Our Catholic “Stonewall Moment”

At about this time last year, CPCSM and St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church hosted a three-part symposium entitled “Exploring Contemporary Issues Within the Catholic Church.”

The symposium featured internationally renowned expert on clergy sexual abuse, Dr. Gary Schoener who, through an insightful presentation on February 10, 2006, emphasized seldom reported facts concerning the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal –including the range of victims, the different types of abusers, and the impact of the abuse on the victims and their families. Gary also explored the scape-goating of gay priests and the implications of the sex abuse scandal for the future of the institutional church.

The other keynote speaker of the symposium was Catholic feminist theologian and ethicist Mary E. Hunt (pictured below with myself and CPCSM-co founder David McCaffrey), who on February 17 presented “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: An Ecclesia for Our Children and Ourselves.”


In her talk, Mary envisioned the kind of church “we want to pass on to our children in light of the current institutional scandals, the increasing pluralistic religious setting in which we live, and the demands of justice in the midst of war, ecocide, and greed.” She relied on the traditional “marks of the church” to guide this analysis and visioning.

Following are excerpts from Mary Hunt’s insightful and inspiring presentation, “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: An Ecclesia for Our Children and Ourselves.”

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Our Catholic “Stonewall Moment”
Excerpts from “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: An Ecclesia for Our Children and Ourselves”
By Mary E. Hunt
CPCSM/St. Joan of Arc 2006 Symposium
February 17, 2006


The Sad State of Kyriarchal Affairs

The word “kyriarchy” is a good one to add to your vocabulary.* Recall “kyrie eleison” and you will recall that “kyrie” is the Greek word for “lord.” Kyriarchy means structures of lordship. Theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza coined the word so as to move away from simply understanding the world in gendered terms as “patriarchy” or “rule by the fathers” suggests. While sexism is a problem, as we in the Catholic Church can attest to from personal experience, it is hardly ever without its companion racism, which is hardly ever found without economic oppression, which is usually paired with imperialism and colonialism, and carries heterosexism as a constant. It is these forms of oppression that are interstructured and then used as the ideological foundation for social and cultural institutions that constitute kyriarchy.

The Roman Catholic institutional church is one of the most graphic examples of kyriarchy. It is a top down model with a handful of men making most of the decisions. Women are virtually excluded. Western men predominate; people of color are rarely in positions of power at the international level or in places where white people predominate. Since Vatican II there has been a studied effort on the part of liberal to progressive Catholics to change that model, to follow the Council’s lead toward more open, participatory, and egalitarian approaches. But John Paul II, then Cardinal Ratzinger, and other powerful Vatican figures, understanding correctly that such moves would result in a diminishment of their power and many changes in church life, began to backpedal. They insisted that the doors and windows that had been open at the Council were in fact opened in an experimental mode that was not meant to be permanent. Indeed, they declared that it was time to close them and get back to business as usual.

The opposition to their efforts comes from those of us in the women-church movement, in church reform circles, and in progressive parishes like this one that seek to act like an ecclesia, not a kyriarchy. An ecclesia is a congress or an assembly, we might say the community of those who strive to be a “discipleship of equals,” to use another happy phrase from Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.** We organize and hold ourselves accountable according to the participatory models we discern work best for us. So to the tired old excuse “the church is not a democracy” many people are saying “it ought to be and we will make it so.” Or, we might say, kyriarchy is not democratic but ecclesia is.

That struggle between those who want an open and participatory church which would be quite diverse and those, including now Pope Benedict XVI and other conservatives, who believe that a smaller, more homogeneous church would be better—what I have come to think of the leaner/meaner style—is a struggle that forms the context or the backdrop for most of our contemporary experience of church.

I will not rehearse the priest pedophilia and episcopal cover-up scandals because you have recently had a lecture by Gary Schoener, who I am sure covered the territory well. But let me observe that these unspeakable injustices brought the kyriarchal nature of the church to world attention. While sexual abuse is the primary problem which the whole community must face, acknowledge, and prevent while providing justice for survivors and judgment for perpetrators, the cover-ups are what leave the lasting impression that something is radically wrong with the system. It is the system with which I concern myself tonight, not the individual cases, each of which is deplorable.

. . . [T] the clear and consistent pattern of episcopal policy, bishops keeping such information from the police, passing offending priests from diocese to diocese, unleashing on unsuspecting congregations in their most vulnerable aspects persons whose professional ministerial competence was substandard, reveals three striking problems: 1) bishops enjoy unchecked power that frankly no one is competent to handle; 2) decisions were made that favor clergy as clergy rather than prioritizing ministry and the well being of parishioners, especially young people; 3) little has changed despite the magnitude of the problem.

