The Return of Maxwell

Last night my friend LeMonté and I attended a concert by soul singer Maxwell at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis.

It was a great evening of music, and I intend writing more about it and sharing additional images from it at a later date.

Maxwell was a key voice in R&B’s neo-soul era of the late 1990’s but has been on a hiatus since the release of his 2001 album, Now.

Yet his back making music with his current U.S. tour and his forthcoming album, Black Summer’s Night, the first of a trilogy that will be released over the next three years.

Following is an Associated Press video story about Maxwell’s return. Enjoy!





Recommended Off-site Link:
A Review of Maxwell’s Wallingford, Connecticut Concert - Thomas Kintner (Hartford Courant, October 12, 2008).

Images: Michael Bayly.

Explaining Michelle Bachmann to the Brits

Michael Tomasky is an American correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Recently he wrote a commentary to his British readers explaining recent remarks by U.S. Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (pictured above). Speaking on a US cable network station, Bachmann expressed concerns that the views of Barack Obama, along with other members of the US Congress, may be “anti-American.” (Interestingly, Bachmann failed to articulate what constitutes an anti-American view or who gets to judge if a view is in fact anti-American or not.)

Following is an excerpt from Tomasky’s piece in The Guardian about Michelle Bachmann.

_____________________________

. . . I know you’ve got your xenophobes just like we do. But trust me. You don’t have a right wing that’s anything like our right wing.

This point was proved most dramatically by a woman named Michele Bachmann, a member of Congress from Minnesota. In an interview last Friday on Hardball, a leading US cable talk show, host Chris Matthews asked Bachmann whether Obama worried her. “Absolutely. I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views,” she said. He asked her what she thought distinguished liberal from hard left from anti-American. If she maintains such distinctions in her mind, she refused to acknowledge them. Then, finally, Matthews - who deftly fed her the rope to hang herself - asked her how many members of the US Congress held, in her view, anti-American views.

It’s been almost a two-year [presidential] campaign. There have been moments we’ve thought of as memorable, only to see the tide of events erase their mark from the sand. Bachmann’s answer, however, will live imperishably: “What I would say – what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an exposé like that.”

Before we go any further – who is this Bachmann? She’s a first-term backbencher from exurban Minneapolis who says the Lord told her to run for Congress. She declared herself “a fool for Christ” in 2006 when she announced her candidacy. By all accounts she’s down with the whole rightwing Christian package: immigrants bring disease and pestilence, homosexuals want to indoctrinate straight children, and so on. Republican leadership undoubtedly pushed her out on to television because she is, as you Brits say, a looker – at least by the standards of Congress.

The call for an investigation into the beliefs of every federal lawmaker, and an exposé of those found wanting in their patriotism, certainly takes us into deeply creepy territory. I would not call Bachmann herself a fascist. Odd as it sounds, to do so would be to grant her far too much credit. For one to embrace an -ism, even a repugnant one, one needs to have read a certain amount of history and political philosophy. Bachmann is just an idiot. She wouldn’t know Edmund Burke from Billie Burke (she played the good witch in the Wizard of Oz), and she obviously has no idea that, in her rejection of the two bedrock American principles of separation of church and state and freedom of thought, she is the one who is as anti-American as they come.

But friends, all is not darkness. Bachmann’s appearance caused a national uproar. Colin Powell, in endorsing Obama yesterday, said of Bachmann’s comments that “we have got to stop this kind of nonsense and pull ourselves together.” Her Democratic opponent raised nearly half a million dollars from around the country in just 24 hours, and he now has a chance of beating her.

That would be nice. But let’s go back to the big contest. With Bachmann, the lid came off the rightwing id. It will happen many more times over these next two weeks. McCain, now openly using the word “socialist” to describe Obama’s proposals (the week after his friend George W Bush took federal control of nine major banks!), and especially Palin have shown every sign of encouraging it. Their goal is to scare Americans about Obama, but moderate, independent voters might well decide that Obama looks a lot less scary than they do.

___________________________________

An additional piece of information about Michelle Bachmann: her husband is an evangelical Christian psychotherapist with a practice in Woodbury, MN. One of his specialties is “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, the theory and practice that treats homosexuality as a pathology, as a disorder that can be “repaired” and changed.

According to Laura Billings of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Bachmann’s husband was one of a number of presenters at the November 10, 2005 Pastors’ Summit in Eden Prairie, MN.

Wrote Billings: “[M]ore than 300 religious leaders gathered at the Minnesota Pastors’ Summit at a suburban mega-church to figure out how to keep gay people from getting married to each other. They attended interesting seminars of their own, including one led by Sen. Michele Bachmann’s therapist husband, which promised to reveal ‘the truth of the homosexual lifestyle.’”

The Pastors’ Summit was actively endorsed by the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Minnesota. In response, Catholic Rainbow Parents sent a letter to the priests and deacons of the archdiocese, part of which reads as follows:

As Catholic parents, we can no longer stand by and watch as our Church leaders feign ecumenical interests while openly working to disparage our [gay] children and to deny their rights in the name of God and Jesus – the same Jesus who demanded that we love God and each other as God loves us.

Some of you have already decided not to participate in this summit and for this we applaud your conviction. To the rest, we ask that you refuse to go or if you feel you must be there, to please break the conspiracy of silence that endorses discrimination in the name of religion.

As it turned out, very few priests ended up attending the summit. To read the Catholic Rainbow Parents’ letter in his entirety, click here.

Thanks to my friend Rick who first alerted me to Tomasky piece via his always informative blogsite, South Lyndale.


