in union with him.

Anyway, two online reflections on the recent Courage conference in Chicago got me thinking. Both of these comments can be found here on Terry Nelson’s blogsite, Abbey Roads 2.

In the first of these reflections, Terry himself opines that: “Most young guys aren’t ready for chastity [by which he means celibacy], not to mention leaving the homosexual lifestyle [which he equates to promiscuity], until they get a bit older and their ‘market’ value has been undermined somewhat – or they just got tired of the gay scene [read: promiscuity, again]. That is not to say there is not an authentic conversion involved, it is just more difficult for a younger guy to imagine a life-long commitment to a life of chastity and devotion, as a viable alternative to the hedonistic gay culture.”


Somewhere in Between

The first thing that struck me as I read Terry Nelson’s reflection was that like many who oppose the idea (let alone the reality) of two consenting adults of the same gender being sexual active together, he seems only able to think in terms of extremes: celibacy and hedonism.

What he is proposing, or perhaps better yet, wishfully thinking, is that gay men (lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender folks barely get a look-in!) will have a Damascus Road-type experience and go from the “hedonistic gay culture” to a “life-long commitment to chastity and devotion.” He’s anticipating that when they get old and flabby and can no longer get laid, they’ll jump ship from that gay pleasure cruise and swim to the rock of Daddy Church (you’ll understand the use of this metaphor in a minute!). In short, Nelson, whether conscious of it or not, expects gay men to jump from one extreme to another.

Yet what he and others seem to forget is that most gay men (indeed, most people – regardless of orientation) live their lives quite happily and productively somewhere in between these extremes. And I think that’s both good and healthy – physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

My experience has been that both of these extremes can, in their own ways, be oppressive and life-denying. I think there’s great wisdom in Diarmuid Ó Murchú’s contention that it is only the reclaiming of human sexuality’s “essentially spiritual and humanizing affect” that can “demolish both the repression and oppression that dominate the world today.” And this reclaiming – both on the personal and societal levels – can’t be facilitated by extremist voices and positions. Rather, I agree with writer Doris Lessing when she says that it is the “cool, quiet, sensible low-keyed tone of voice which . . . can produce truth.”

That aspects of both extremes presented by Nelson can be oppressive makes sense in light of Ó Murchú’s observation that “the gross pornographic acting-out [Nelson’s only understanding (experience?) of the “gay lifestyle”], on the one hand, and the secret inner guilt-ridden turmoil [encouraged to varying degrees by movements like Courage], on the other, are each the product of the same repressive regime, and one is as violent and destructive as the other. In fact, it is “the inner repression that often fuels the projections that feed . . . sexual pornography” – and addiction, I would add.

I sensed this during conversations with some of the male attendees at the 2003 Courage conference in St. Paul, an event which I’ve written about in some detail here.


A sense of integration

Elsewhere in his commentary, Nelson notes that many who have become dissatisfied with our sexualized culture are realizing “the futility of using promiscuous behavior in a search for love, and friendship through sexual intimacy in order stave off the pain of lonely isolation.” I have no doubt this is true. I also think the gaining of this type of awareness can be understood as an almost archetypal journey or “right of passage” for each one of us.

Yet for Nelson, for this “right of passage” to be truly “life-giving” for gay people, it can only direct them to the exit marked “celibacy.” I would argue, however, that although celibacy may be a viable choice for some, it’s not one that is practical or indeed healthy for the majority of people. No, what many, if not most of us discover is that what alleviates the burdens of human existence and enhances our life journey is a healthy acceptance and integration of one’s sexuality, and a cultivation of a range of interpersonal relationships – including sexual relationships.

I agree wholeheartedly with one of the “witnesses” in Thomas Stevenson’s book, Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men, when he says that: “Whatever your sexual orientation is about . . . there ought to be a sense of integration. You ought to have a sense that [your sexuality] informs how you think about things and it gives you a certain energy with which you can change the world or make life better for yourself or your family . . . And that’s what sexuality is for; it’s supposed to be life giving.”

Celibacy for most people is not experienced as “life-giving.” Christopher Evans has written eloquently of the misguided attempts by some to insist that gay people, by virtue of simply being gay, are automatically called to celibacy. For excerpts of his writings on this topic, see the previous Wild Reed post, Thoughts on Celibacy (Part I).