. . . The . . . dynamics of top down decision making, clerical privilege, and successful resistance to pressures for change are evident on many other issues. Let us think about homosexuality, for example. The recent pronouncement against gay seminarians is an effort to link the criminal activity of pedophile priests with homosexuality, and to distract from the reprehensible behavior of bishops who covered up their misconduct. This is an absurd gambit on the part of the Vatican; homosexuality has no relationship to child sex abuse. Note those same three dynamics again:

(1) The Vatican pretends to pronounce on something that the community as a whole is not in agreement on, top down leadership at its worst. I would join them in efforts to eradicate heterosexism, the real problem at hand here, but short of that they are simply flexing their tired muscles, this time in vain.

(2) The Vatican trains its sights on seminarians, once again missing the forest for the trees due to the myopia of clericalism. Most Catholic ministers today are not ordained; eighty percent are lay people and eighty percent of those are women. So even as a way to solve the problem of sexual misconduct, smoking out a few gay seminarians is an inefficient approach. Providing all who work in our churches with training on professional boundaries and appropriate interpersonal conduct as offered by the Seattle-based Faith Trust Institute would be a good start. The issue is not the sexual orientation of seminarians, but the welcome, education, and training our community provides to all who wish to engage in ministry, not merely the small percentage who will be ordained. It becomes clear that clericalism, apart from being offensive, is dangerous.

(3) Finally, the resistance to change. How long, oh God, must we rehearse the same old arguments from natural law ramped up in the anti-gay seminarian document to indicate that gay men can’t have proper affective relationships with anyone—please! Now we have the first encyclical from the present pope which does not inspire confidence. Actually, the second part of it was recycled from his predecessor. But the first part reads like a graduate seminar on love which is relatively benign until you realize he means hetero love. True to the Ratzingerian approach (general claim on the basis of natural law, theo-ethical explanation, public policy implementation), Deus Caritas Est lays the philosophical and theological groundwork for the ethical status quo and provides the rationale for public policy pronouncements against same-sex marriage, divorce and remarriage and the like. God, after all, is love and there is only one monogamous, committed, open to procreation package that fits God. To which I say, human experience happily admits of far more variety and it is good. Yet how do we get that Good News into the press and the pews?

I call this our Stonewall moment. The Stonewall was a gay bar in New York where, in 1969, patrons resisted arrest during one of the police’s regular gay-bashing raids. Rather than acquiesce to the harassment that kept up a “neurotic minuet” (a wonderful phrase from the theologian John Frye) between police and bar patrons, courageous lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people stood up, spoke out, and resisted. They probably surprised even themselves at the power of their own righteous indignation.

I believe that Catholics should respond to the latest Vatican bullying of seminarians the same way. After decades of the Vatican implementing a system that takes authority away from local communities and presumes to impose its will on Catholics who can think for themselves, it is time for Catholics to stand up, speak out, and resist not simply on issues of sexuality and reproduction, but on war, ecology, race, poverty, and the many justice concerns about which the kyriarchy has little credibility left to speak.

Evidence suggests that American Catholics do not support many of the narrow-minded tenets of our church. In opposition to the male hierarchy’s belief that ordaining women priests is theological treason, more than 60 percent of American Catholics say they would support women in the priesthood, according to the most recent Zogby/LeMoyne poll. Another poll, conducted by the Boston Globe in the Boston Archdiocese—where the incidences of sexual abuse by priests were among the worst—finds that nearly 60 percent of Catholics oppose a ban on gay priests. Combine this with American Catholics’ clear disregard for the church’s medieval views on marriage, divorce, and birth control, and increasing numbers of Catholics who think abortion is morally acceptable under certain circumstances. Then it becomes obvious that we find ourselves in a church that does not speak to our everyday concerns in any meaningful way, much less exert any effective leadership on issues of war, racism, economic injustice, or ecological destruction.

The Vatican, in its patriarchal echo chamber, continues to portray Western values of tolerance and equality as the fallen morality of a secular society. In so doing, the institutional church treats millions of faithful Catholics in America not as spiritual adults, but as perpetual adolescents in need of guidance from on high. The time has come for American Catholics to claim our full baptismal citizenship and publicly call for changes in church policies on sexuality, ordination, relationships, and ministry. Considering the enormous economic and political influence of the American church, if Catholics here really stood up to their bishops, loudly and in numbers, the Vatican would have little choice but to listen.

There is increasing evidence that despite the dissembling of the hierarchy, American Catholics are refusing to let the institution scapegoat gay priests, feminism, and modernity for the Vatican’s outmoded theology. For example, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, the leaders of the U.S. men’s religious orders, announced plans to send a delegation to Rome to oppose the anti-gay policy. In a welcome response to an inflexible Vatican regime, the superior of the New York Province of the Jesuits, Fr. Gerald J. Chojnacki, wrote: “We know that gay men…have served the church well as priests—and so why would we be asked to discriminate based on orientation alone against those whom God has called and invited?” This is a question that could be asked about women and married men as well.