Recommended Off-site Links:
Does Michelle Bachmann Even Know When She’s Stepped In It? - Brian Lambert (Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine, October 19, 2008).
Suddenly, Bachmann Race Looks Different - Pat Doyle (Star Tribune, October 20, 2008)
Bachmann: Obama Comments “Misconstrued” - United Press International (October 20, 2008).
Colin Powell Endorses Obama: Growing Ruling Class Consensus Behind Democratic Candidate - Barry Grey (World Socialist Web Site, October 20, 2008).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Obama, Ayers, the “S” Word, and the “Most Politically Backward Layers in America”
In Curtailing “Red Meat Rhetoric,” McCain is Booed by Supporters
As Obama Campaign Gain Momentum, FOX News Goes Into “Oh, Crap!” Mode
”Clichés and Tired Attack Lines”
Sarah Palin and the Rove-Cheney Cabal
Holding McCain Accountable to His Falsehoods
The Shadow is Real
It Won’t Last
All Those Community Organizers? Who Needs Them!
Sarah Palin’s “Theocratic Fascist” Affiliations
Progressives and Obama (Part 1)
Progressives and Obama (Part 2)
Progressives and Obama (Part 3)
Progressives and Obama (Part 4)
Progressives and Obama (Part 5)
Historic (and Wild!)
An American Prayer

Image: Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., explains the need for more oil drilling and production during a July 7, 2008 news conference. (Minnesota Public Radio Photo/Tim Pugmire)

Same-Sex Marriage: Still Very Much on the Archbishop’s Mind

The October issue of The Progressive Catholic Voice was published last week and contains a number of interesting features, including:

• Part One of the video documentary we’re making about the history and future of the Spirit of St. Stephen’s Catholic Community.

• A review by Connie Aligada of Ida Raming’s A History of Women and Ordination – Volume 2: The Priestly Office of Women: God’s Gift to a Renewed Church.

• And, just in time for November 4’s presidential election, a Resource Guide and Reading List for Catholic Voters.

In addition, Paula Ruddy reports on Archbishop Nienstedt’s August 28 meeting with 200 priests and deacons of the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese to discuss the subject of . . . same-sex marriage!

You know, I can’t tell you how many local Catholics - gay and straight - have shared with me how relieved they are that Nienstedt is “laying off” the gay issue - especially after his active support (when Bishop of New Ulm) of a 2005-06 proposed amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution (that would have barred any form of legal recognition for same-sex couples and their families), and his controversial statements (as Archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis) last November.

Well, there may have been no recent public outbursts, but as Paula’s article clearly shows, the gay issue (and same-sex marriage in particular) is still very much on the archbishop’s mind. And in a renewed campaign to influence civil law and deny gay couples the right to civil marriage, Archbishop Nienstedt wants to make the issue of same-sex marriage a primary one for the priests and deacons of the archdiocese as well.

Paula’s article is reprinted in its entirety below.

___________________________

The Fight of Their Lives
Archbishop Nienstedt rallies the priests and deacons
of the archdiocese to “fight” against same-sex marriage
at the state and national level.

By Paula Ruddy

The Progressive Catholic Voice
October 2008

Would you have pictured a meeting of the archdiocesan priests and deacons with their new archbishop as a genial get-together of the brotherhood? There would be lots of affable greeting, talking and laughing before they settled down to a serious exchange of views about the announced topic, the sacrament of marriage. They would be serious because some research shows that as many as one in five Catholic marriages end in divorce.

According to our sources, the meeting on marriage scheduled by Archbishop John C. Nienstedt for August 28, 2008, at St John the Baptist Parish in New Brighton had been announced as just such an opportunity for priests and deacons to get together for discussion in between the every two-year presbyterate meetings that are customary in the Archdiocese. About 200 priests and deacons attended.

Instead of being about sacramental marriage, however, the meeting was almost entirely about homosexuality and same-sex civil marriage. There were four speakers to present the well-known moral position of the Roman Catholic Church on same-gender sex and partnering.

Instead of discussion, there was a Q&A period during which priests were asked to write their questions and submit them to the speakers. The opportunity to talk to one another was limited, as one priest put it, to asking: “How’s your chicken sandwich?” At the end, according to our sources, the Archbishop told the priests to ready themselves for the fight of their lives against legal recognition of same-sex partnerships.

Several of the priests and deacons we spoke to expressed dismay at having been misled about the subject matter of the meeting and the lack of opportunity for discussion. Two were reported to have left in disappointment. One said he felt like he had been “duped.” One priest said, “I was embarrassed to hear what we were hearing and to sit together with my priest friends and do nothing. But it just didn’t feel like anything we could say or do would make a difference.”

To obtain information on the meeting agenda, we called Dennis McGrath, Archdiocesan Communications Director. He said no information was available through his office. We got the following information from printed materials the speakers at the meeting provided to clergy in attendance and from the internet.

The first speaker was Dr. Janet E. Smith, guest lecturer at the St Paul Seminary during the current term, and a professor of moral theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. She is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family. A search of the internet does not reveal where Dr. Smith went to school or received her training.

Our sources said Dr. Smith’s presentation had been announced as “Marriage from the Perspective of Canon Law.” Her handout, however, was entitled, “The Natural Law Argument Against Homosexual ‘Unions’.” In an attempt to define what is “human,” Dr. Smith wrote that humanity is characterized by “living in community, seeking knowledge (art, music, sports), and worshipping God.” Humans live “in a rational way.” Examples were “eating in a rational way (plates, utensils); having sex in a rational way (married).” Inexplicably, she also noted that “Everyone is disordered sexually; chastity is a challenge for everyone.”

Other speakers were Dr. John C. Cavadini, Reverend Michael Prieur, and Professor Teresa S. Collett.

John C. Cavadini is Associate Professor of Theology, and Chair of the Theology Department at the Unversity of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. He received his B.A. in 1975 from Wesleyan University; an M.A. in 1979 from Marquette University; and his Ph.D.in 1988 from Yale University. Dr. Cavadini’s lecture was entitled “Marriage from the Perspective of Church.” Contacted by phone, Dr. Cavadini said he did not have a written copy of the lecture.

Fr. Michael Prieur, who graduated from St. Peter’s Seminary, London, Ontario, in 1965, obtained his Doctorate in Theology from the Pontificio Ateneo di S. Anselmo in Rome in 1969. As a professor of Moral and Sacramental Theology at St. Peter’s Seminary for over thirty-five years, he has specialized in Bioethics, the Sacrament of Marriage, and the Art of the Confessor. He is Coordinator of the Permanent Deacon Program for the Diocese of London.