In the arms of “Father”

As well as his own thoughts on Courage, Nelson also shared the following from a man who attended the recent Courage conference in Chicago:

You should have seen the way [Father] held the men at the conference during the healing service. Grown men wept for sadness turned to joy, burying their faces in the crook of his arm, as he held them tightly – one arm wrapped round their shoulder, the other on the back of their head, pressing them close. And the look. The look of his face. A deep well of love. Not a trace of movability or sentimentality. Chiseled in stone but warm to the touch. I think of him and he warms me. He wows me entirely. And it’s because of the Spirit of Christ that lives within him.

Yes, I know, some would have a field day with this – going places with it that, to be honest, I’m not that interested in going, despite the fact that it readily lends itself to some interesting analysis.

Regardless, the reality is that on a very deep level this recollection of acceptance and healing is profoundly beautiful. It reminds me of one of the beautiful images from a series of engravings that Gustave Doré created for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

“Oh Shrieve Me, Holy Man” by Gustave Doré

Those who espouse Courage’s understanding of homosexuality see themselves, in a way, cursed like the mariner of Coleridge’s epic tale. The albatross around their neck is their homosexuality. Their “same-sex attractions” are experienced as a burden, a cross that they must bear. It’s a way of thinking that I briefly embraced as a young adult, so I know the power, the allure of that type of experience depicted in Doré’s image for a gay person growing up within the Roman Catholic Church.

When one is made to feel in some way “less than,” inferior; and told by a powerful and imposing hierarchical structure that one’s inner core of being is “objectively disordered,” then it is very easy to be convinced that the saving presence and voice of God is incapable of being discerned within one’s own “disordered” and corrupted self.

Thinking in this way, one can become very susceptible to the promises of acceptance and “healing” from authority figures and structures outside of oneself. Who doesn’t want to feel as though they belong? Indeed, one will readily believe in one’s intrinsic disposition to “sinfulness,” view oneself as a martyr, and pledge unquestioning obedience to the hierarchical structure that promises forgiveness and “healing” if that’s what it takes to experience acceptance and belonging.

Sadly, the Roman Catholic Church has a very long and successful history of manipulating people’s deepest human needs and, in so doing, ensuring that they think and behave like “good little children.”

Yet can such a way of being facilitate adult faith formation? It wasn’t long before I realized that it couldn’t and it doesn’t. To quote again the words of Diarmuid Ó Murchú, I “began to leave behind a religious infantilism and grow up – often painfully – into the freedom and courage that belong to the children of God.” And strange as it may seem to some, it was my experience of studying at various Catholic colleges and universities that, in part, helped me in my faith development, my spiritual “growing up.”

But I digress. Back now to the experience of the Courage conference attendee. As I’ve readily acknowledged, it’s a powerful and beautiful testimony on the part of this particular individual. Yet it’s one that also raises some important questions that as a “grown up” spiritual person, I cannot ignore.

For a start, after he quotes the conference attendee’s words on his blogsite, Nelson is quick to stress that “the priest cited here is obviously not gay” [emphasis his]. Hmm, I wonder: why “obviously”? And if it’s so obvious, why is there even a need to insist that he’s “not gay” in the first place?

Nelson continues by declaring that “[the priest’s] embrace of the men in the healing service demonstrates his chaste love and security in his own masculinity, and of course, his priesthood.” Nelson sure is going to an awful lot of trouble to reassure us that there’s nothing “gay” about this particular priest!

Of course, perhaps it’s understandable. After all, as a friend of mine pointed out, change a few words and the attendee’s description of the “healing service” could easily describe an S&M encounter – complete with that particular sub-culture’s penchant for total submission and “big daddy” figures.

One can only wonder if the man relating this experience would have had the some profound experience of healing if it wasn’t another man holding him.

Elsewhere, the conference attendee is adamant that for him, this particular priest is “Jesus with skin.” Is it any wonder that some of the most vocal opponents of female ordination are “same-sex attracted” men? I used to think it was simply because they were so unquestionably obedient to the Magisterium. Yet now I wonder if there’s not something deeper going on.