Choices We Face

The Stonewall moment we face is not simply on the matter of sexuality. Rather, sexuality in all its grace opens the community to some new choices. The alternative is to struggle endlessly over the wrong issues—homosexuality rather than heterosexism, ordination of women rather than new models of ministry, power rather than cooperation.

Other religious groups have come to this kind of juncture where seemingly irreconcilable differences prevail. Protestants have a long and proud history of forming new denominations, and we can learn from them. Jews have figured out how to group themselves according to beliefs and practices that unite them as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist and to still all be Jews. We can learn from them as well.

Catholics, on the other hand, strive to keep ourselves in one organization, a goal that may prove to be beyond our ability this time. Of course we have the Old Catholic Church, and the American Catholic Church, and several other groups that signal their connection to the Catholic community without wanting to affirm their Roman ties. I understand their reasoning. But I think the power of the Vatican—its financial resources, its communications advantage, and its symbolic capital—is touched very lightly by such groups it brushes off as apostate or otherwise trivial.

I suggest there is a need for structural change that implies “claiming the center” as feminist theorist bell hooks described the task of those who are marginalized. The move from margin to center does not mean replacing one pope with another, one curia with another. Rather, it involves rethinking the center so that the many people who are now on the margins are taken more seriously as the whole configuration of church changes from a top-down to a horizontal model of interlocking communities. Pie in the sky, you may think, but let us explore this possibility, imagine and revel in the energy such changes would unleash before we capitulate to the current forces. In tomorrow’s workshop we will deal very concretely with strategies.


A Catholic Feminist Approach

[At the same time] I think there is a value in maintaining ties to our tradition, indeed, claiming that who we are and what we believe is central to the community’s life and well being. This is what Catholic feminist theologians have done; rather than leave the church we claim ourselves church, rather than even struggle with kyriarchy we seek to create ecclesia. I find it difficult and uncharted to do so, but I think spiritual integrity requires we do what we can. Otherwise I would opt for the Protestant approach which I respect, or the Jewish model which seems to work nicely for them. As a Catholic I want to keep trying without sacrificing my own integrity.

I may come to see the error of my ways, but for now I suggest we rely on the traditional marks of the church, that it is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic as we outline some parameters of a church we want to share with our children today as well as when they are celebrating in memory of us.

(1) One. Unity is sometimes overrated, I think. When it comes at the cost of conformity, violation of one’s conscience, offense to one’s spirit, I think it is not worth it. For example, I do not go to Mass regularly, certainly do not support a parish financially, knowing that I will be offended by the exclusive language, repulsed by some of the imagery, and reminded of the exclusion of women from sacramental leadership, all this before the sermon. But I think there are many ways to be Catholic, including the women’s base community (SAS, Sisters Against Sexism) in which I have worshipped and found support for more than twenty years. So “oneness” need not look alike in how we are Catholic. Our oneness is in our intention and practice to be in communion with one another.

Moreover, at a time when religious pluralism in this country is at an all-time high, when there are more Muslims than Presbyterians, it is rather fanciful to think that I am somehow something other than Catholic. Relatively speaking, the issues that divide us as Catholics are insignificant given our cultural and spiritual sameness in contrast to the very real challenges of understanding how a Muslim prays, what a Hindu believes, and the like that are the stuff of the exciting interreligious work we all have ahead of us. At the same time, I find more in common with progressive Jews and Muslims than I do with fundamentalist Christians, including fundamentalist Catholics. What were straight lines of tradition and denomination are now lines that crisscross in everyday life. I see this as Sophia Wisdom’s gift—pushing us to a oneness of spirit we can barely imagine but that a fragile planet requires for our common good.

(2) Holy. What of holiness in all of this? It is easy to lose track of the call to holiness that is part of religious consciousness when the trappings of kyriarchy are so distracting. Last year’s papal funeral and the conclave that followed left me with a deep sense of despair. In fact, women were consigned so far to the margins under their mantillas that a casual observer would have thought this was a religion that welcomed only men, clerics at that.

The all-male nature of the conclave seemed lost on the media. A Franciscan sister observed to me, “When those in power claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, we look to see if there are white feathers outside the door, a sure sign that she flapped her wings against the glass but never made it inside.” I observed a pile of white feathers outside the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, a big pile, after the gathering was over and a pope was elected. The conclave was a process so utterly flawed, bereft of any input from women, lay people, children, undemocratic and elitist beyond any reasonable limits. The papacy is meant to be a symbol of unity, not a person with authority.