Fr. Prieur’s subject was “The Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ Issue in Canada: What Happened?” Fr. Prieur warned against allowing the issue of legalizing homosexual unions as civil marriages to be framed in “rights” language. That is what happened in Canada, he said, and it led to some lower courts holding that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms required recognition of same sex civil marriage.

The relevant passage in the Charter reads: “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. (Section 15 (1)) The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was embedded in the Canadian Constitution in 1982, replacing a Bill of Rights which had been a federal statute since 1960.

After the lower court decisions, instead of appealing, the Canadian government drafted a bill, which the Supreme Court ruled was constitutional, and the Parliament passed. On July 20, 2005, Royal Assent was given to the Civil Marriage Act and it became the law of Canada. It reads: “Marriage, for civil purposes, is the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.” The Act also “recognizes that officials of religious groups are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.”

The problem with framing the question in “rights” language, according to Fr. Prieur, is that it “totally bypasses looking at the institution of marriage in any ontological sense, rooted in the ‘givens’ of creation and objective reality.” He did not specify why the government of Canada should view civil marriage in sacramental terms.

In addition to bypassing the sacramental aspects, Fr. Prieur wrote that “rights” based civil marriage bypasses the question of the “common good.” In separating “love” from “procreation,” the primary purpose of marriage, the best interests of children, is overlooked. Fr. Prieur sees the equal protection of same sex civil marriage as possibly resulting in many evils – discrimination against heterosexual marriage, the blurring of all objective differences in relationships, the increase of illness due to anal intercourse and consequent law suits against the government, and the state’s inability to determine criteria for consummation. All of these arguments weigh in on the side of prohibiting same sex civil marriage for the common good in Fr. Prieur’s view.

To avoid the negative consequences to the common good in the US, Fr. Prieur advised the priests to use the media, and to stand up strongly against legalizing same-gender civil marriage. “We may need simply to say: ‘Our teaching about marriage as being between a man and a woman is inherent in creation itself. This is the way God made marriage. It is unchangeable by human beings. And this teaching is on the level of the Creed. This is a teaching for which I am willing to die’.” Emphasis his.

Teresa S. Collett, Professor of Law at the University of St Thomas Law School, gave a presentation, entitled “Marriage & Government, An Uneasy Union.” Professor Collett earned her B.A. at the University of Oklahoma and her J.D. at the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

In her power-point talk, Professor Collett showed the gradual decline of sexual morality from the Middle Ages, when marriage was a matter for ecclesiastical courts, to the present, when civil governments set the criteria for civil marriage. She cited statistics on the “cultural erosion of civil marriage,” including no-fault divorce, creation of legal rights for cohabitants, acceptance of out of wedlock births, and legal recognition of same-sex unions.” The rest of her presentation was on the history of the legal struggle for GLBT rights in the US and particularly in Minnesota. She warned that in 2008 “nineteen state legislators sponsored a bill to include marriage within the Minnesota Human rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and to delete the prohibition of state recognition of marriages between persons of the same sex.”

The bills she may be referring to are Senate File 3880, authored by Senator John Marty, and House File 4248, authored by Representative Phyllis Kahn, providing for gender-neutral marriage laws. The Senate bill is entitled “Marriage and Family Protection Act.” Under the “Legislative Findings” section, the bills declare that the state has an interest in encouraging stable relationships regardless of the gender or sexual orientation of the partners and the entire community benefits when couples undertake the mutual obligations of marriage. The bills also specify that religious institutions are not required to solemnize such marriages.

If anyone has more or more accurate information on this initiative of the Archbishop to influence civil law and would be willing to share with the laity, we would appreciate hearing from you.


Paula Ruddy is a founding member of The Progressive Catholic Voice.

____________________________

Postscript: Archbishop Nienstedt isn’t the only one on the defensive in response to proactive efforts within the civil arena to secure and protect civil marriage rights for same-sex couples. Just today Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten has a piece about the new “Rights of Unmarried Couples Task Force” of the Minnesota State Bar Association – a task force that is reviewing the current state of Minnesota law “in light of the disparity between legal rights and protections available to same-sex couples as compared to different-sex couples.”

Not surprisingly, Kersten opposes any potential recommendations such a review may offer, insisting that existing “legislative attempts at fairness” in states like California and Connecticut have “backfired.” Her solution? All such laws should be repealed.

As is the case with all of Kersten’s writings, their chief benefit can be found in the informed and articulate rebuttals that they generate from readers. Following are examples of such rebuttals from the Star Tribune website.

• Here’s what I took from [Kersten’s] column: There are currently laws in effect that provide some semblance of fairness and equal treatment for all people - even, gasp!, gays. Even more alarming, there are currently government groups working to examine existing laws to determine 1) if they are fair, and 2) if they could be changed to provide more equal treatment than the existing laws. And all this "striving for equality" nonsense is happening unbeknownst to the common man. Can you even believe it? Thank goodness for Katherine Kersten, who has singlehandedly uncovered their actions and exposed their evil plot to promote fairness, a plot that even goes so far as to suggest the use of current laws to possibly pave the way for future laws that would further the cause of fair and equal treatment for all, regardless of sexual orientation. Kersten’s solution? Since current law could “pave the way” for future equal treatment laws, it is better to repeal ALL such laws. Seems as if Kersten shares her beloved fellow Republican John McCain’s views on using a hatchet when a scalpel will do. God (literally) forbid we take a stab at true equality in the 21st century. So much for the separation of church and state (not to mention the American tradition of thoughtful public discourse).

• The 14th Amendment of our Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law for all people. If marriage carries with it legal rights and protections, which it currently does, then it cannot be denied to homosexuals. The solution is that straight people and gay people all have “civil unions” under the LAW and can be "married" or not by their CHURCHES. Just take the word "marriage" out of the laws and replace it with “civil union.” For the record: I’m heterosexual, I’m married, we have kids, and I’m not in the least bit afraid of homosexuals having the same rights that I have.