In reality, we’re all called to be “Jesus with skin.” That this particular individual is seemingly incapable of experiencing God’s transforming presence and touch through the embrace (non-gay in his case, of course!) of another man, apart from the priest in question, or the embrace, say, of a woman, is quite sad.


In the arms of one’s beloved

Many gay Catholics experience the transforming and healing presence of Christ in and through the loving embrace of their partners – and, yes, by that I mean their sexual partners.

These experiences can be just as healing and nourishing as the loving embrace of the priest described by the Courage conference attendee.

“Michael S.,” for instance, one of the gay Catholic men interviewed for Thomas Stevenson’s book, Sons of the Church, relates the following:

I like it when [my partner and I] pray together . . . It still feels a little odd to us. But when we’ve done that it’s been really good. And I even heard a story about a couple that would occasionally pray before they had sex. And we did that and it really turns out nice. It’s sex that’s very giving. All of a sudden you’re doing it with a blessing over you or with a higher purpose in life.

And then there’s this beautiful and profound experience of God’s presence discerned in the life of a gay man named Joe. In the following excerpt from Sons of the Church, Joe shares the response he received from God in relation to his deliberations about whether or not he should commit to Leo, the man he loves, or become a monk. Here’s part of “the Lord’s answer” to Joe’s prayers:

Joseph, I love you with every fiber of my being. I love you whether you are gay or straight . . . In the midst of problems and questions, I exist in you. Through it all, I am here with you. Joseph, you asked me what you were to do with Leo and the idea of being a monk. In both cases I gave you an answer. Remember and relive it. I told you to find me in Leo . . . And I also told you I will make you holy in the world. Both answers, my son, are still valid. You have what others desire, a relationship that is based on love and affection. Leo loves you and is faithful to you. You also love Leo in spite of your fears and ambiguities. You are not a celibate, Joseph, and I didn’t ordain you to be. Stop worrying about a lifestyle that isn’t yours. Again, I ask you, how many have what you have? Not many. Grow together with Leo. Develop each other’s strengths and forgive each other’s weaknesses. I live in him, Joseph, and I live in you, too. I bless your relationship and I have ordained it to be a vehicle for your salvation, wholeness, and growth.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there are many gay people who have had similar experiences of hearing, from deep within, the loving, transforming voice of God. I know I have. And it can and has led many to not only accept their homosexuality as a gift from God, but to also share this gift by seeking, building and sustaining a loving, committed relationship with another of the same gender – a relationship that, over time, comes to embody the fruits of the Spirit: faith, hope, love, patience, forgiveness, fortitude, kindness, generosity.

Such relationships between gay men can and do involve a sexual dimension or, as Christopher Evans says in one of his reflections, “penis display.”

“Relationship” by Raphael Perez

Evans goes on to note that: “Penis display in such relationships . . . becomes a sign not of death, of domination and appropriation of the other man for the shoring up of our fragile selves [all of which are popular contentions by groups such as Courage], but quite the opposite. Penis display puts us at risk. Penis display makes us vulnerable. Penis display becomes a way of being naked before G-d and one another rather than forming ourselves in rivalry. We are naked before the other man, being held and known, embraced, reminding us that our true self comes from being receptive and responsive to G-d and giving thanks for one another and that ours is a G-d of embrace. That we are not rivals, but brothers, lovers, friends in Christ.”

When will the Vatican permit its teachings on human sexuality to be informed by such loving and Spirit-filled relationships?

I wonder what it will take for the Courage folks to recognize Christ’s presence in the lives and relationships of their non-celibate gay brothers and sisters?

When will we realize that the healing love we receive when in the arms of “Father,” can also be received when in the arms of our lover?

When will we celebrate, my friends, the liberating truth that the healing and transforming embrace of God can and does come in many guises, many manifestations?

“Home” by Steve Walker

Come to me,
let me put my arms around you.
This was meant to be,
and I’m oh-so-glad I found you.
Need you every day,
got to have your love around me.
Yes, always stay,
’cause I can’t go back
to living without you.