• We should follow the lead of most other industrialized countries (most of Europe and East Asia), in which only the civil ceremony confers legal status on a marriage and the religious ceremony is optional. Even nowadays, clergy may refuse to perform religious ceremonies for couples who can legally marry according to civil law, such as couples of different faiths or people who have been divorced, if their particular religion forbids it. I’m a Christian myself, and I have gay and lesbian friends who are. I cannot imagine any way in which legalizing their unions actually harms heterosexual marriage. Nobody has ever been able to explain what is "harmed" except their ability to impose the their hang-ups on the whole society.

• The economy is in shambles, people are losing their jobs and houses, the election is just weeks away and Katherine Kersten is still preaching that gay people don’t deserve EQUAL rights. These marriages or civil unions wouldn't even be a blip on the radar if it wasn’t for ignorant, discriminating people like yourself making a big deal about it as often as you do. Just another minority group you wish to stomp on as long as you can. What shameful disregard for human life and God’s children.

• Kersten, like Bachmann, like Palin, like Musgrave, like Harris, embodies the ugliness of the Republican noise machine. They trot out their blather of fear and hatred to try to enrage their donors and scare the voters. It’s bad enough they do this at all, but they do it while pretending it’s what Jesus would do. This year we have seen a complete repudiation of these tactics. Barack Obama has risen above the Kerstens and Palins and Bachmanns and is beginning to move the country beyond this type of politics. These people are about to be completely on the margins as the rest of us enjoy the civil discourse and civic pride in a country led by an Obama-Biden administration.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Archbishop Nienstedt’s “Learning Curve”: A Suggested Trajectory
• Interesting Times Ahead
• An Open Letter to Archbishop Nienstedt
• 300+ People Vigil at Cathedral in Support of LGBT Catholics
• Why We Gathered
• No, Really . . .
• Thoughts on Archbishop Nienstedt
• A Priest’s Courageous Act
• Update on Fr. Geoff Farrow
• Father Geoff Farrow on Proposition 8
• Another Victory in Connecticut
• The Same People
• What Straights Can Learn from Gay Marriage
• Good News from the Golden State
• Love is Love
• The Changing Face of “Traditional Marriage”
• Naming and Confronting Bigotry
• The Real Gay Agenda
• Civil Unions and Christian Tradition
• Separate is Not Equal
• Mainstream Voice of “Dear Abby” Supports Gay Marriage
• New Studies: Gay Couples as Committed as Straight Couples
• Just Love
• This “Militant Secularist” Wants to Marry a Man
• Good News from Minnesota

Progressives and Obama (Part 5)

In the October issue of Mother Jones, a number of writers, thinkers, and historians are asked to weigh in on the question: “Is Barack Obama exaggerating when he compares his campaign to the great progressive moments in US history?”

Following are some of their responses.

Harold Evans, author of The American Century
The great progressive movements all had specific programs to deal with definable evils and restrictions – to make America more of a functioning democracy, truer to the ideals in the Declaration of Independence, rather than the rule of the elites envisaged by the founding fathers. Obama’s statements are gratifying, even glorious, but they are not well-enough defined to constitute anything comparable to the great progressive movements that gave us our present.

Patricia Williams, Columbia University
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Barack Obama’s campaign is rooted in and furthers the progressive American story. From the Puritan jeremiads to the Gettysburg Address, from Harriet Tubman to FDR’s fireside chats, from Abigail Adams to “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” our most interesting social transformations have been given life by our most intelligent rhetoricians. Barack Obama could be our Nelson Mandela – not a magician, but the page-turner to a more encompassing future.

Garry Wills, author of Papal Sin and What the Gospels Meant
It is true that Obama is facing a task of historic scale and difficulty, but he has not sufficiently identified it. The task is to restore a Constitution shredded by secrecy, illegal detention, and torture. The real question is whether he can convince the American people that these atrocities must be wiped out – and he has not began to do that.

Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
The campaign’s most radical demand is the idea of electing Obama himself. It is Obama – and not his plans for the presidency – that is the ultimate expression of the “movement.” If the process ends there, the Obama campaign will become more like the “lifestyle” brands – the Nikes and Starbucks that captured the transcendent quality of past liberation movements, and our desire for meaning in our lives, to build their own brands.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of The Beautiful Struggle
If Obama really reorients the country away from anti-intellectualism, fake patriotism, and craven power-mongering toward a path of honest debate, muscular patriotism, and simple common sense, then he will be right in claiming the best of the progressive tradition. If not, then it’ll just be rhetoric. It’s up to him.

Michael Kinsley, columnist
Of course he’s exaggerating. That is not a crime; it’s almost required in a presidential candidate. But as a “world man” who has inspired people around the globe without actually doing anything yet, Obama has the potential to prepare for the “change” they think they want – much of which they won’t like when they see it close-up. The test of a leader is whether he or she can lead people somewhere they don’t want to go. Whether Obama can do that, or wants to, remains unclear.

Jennifer Baumgardner, co-author of Manifesta
Any viable candidate for president isn’t waging a revolution for peace, truth, and justice when he runs. He is calibrating complicated positions about even more complex issues and balancing messages of change that aren’t, in fact, too changey. I don’t find this realpolitik disturbing, but I find the message of “hope” Obama conveys empty, especially as he proves in the general election to have exactly Hillary Clinton’s positions.

Clarence Page, columnist
Obama has not spelled out a platform that compares to the earth-moving ideologies of great progressive movements. Nevertheless, he already has changed our national mindset about racial possibilities, revitalized the image and energy of liberal politics, and improved our nation’s image around the world. That’s not small potatoes.



NEXT: Part 6


Recommended Off-site Links:
Obama’s Three Challenges - James Carroll (The Boston Globe, September 29, 2008).
Catholic Digest interview with Barack Obama
Roman Catholics for Obama/Biden ’08
Catholics for Obama
Catholic Democrats

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Progressives and Obama (Part 1)
Progressives and Obama (Part 2)
Progressives and Obama (Part 3)
Progressives and Obama (Part 4)
Obama, Ayers, the “S” Word, and the “Most Politically Backward Layers in America”
Historic (and Wild!)
One of Those Moments
An American Prayer

Image: Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) during the presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. (Jim Bourg/Reuters

Conversing and Arguing with the Theology of Philip Pullman

Going through some old magazines this afternoon, I came across a number of fascinating articles about controversial British writer Philip Pullman, author of the series of books that collectively are known as His Dark Materials.

The first in this series of books, The Golden Compass (Northern Lights in Britain), was made into a film in 2007, starring Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, and Daniel Craig.

Pullman’s books have been condemned by various Christian individuals and groups for their “anti-Christian” message. Some Roman Catholics, in particular, are mightily peeved with Pullman for having the evil entity of his series be a murderous institution known as both “the Magisterium” and “the Holy Church.”

Yet as the following excerpt from Hanna Rosin’s December 2007 Atlantic article shows, it’s actually more a certain expression of Christianity that the atheist Pullman has concerns with. (And it should be noted that they are concerns shared by many Christians.)

One of Pullman’s favorite subjects is the moral power of stories, and he can sound preacher-like when he addresses it. “ ‘Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart,” he once wrote. Pullman’s books are full of mysticism and grandeur often associated with religion, which is no doubt part of their appeal. “We need joy, we need a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives, we need a connection with the universe, we need all the things the Kingdom of Heaven used to promise us but failed to deliver,” he said in a 2000 speech.

When pressed, Pullman grants that he’s not really trying to kill God, but rather the outdated idea of God as an old guy with a beard in the sky. In his novels, he replaces the idea of God with “Dust,” made up of invisible particles that begin to cluster around people when they hit puberty. The Church believes Dust to be the physical evidence of original sin and hopes to eradicate it. But over the course of the series, Pullman reveals it to be the opposite: evidence of human consciousness, a kind of godlike energy that surrounds everyone. People accumulate Dust by “thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on,” It starts to build up around puberty because, for Pullman, sexual awakening triggers the beginning of self-knowledge and intellectual curiosity. To him, the loss of sexual innocence is not a tragedy; it’s the springboard to a productive and virtuous adulthood

. . . “This is exactly what happens in the Garden of Eden,” Pullman told me. “They become aware of sexuality, of the power of the body has to attract attention from someone else. This is not only natural, but a wonderful thing! To be celebrated! Why the Christian Church has spent 2,000 years condemning this glorious moment, well, that’s a mystery. I want to confront that, I suppose, by telling a story that this so-called original sin is anything but. It’s the thing that makes us fully human.”

Pullman gets annoyed whenever he recalls a passage in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia: In the final book of the series, Lewis excludes Susan Pevensie, the oldest sister, from what is essentially Paradise because she is “interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations.” Pullman, in an essay called “The Dark Side of Narnia,” cites this as evidence that Lewis disliked women and sexuality and was “frightened and appalled at the notion of wanting to grow up.”

The Narnia series, in his view, embraces a worldview that comes close to “life-hating ideology” – punishing, misogynistic, racist, and death-obsessed. By contrast, his own books are filled with a kind of warmth, an exuberance for finding utopia in this life. When he loses patience with his Christian critics, he lists the values he promotes in his own stories: tolerance, love, kindness, courage, duty, individual freedom over blind obedience.

The series ends with [the main character] Lyra realizing she has to return to her world and separate from [her beloved] Will. She is heartbroken, but accepts that this is the only way she can fulfill her ultimate destiny, which is to help build the “Republic of Heaven.” She understands this to be a paradise on Earth where she can rely on her own knowledge and wisdom, not the mandates of God or the Magisterium.

____________________________________

The January 15, 2008 issue of The Christian Century has two articles on Philip Pullman. In “Stories to Live By,” Stephanie Paulsell makes the case that “despite their differences, Pullman and [C.S.] Lewis have similar visions of children being fully alive.”

Writes Paulsell:

The release of the film version of Philip Pullman’s novel The Golden Compass has reinvigorated the controversy over his trilogy, His Dark Materials. Proclaimed “worthy of the bonfire” when first published, Pullman’s books have evoked from some Christians the kind of response that one might expect from the church as described in the trilogy itself. Pullman also has Christian defenders, however, most notably Catholic theologian Donna Freitas, who makes an interesting case for him as a liberation theologian manqué in Killing the Imposter God. It is a false god who dies in His Dark Materials, Freitas argues, and Dust, the mysterious substance at the heart of Pullman’s story, is the real divine presence in the world.

Whether or not he understands himself as a theologian, Pullman acknowledges that he wanted to provoke a theological argument with his trilogy, most notably with C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia, which he sees as shot through with a theologically derived disdain for embodied life.

For all their much-discussed differences, however, Pullman and Lewis give us remarkably similar visions of what they desire for children: that they be, in the words of both authors, “alive and awake” to themselves and to the world.


. . . [And when] we are alive and awake to the mystery of ourselves and others, the greater will be our desire to act with compassion and courage in response to stories that are not our own.

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And then there’s Edward Higgins and Tom Johnson’s insightful article, “The Enemy Church,” in the same issue of The Christian Century as Stephanie Paulsell’s article highlighted above.

In exploring and articulating the “agenda” in Pullman’s series of books, Higgins and Johnson note the following:

Pullman’s depiction of Christianity is reductive. For him, the Church embodies anti-human forces. The Church’s Magisterium and its Consistorial Court of Discipline are reminiscent of the Inquisition. This is not, in short, the church that produced St. Francis, Julian of Norwich, Oscar Romero and Mother Teresa. Pullman’s version of Christianity is a fairly common straw man: the oppressiveness of organized religion.

Yet when [the character of] Mary Malone says that “the Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake,” she has not stopped believing in the power of good and evil. She remains a compassionate, selfless servant to others. Like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter novels, and C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Pullman’s novels contain archetypal themes: the loss of innocence, the journey-quest, loyalty, and the struggle against evil. In the end, Lyra serves as a prophet, even a Christ figure, who harrows the Land of the Dead to free hapless souls.

Near the end of The Amber Spyglass [the third novel in Pullman’s trilogy], Lyra articulates her alternative religion: “No one can build the Republic of Heaven if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds.” The values that the main characters embody – love, kindness, justice, loyalty, hope – are consistent with Christian values, with a feisty overlay of adolescent rebellion tossed in.