“Come to Me”
by Rodney L. Temperton
and recorded by Judy Stone

See also the related Wild Reed posts:
Thoughts on Celibacy (Part I)
Thoughts on Celibacy (Part II)
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)
Trusting God’s Generous Invitation
When “Guidelines” Lack Guidance
Be Not Afraid: You Can Be Happy and Gay
Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men - A Discussion Guide
The Catholic Church and Gays: An Excellent Historical Overview
Keeping the Spark Alive
The Dreaded “Same-sex Attracted” View of Catholicism
Truth Telling: The Greatest of Sins in a Dysfunctional Church
Joan Timmerman on the “Wisdom of the Body”
Our Catholic “Stonewall Moment”
To Whom the Future of the Catholic Church Belongs
The Triumph of Love: An Easter Reflection
The Non-Negotiables of Human Sex

Thoughts on Celibacy (Part II)

The Wild Reed’s exploration of celibacy continues with excerpts from Catholic theologian Diarmuid Ó Murchú’s book, Poverty, Celibacy, and Obedience: A Radical Option for Life.

In these excerpts, Ó Murchú examines how “consecrated celibacy in all the religious traditions is based on a spurious understanding of human sexuality” – one that is “fundamentally violent to both God and people.”

Specifically, Ó Murchú identifies and analyzes the “patriarchal reductionism” of sexuality – a “darkness of ignorance and superstition [that] may well be the greatest violence the world has known.”

_________________________________________

In all the great monastic systems, celibacy denotes single-mindedness, an unencumbered devotion to God and to the development of the spiritual life. Implicit in this ideal is a cultural antagonism toward sexuality as something that is a fundamentally alien to God and to spiritual growth. The assumption seems to be that spiritual growth and sexual fulfillment do not blend well together.

Consecrated celibacy in all the religious traditions is based on a spurious understanding of human sexuality, one I suggest that is fundamentally violent to both God and people. Sexuality is portrayed as belonging to the unruly passions and instincts which distract from the things of God. Sexuality is about pleasure and joy, which strangely we find unable to attribute to God and to God’s creativity in the world.

And this leads us to deeper considerations. Sex in itself is not just the problem. There are several religious hang-ups around the human body and its God-given processes. The body tends to be dualistically opposed to both the soul and the spirit. The body is deemed to be earthy, materialistic, prone to sin, an obstacle to the workings of divine grace. Consequently, the discipline and subjugation of the body plays a major role in early Christian asceticism and indeed in the monastic systems of all the great religions. Since sexuality is an integral dimension of our embodied existence the alienation of the body in the name of spiritual growth further convolutes the anti-sexual polemic that was already quite virulent.

Since the unfolding spiritual vision was very much the product of men and male thought patterns, it is not surprising that the female body and female sexuality became the primary and greatest casualty of this violent spirituality. Ironically, women, despite all their deficiencies, were deemed to be capable of strong sexual allurement, and their sexuality, more so than that of men, was deemed to be particularly unruly. The consequences are all too obvious even in the contemporary world. And the final aspect of this strange quagmire is the body of the earth itself; that, too, was to be shunned and spurned. Those called to the vowed celibate life were to flee the world, abandon it, and hate it as much as possible. The world, the flesh, and the devil all belonged to the one despicable package. Only a radical denial of all three, especially in the sexual realm, could guarantee entrance into life eternal.

Up until recent times we assumed that the anti-sexual polemic was inherent to religion generally and to Christianity in particular. This is the way God ordained things (although for centuries people have suspected that this was not the case), and to question the package is to deny divine revelation itself. So we developed spiritual strategies to cope (and allegedly grow in grace); we offered it up in sacrificial obedience to the will of God, and the more heroic we were in discipline and asceticism the greater would be our reward in the life to come.

For much of the Christian era, we were neither encouraged nor allowed to ask questions. Christian subservience required total and unquestioned submission, until people began to realize that that was more about man’s (literally) way of doing things rather than God’s. People at all levels of religious adherence began to adopt “a hermeneutic of suspicion.” We began to leave behind a religious infantilism and grow up – often painfully – into the freedom and courage that belong to the children of God.

A liberating option and, at times, a frightening one! Particularly frightening as one begins to realize that even God himself/herself has also been subjected to patriarchal brainwashing. We begin to realize that formal religion may be more of a human invention than a divine creation. We discover, thanks to several breakthroughs of modern science, that God has been creatively at work in the world for billions of years, yet religions construe the divine revelation as if it all happened merely in the past few thousand years. The extent to which formal religion has kept people in the darkness of ignorance and superstition may well be the greatest violence the world has known in the past five thousand years.