A major voice of the atheological themes in the novels is the witch-queen Serafina Pekkala. In her view – a classically Romantic one – human beings are fundamentally good and should be free to grow and develop in knowledge and wisdom. How or why they are good is a question she leaves unexplored. Various authorities, especially organized religions, seek to control and ultimately kill all that is good in human life. The Authority thinks that human beings have become dangerously independent. All of human history, observes Serafina, has been “a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.” The trilogy’s rebel angels and her witches have been the followers of wisdom (Sophia), she tells Mary Malone, and “have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed.”

While the novels are moral, they are not particularly morally complex. The agents of the Church are all cruel, vengeful, violent, and vicious. The Church has spies in every world, a veritable Gestapo combing the land for heresy and rebellion. Its God, the Authority, hates Lyra. A Church-commissioned assassin, Father Gomez, has done “preemptive penance” for a sin not yet committed and is therefore granted “absolution in advance” for stalking and killing Lyra.

While Pullman claims to have a different worldview from that of Tolkien or Lewis, his evil Church is akin to Tolkien’s Mordor and the evil Sauron, and to Lewis’s White Witch of Narnia. Without bad guys (often cast in a quasi-religious guise) to combat, what’s the point of the hero’s journey?

If the Church depicted in the Magisterium is not the Christian church, likewise the god who dies in the third novel of the trilogy is not God. While Pullman’s god holds some of the names of the biblical God, the virtues that most Christians think derive from God are embodied in the Authority’s enemies.

When we finally see the Authority up close in Book III, he has grown so old and decrepit that he is powerless and has to be carried about on a crystal litter. This wasted and demented “ancient of days” pitiably dies in a cold wind when rescued from his crystal cell by Lyra and Will, “blinking in wonder [with] a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief.” This is an amusing post-modern portrayal of Death of God theology, perhaps, but finally it’s the death of a false god.

. . . [Pullmen’s] books are a gripping account of a story that is familiar in our culture: organized religion is bad and dangerous, self-reliance and heroic work are good and redemptive. For many readers, this story will ring true. Many other readers will realize that Pullman’s God is not the God of the Bible, who “abounds in steadfast love” and insists on justice for the poor. These are not reasons to censor or shun Pullman’s powerful, enjoyable, and imaginatively rich series, but they are reasons to argue with it.

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Following is the music video for “Lyra,” the theme song from The Golden Compass. It features the beautiful vocals of British singer/songwriter Kate Bush, along with various scenes from the film. Enjoy!





See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Golden Compass: Pointing Beyond Authoritarianism
• Pan’s Labyrinth: Critiquing the Cult of Unquestioning Obedience
• Reflections on the Overlooked Children of Men
• Reflections on Babel and the “Borders Within”
• What the Vatican Can Learn from the X-Men
• The New Superman: Not Necessarily Gay but Definitely Queer
• Revisting a Groovy Jesus (and a Dysfunctional Theology)
• Christian Diaz’s Critique of Brokeback Mountain
• Frank D. Myer’s “Long Hard Look” at Brokeback Mountain
• Alexander’s Great Love
• Reflections on The Da Vinci Code Controversy
• Thoughts on The Da Vinci Code
• Casanova-inspired Reflections on Papal Power – at 30,000 Ft.

Conflicting Understandings of Church and Revelation Underlie Situation in Madison and Beyond

A well-balanced article by Doug Erickson in the October 11 issue of the Wisconsin State Journal highlights the escalating tensions in the Diocese of Madison, WI.

Erickson begins his piece by noting that a number of Catholics have recently published an open letter to Bishop Robert Morlino, decrying his leadership style - one that they say is characterized by intimidation, fear, and punitive acts of punishment.


Conflicting models of church and revelation

As with many of these types of situations, I believe that what we’re seeing played out in Madison is a clash between two very different models of Church – Church as monarchical hierarchy and Church as People of God; a vertical Church as opposed to a horizontal Church.

And as theologian Mary Hunt has perceptively observed: “[The] struggle between those who want an open and participatory church which would be quite diverse, and those . . . 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.”

Part of this struggle, of course, involves not only conflicting understandings of what it means to be Church, but of the meaning and nature of revelation.

The Church teaches that bishops are the guardians of a deposit of truths handed down by Christ himself and the apostles. These truths are seen to be complete and unchangeable. This model of revelation certainly has its proponents - including men and women who need and want to be told exactly what to do and how to think. They are also people who are fixated on keeping things static. Change is unthinkable and public dissent from their understanding of both Church and revelation often comes across as the greatest of sins.

Yet as Pope John XXIII reminded us, “We are not on Earth to guard a museum but to cultivate a flowering garden of life.” Such a statement implies that revelation filters upwards through human life and experience, that revelation is ongoing. And if there are any “absolutes” from the life and teachings of Jesus they’re surely to do with justice and compassion, not with stipulations on the gender of priests or with prohibitions on what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their loving relationship.

The concept of ongoing revelation, of God still speaking and revealing Godself through our experiences, is both wondrous and unsettling. Yet for some it is a concept that is extremely threatening. Embracing the reality of ongoing revelation propels us out of our comfortable ghettos of formulated answers and into compassionate, and at times challenging, engagement with the world.

Many Catholics sense and believe that the Spirit is moving the Church away from the hierarchical model and its narrow understanding of revelation. Such a model of Church and an understanding of revelation may well have served a useful purpose in centuries past, given certain historical and social contexts, but they are clearly failing us today. And of course the idea that a feudal, monarchical model of Church is somehow ordained by God is ludicrous.

As theologian and historian Paul Collins has pointed out: If Saint Robert Bellarmine in the seventeenth century “felt free to apply the contemporary idea of absolute monarchy to his model of the papacy, so present-day theologians should not be afraid to use models from our time – such as a synodal or democratic approach. Historically, no model is exhaustive or absolutely normative.” (For more on this issue, see the previous Wild Reed post, Beyond Papalism.)


Some historical perspective, please

I find it rather interesting (and disturbing) that many so-called traditionalists insist that the hallmark of a “good Catholic” is unquestioning obedience to “the teachings passed down from Christ and the apostles,” i.e., that model of revelation outlined above that says only the hierarchy has and can interpret “the truth.”

That kind of heavy-handed and simplistic understanding of both revelation and authority just doesn’t fly with the majority of Catholics – many of whom are, quite frankly, more educated in the history and development of Catholicism then members of the hierarchy. (See, for instance, the previous Wild Reed post, Coadjutor Archbishop Nienstedt’s “Learning Curve”: A Suggested Trajectory.) They also seem more compassionate and pastorally-sensitive than many of the bishops.

Like author Garry Wills, I don’t believe that “the whole test of Catholicism, the essence of the faith, is submission to the Pope” – and by extension, papal teachings.

In his book, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, Wills observes that “during long periods of the church’s history, [such unquestioning submission] was not the rule – St. Augustine, for one, would have flunked such a test. And today it is a test that would decimate the ranks of current churchgoers. It is not a position that has a solid body of theology behind it, no matter how common it is as a popular notion.”

I also appreciate the historical perspective provided by Gary Macy – a perspective that accurately identifies the “strange form of authoritarianism” currently popular among so-called traditionalists (including the majority of those who comprise the hierarchy) as stemming from the “ultra-montanism of the late nineteenth-century papacy.”

Such “authoritarianism,” Macy reminds us, “narrowly understands Roman Catholicism as fundamentally an attempt to provide the definitive answers to all questions, usually in one ‘big book of doctrine,’ whether it be Thomas’s Summa, Denzinger’s Enchiridion, or lately the Roman Catechism of the Universal Church.”

Again, it’s important to remember that this “strange form of authoritarianism” and its “Big Book of Doctrine” school of theology are, as Catholic theologian Mary Bednarowski notes, a “fairly recent development” in Catholic history. Yet there are some Catholics who insist that these human developments are in fact unquestionable manifestations of God him/herself! For others, such an ahistorical perspective and rigid insistence borders on idolatry.


Labor pains of the emerging church

And so the tensions and struggles continue. Some lament them as divisive and scandalous. I would like to suggest that they are the labor pains of a renewed understanding of Church. It’s an understanding being birthed by those frequently dismissed as “liberals,” “dissenters,” and “progressives,” and a birthing in which the Spirit is acting as midwife. Birth and new life can be frightening to many, and so understandably there are those who resist and, in their efforts to reinsert the old ways, become dictatorial and abusive. We’re seeing this throughout the Catholic world.

But we’re also seeing incredible signs of resistance and proactivism; of creativity and new life. In many and varied ways, those forced to the periphery by those in positions of influence and power (not the same as authority!) are forming new and vibrant Catholic communities. And as I noted in my recent homily to one such Catholic community, it is on the periphery, as theologian Leonardo Boff reminds us, where “life flourishes in all its exuberance and as a challenge.” It’s on the periphery, he says, “where those who hope and live at the margin of all organization, find the necessary soil for the creativity and emergence of what is new and not yet taught.”

Amen, brother!

Anyway, keeping these words of hope and courage in mind, I present now Doug Erickson’s article on the exciting events in the Diocese of Madison. And, yes, they are exciting – as are any and all situations where Catholics find and lift their voices in opposition to the sexist, homophobic, and feudal ruling caste that has hijacked the message of Jesus and, contrary to his healing and compassionate welcome, enforces a rigid, reactionary, oppressive, and wounding ideology masquerading as “faith.” It’s an ideology that does not accept or respect either women or gay people, and a ruling caste that has fashioned a monarchical system that allows its members to remain in a corrupt state of absolute power.

Now, I understand that the desire for absolute certainty is a very human one, but in our pursuit of such certainty we tend to create rigid, monolithic and very absolutist institutions that accordingly are very dehumanizing. They become the very antithesis of what Jesus was all about.

As followers of Jesus we can do better. And there’s a growing Spirit-inspired movement of Catholics – in the Diocese of Madison, in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, in Rochester, in Holland, and in places all over the world – who are attempting to do just that.

Is this exciting or what?!

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Madison-area Catholics Decry
Morlino’s Leadership in Open Letter

By Doug Erickson
Wisconsin State Journal October 11, 2008

A group of Madison-area Catholics says in an open letter to Bishop Robert Morlino that he is ignoring the input of clergy and lay people, causing some parishioners to stop attending Mass and hurting the morale of priests.

The letter writers point to priests banding together for fear of retribution if they dissent, pursuit of a new cathedral despite opposition, the firing of an openly gay music director, the hiring of priests who ban female altar servers and the alleged alienation of Catholics who disagree with church doctrine as examples of problems in the diocese.

“We need more compassion not dismissal,” the letter says.

The letter, which appears as a paid advertisement in the Business section of today’s Wisconsin State Journal, is the latest flare-up in an increasingly vigorous debate over Morlino’s leadership of 270,000 Catholics in the 11-county Madison diocese.

In a statement, the diocese said Morlino is sorry that “certain groups, who claim to be Catholic, would assume postures which clearly are not in accord with the teachings of the church.”

James Green of Madison, one of the organizers of the effort, said the advertisement cost about $3,500 and was paid for by more than 40 people, 36 of whom are listed by name. Seven others are remaining anonymous because they work for the church, Green said.

Many of the contributors are members of the Madison branch of Call to Action (CTA), a national organization of Catholics whose positions on issues such as women’s ordination and priest celibacy are at odds with church hierarchy. The Catholic Media Coalition, a group loyal to church teachings, describes CTA as the leading organization of liberal, dissenting Catholics.

Brent King, spokesman for the Madison Catholic Diocese, said CTA members gave Morlino a copy of the letter Friday.

The diocese statement said Morlino hopes and prays that members of the group “return to full acceptance of the faith” that comes from the apostles.

“It also very much saddens the bishop when groups, such as Call to Action, resort to the use of the mass media to address internal family problems within the church,” the statement said.