And as we unveil the ancient spiritual story of our human and earthly evolution, we reconnect with powerful spiritual movements that resonate deep in our primitive soul. We reconnect with the sacredness of our earth, with the female face of God known to humans for over thirty thousand years during Paleolithic times, with the creative unfolding of God displayed in cycles and seasons of both the earthly and human body, and, finally, with sexuality, the primary source of ecstatic energy considered to be the core of God’s own prodigious fertility.

Along comes religion, the final invention of the patriarchal will-to-power, and out goes all that had been happening for over thirty thousand years with the focus on the Great Earth Mother Goddess. That was the “paganism” that formal religion sought to eliminate. Little wonder that humanity today finds itself in the depths of alienation; little wonder that people in their thousands are flocking out of the mainstream religions.

_________________________________

In Part III of “Thoughts on Celibacy,” Diarmuid Ó Murchú’s suggestions for “undoing” patriarchy’s “violent subversion” of sexuality will be presented, along with his contention that “the integrity and authenticity of the call to celibacy is not dependent upon the ascetical ability to forego sexual engagement,” but upon a “quality of engagement” – emotionally and spiritually – with “the major sexual questions of our time.” Such engagement, insists Ó Murchú, will ensure that we touch “the very depths of sexual aestheticism,” and will call for the “vow of relatedness.”

For Part I of “Thoughts on Celibacy,” click here.


For more of Diarmuid Ó Murchú’s insights, see the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Authentic Catholicism: The Antidote to Clericalism
• Reflections on Babel and the ‘Borders Within’

Recommended Off-site Link:
• Diarmuid Ó Murchú’s website

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Non-negotiables of Human Sex
• The Sexuality of Jesus
• Joan Timmerman on the “Wisdom of the Body”
• In the Garden of Spirituality: Joan Timmerman

Opening Image: “Eitan” by Raphael Perez, who generously allows his artwork to be used for free and for any use other than commercial. To view more of Raphael’s artwork on The Wild Reed, visit Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men – A Discussion Guide.

Roman Catholic Womenpriests Ordained in Minneapolis

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Each one of you is a child of God because of your faith in Christ Jesus. All of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or citizen, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus. Furthermore, if you belong to Christ, you are the offspring of Sarah and Abraham, which means you inherit all that was promised.

Galatians 3: 26-29

Yesterday I had the honor of attending and participating in the ordination of three women to the deaconate, and two women to the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church.

This historic event comprised the first Roman Catholic Womenpriests Midwest region ordination to the priesthood. To date, the Vatican has failed to recognize such ordinations.

In welcoming the 200+ people in attendance, Rev. Joan Houk observed that: “Today, in the ordination of deacons and priests, we continue in the renewal of our first Christian traditions and we celebrate the fact that Jesus invited women as well as men to become leaders . . . And just as Jesus promised, he is still with us and will continue to send the Spirit, Wisdom-Sophia, to dwell with us and lead us forward in being Church in a way that is faithful to the original intent of our brother, Jesus, the Christ.”



Above: At left in this photograph stand the three women who were ordained into the deaconate. From left: Kathy Redig, Elsie Hainz McGrath, and Rose Marie Dunn Hudson.

At right are the two women who were ordained into the priesthood. From left: Judith McKloskey and Alice Marie Iaquinta.



Above: Yesterday’s ordination liturgy in Minneapolis was presided over by Bishop Patricia Fresen (third from left).

In a March 2006 interview, Bishop Fresen remarked: “We believe that the sacrament we have received, the sacrament of orders, is valid because it has been passed onto us by some male bishops, who we cannot name for their protection. These men are willing to pass on what we call the ‘apostolic succession’.”

Concelebrating with Bishop Fresen at yesterday’s ordination were (from left) Rev. Dagmar Celeste Braun, Rev. Regina Nicolosi, and Rev. Joan Houk.

“We are blessed to live in a time when there is a great paradigm shift in human consciousness,” said Bishop Fresen in her homily. “We have come to understand that racism, classism, and sexism are some of the terrible forms of human discrimination that must be eradicated. And one of the aims of ordaining women is to claim justice for women who have been discriminated against in our beloved Church.”