Priests start group

Asked for evidence of poor morale among priests, several of the letter signers mentioned the Association of Madison Priests. The group was formed by priests to support each other and to provide a unified voice on issues in which they differ with Morlino, according to people familiar with the group.

“They feel the need to protect each other,” said Joan Weiss of Prairie du Sac, a CTA leader. “They’re concerned about retaliation if they speak out in opposition in any way.”

Weiss and others said the priest group began shortly after Morlino required all priests to play a taped message prior to the 2006 general election in which he spoke against stem cell research, the death penalty and same-sex marriage. Priests were told they could face serious consequences if they expressed disagreement.

A priest who is a leader of the association confirmed the group’s existence Saturday but said the group did not want to go public at this time.

Another priest who is involved but not a leader said about 50 of the 135 or so active and retired priests in the diocese formed the group “to promote sociality among priests and to formulate a response to some of the diocesan policies as expressed by the bishop.”

The priest said Morlino has tried to squelch the group. “The bishop right from the beginning said he saw no reason for such a group and has tried to torpedo it without success,” he said.

The State Journal agreed to give both priests anonymity because they said they didn’t want to anger Morlino. A bishop can reassign priests to smaller parishes or take action that affects their pay and pension.

King, the diocese spokesman, said Morlino has had conversations with the group’s leaders. At this point, Morlino views the group “neither negatively nor positively, but in a more exploratory way,” King said. King strongly disagrees that priest morale is a problem. “I know a lot of priests, both traditional priests and those who may be a little more progressive, and they all seem to have pretty good morale.”


Independent voice

There are 195 archdioceses and dioceses in the U.S., and each one is required to have a priest council. This group advises the bishop on governance, but the group generally is not open to all priests and the agenda usually is set by the bishop, the council’s president.

A priest association is much different, said Vic Doucette of the National Federation of Priests Councils in Chicago. Priest associations crop up independently, and their members set the agenda.

“It's fairly rare,” Doucette said. “I know of not even a dozen or so in the country.”

In Milwaukee, a priest alliance formed about seven years ago to give members brotherly support and an independent voice, said the Rev. Dave Cooper, a founder.

The Milwaukee group’s 126 members have a good relationship with the church's hierarchy but take opposing stands at times, Cooper said. In 2006, the priest alliance opposed a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage despite the church’s strong support of it.

Cooper said he has attended one meeting of the Madison group but declined to comment more specifically.

“Some of the issues they’re dealing with are different than ours,” he said. “I really can’t address that without getting into trouble or making accusations.”

Critics of Morlino’s five-year tenure contend he rules through intimidation and fear and focuses too much on homosexuality and abortion to the detriment of other issues.

“You don’t hear him talking about the poor. You don’t hear him saying much about the war,” said Sister Mary Francis Heimann of Madison, a Catholic nun and one of the letter signers.

Another letter signer, Jim Beyers, who attends St. Maria Goretti Parish in Madison, said he wants Morlino to respect priests in the diocese.

“He treats them like children. He’s punitive toward them,” Beyers said. Others say Morlino inspires them with his approach and his teaching.

“We just love him,” said Ron Faust of Cross Plains. “I like that he tells the truth and doesn’t back away from it. I think there are more Catholics who support him, by far, but the unhappy speak the loudest.”

Morlino has riled some Catholics from the start. Early on, he seemed to suggest in a public comment that Madison lacks public morality. (He has since said he was merely pointing out that there are few common starting points for discussions about moral reasoning in such a diverse city.)

Other actions, such as his service on an advisory board for a controversial Army training institute, have led some Catholics to question whether Morlino is a good fit for a diocese with many progressive Catholics.


Selection of bishops

A larger issue is whether there are any bishops other than “conservative” ones to choose from, said the Rev. Richard McBrien, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame who often clashes with the Catholic Church.

“Under Pope John Paul II, the motive was clear: Replace all progressive bishops who were formed by Vatican II with conservative bishops, and thereby change the face of the U.S. hierarchy,” McBrien said. “The plan has been successful.”

Before 1980, bishops were appointed because they excelled at pastoral care as priests, McBrien said. That pattern was replaced with one in which bishops were appointed “who were uncritically loyal to the Holy See and had absolutely clean records on such issues as contraception, priestly celibacy and the ordination of women. Bishop Morlino fits the pattern.”

This theory — that bishops are no more than “yes men” for the Pope — is “absurd,” said Jimmy Akin, director of apologetics and evangelization for Catholic Answers in El Cajon, Calif., and a leading Catholic author.

“There is no way that the Holy See can make all of the local pastoral decisions affecting the billion-plus Catholics in the world,” he said. “Those decisions are made by the bishops.”

Terms such as “progressive” and “conservative” are drawn from politics and not useful in this discussion, Akin said. “The question is not whether bishops — or any other Catholics — are progressive or conservative, but whether they are faithful to the teachings passed down from Christ and the apostles.”

Morlino’s fans are just as passionate as his detractors.

Huan Hoang of Madison said he was “a sleeper” Catholic until two years ago when he heard a Morlino homily.

“He awakened my faith,” Hoang said. “He needs to know that he’s leading us to Jesus Christ, and at the end of the day, that’s the only thing that’s important.”

Doug Erickson
Wisconsin State Journal
October 11, 2008


See also the related Wild Reed posts:
To Whom the Future of the Catholic Church Belongs
What It Means to Be Catholic
Authentic Catholicism: The Antidote to Clericalism
Beyond Papalism
The Holarchical Church: Not a Pyramid But a Web of Relationships
The Two-Sided Catholic Crisis
A Smaller, Purer Vision of Church - And Why it Won’t Work
Dispatches from the Periphery
Truth About the “Spirit of Vatican II” Finally Revealed!
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 1)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 2)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 3)
A Church That Can and Cannot Change
Crisis? What Crisis?
A Catholic Understanding of Faithful Dissent (Part 1)
A Catholic Understanding of Faithful Dissent (Part 2)
Our Catholic “Stonewall Moment”

Image 1: “Untitled” (2000) - Sughra Raza.
Image 2: “Renewal” - Lucy Liew.