“When we are in Christ Jesus,” Bishop Fresen reminded those present, “we find our human dignity and equality. And racism and sexism, and classism, and all those other dreadful ‘isms’ lose their meaning. It is baptism that is the great equalizer because it is when we are baptized that we become ‘in Christ Jesus.’ We are the Body of Christ. We are Church.”



Above: The ordinands vow obedience not to “the bishop,” but to God.

“The foundation of our ordination,” declared Bishop Fresen , “is baptism, not gender.”

“It is unjust that there are seven sacraments for men, and only six for women,” said Bishop Fresen. “Women and men are created equal by God and we equally represent Christ. Representing Christ, standing in the person of Christ surely does not depend on having a male body. Being Christ-like is bringing good news to the poor, healing broken hearts, proclaiming release to captives, comforting those who mourn.”



“As I go around the United States,” said the South African-born Bishop Fresen, “I meet hundreds, even thousands of people who are moving out of the center of the Church to the edges . . . So many people are ‘fallen-away Catholics,’ or ‘driven-away Catholics’ . . .[Yet] it is in the margins that we find ourselves and [where we] are changing the Church. Change will not come from the top. The change is coming from people like us . . . a prophetic community . . . present [here today] and supporting this movement of justice for women in the Church. The Spirit never ceases to call women and men to incarnate the dream of God for a world of justice and equality.”

Bishop Fresen also spoke of the support she’s sensed and experienced from some within the male-dominated Catholic hierarchy: “Let us be mindful,” she said, “that there are bishops and priests in the Catholic Church who support and long for many reforms in the Church, including women’s ordination.”



Above: My friend Judith being ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

Later those previously selected by the ordinands came forward in silence to lay hands on them as representatives of the whole community. I was honored to be invited by Judith to be one of these “representatives” and thus participate in yesterday’s ordination in this very special way.

In her homily, Bishop Fresen provided some historical perspective to the ordination of women in the Catholic Church: “Jesus went against some of the laws and customs of his time with regards to women. No self-respecting Jew of Jesus’ time would ever have spoken in public to a woman who was not one of his relatives. But Jesus does this often. Jesus invited women to be disciples and apostles. We call Mary of Magdala, “Apostle to the Apostles.” And there is another one mentioned in Romans 16, Junius, whose name was later made into a male name because she was called an apostle by Paul.”

“In the early Church,” says Bishop Fresen, “we know that women and men presided at Eucharist. We know from some very scholarly research by people such as Dr. Dorothy Irvin, that there were women who were deacons, bishops, and priests for many, many centuries.

“It was only after the twelfth century, when the first canon law code was compiled, that women were officially excluded from ministry as priests . . . . Corruption and dysfunction in our beloved Church [has resulted from this exclusion]. Yet [the Church] is our family, the family that we love. And we want to work for a renewed ministry within a renewed Church.”



Above: Bishop Patricia Fresen (center) with newly ordained womenpriests, Rev. Judith McKloskey and Rev. Alice Marie Iaquinta – Minneapolis, August 12, 2007.



Above: Pictured with my friend Judith McKloskey at the dinner that followed her ordination.

Will you come and follow me
if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
should your life attract or scare?
And will you let me answer prayer
in you and you in me?

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
to reshape the world around?
Thus I’ll move and live and grow
in you and you in me.

Excerpted from The Summons
by John L. Bell
(Iona Community, 1987)

8/27/07 Update: Andy Birkey has referred to The Wild Reed’s coverage of the August 12 ordination in Minneapolis. His story (along with one of my photographs of the event and a quote I gave him) has been published online at Minnesota Monitor and Twin Cities Daily Planet.

There’s also good coverage at Women’s E-News.


Recommended Off-site Links:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests
Women-Church Convergence
Women’s Ordination Conference
“Some Women Seeking Ordination Won’t Wait for Church’s OK” - National Catholic Reporter, January 27, 2006.
“The Defiant Deacon” - Minnesota Women's Press, December 2005.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Reflections on The Da Vinci Code Controversy
Thoughts on The Da Vinci Code
The Sexuality of Jesus

Images 1-7: Michael Bayly
Image 8: David McCaffrey