I realized that about the only thing that could have rescued the sorry Vatican scene from what I predict will be history’s harsh judgment would have been if the doors had opened and an African woman, HIV positive, with her baby in her arms had come out onto the balcony proclaiming the love of God for all of creation. What a symbol of unity she would have been. Behind her we would have seen the cardinals tiptoeing out, taking off their fancy clothes as they left. Their heads would be bowed as they tried to blend into the crowd, lest anyone notice them and realize that they had been involved in such a scandalous process of cloning themselves to create another person with authority rather than lifting up a person, this woman, as a sign of unity. Then and only then would the presence of the Holy Spirit have been clear—her wings flapping freely, her feathers intact. Our tears of joy at such a miracle would have cleansed this world. According to my fantasy scene, then, we would have been a Catholic Church worthy of its name. I mourn the failure of religious imagination as much as anything else. It is there that holiness dwells, in our collective imagination, there that we draw resources to make all things new.

(3) Catholic. So “Catholic” takes on new meaning in our time. I am not suggesting that we back off of it, that we cede the title to others. Rather I think we need to insist that just as we were taught that “catholic” means “universal,” we can learn that “catholic” comes in many forms. For example, the death penalty is an issue on which there is a diversity of opinions among committed American Catholics. So it is possible, I consider it ill-advised but still I must admit there is a Catholic way of thinking about the death penalty that concludes in the affirmative. I do not happen to share that view but I am sure that those who hold it do so as Catholics. Or, Catholic judges who pronounce it do so without risk of their faith, much as I wish it were otherwise. Imagine the same kind of thinking on abortion or homosexuality or any number of matters on which we have a rich diversity of views. I believe that Catholic is not so much a lockstep agreement on issues as it is a commitment to do justice and return again and again to the ecclesia’s table to offer thanks with bread and wine, to garner strength, and to unite in love with companions who share the same commitment.

(4) Apostolic. The apostolic dimension of the ecclesia is at once the most conflicted and the most obvious. On one side, the matter of apostolic succession in priesthood, the concern over papal lineage border on theological fetishes. They came from a worldview in which the biological rather than the symbolic was in vogue. Such biologistic quantifying—the hands that touched the hands that touched the hands—is intellectually embarrassing but still very much alive and well in kyriarchal circles. On the other side, the apostolic spirit that has infused our tradition from the beginning remains alive and well in ecclesias. We want to serve; we want to share; we want to break bread and drink wine in memory of her and of him, and one day it will be done in memory of us. This is the stuff of apostolic Catholicism. It is worth sharing.


How Do We Make This Happen With or Without Upsetting the Applecart?

I submit that the applecart is upset. Just ask Catholic women, lgbtq Catholics, divorced and remarried folks, former priests, young people struggling with how to be faithful in the 21st century. So don’t worry about upsetting the applecart; that has been done. The question instead is how to share the apples and who owns the cart. The sharing question is complicated—who says what Catholic is, are there any limits, can one be Buddhist and Catholic at the same time? But the ownership questions are even harder—who decides what can happen on Catholic property, who pays the bills when corporate Catholicism goes bankrupt, and far more painfully, who belongs at the table when it is time to celebrate? I suggest these are some of the issues we need to address.


Who Are Our Allies?

In doing so, I look first and foremost to my allies, the ones who want to make this “discipleship of equals” happen in our lifetime, not simply for our children and grandchildren. Some allies are Catholic, and some even are part of the kyriarchy like Bishop Gumbleton and a few priests who risk their privilege for the ecclesia. Many are people like ourselves, whom I have come to think of as lifers for social justice and permanent rebels for love. Some allies are as far from Catholicism as one can imagine—either pushed or moved away by the kyriarchal content, or simply having found in other traditions the same impulse toward a just human community and powerful divine presence. Frankly, I’ll take them all without distinction, grateful that the ecclesia is big enough to welcome all comers and persuaded that variety reflects the uncountable dimensions of the divine.


Conclusion

My analysis of our current situation, and my proposal that we do major and not cosmetic surgery on the kyriarchal model of church, is but one approach. I look forward to our discussion and to our workshop tomorrow when we can deal concretely with some of the issues I have raised. For now let us practice the ways of ecclesia by starting our conversation with everyone’s voice. Tell one person next to you your first reaction to some of the issues I have raised. That very action, perhaps more than anything I have said, will signal your commitment to taking these ideas forward into new ways of being church. Then we can give thanks for the Spirit’s warmth even on a cold night.


* “Kyriarchy” is a term coined by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. It means, literally, structures of lordship. It denotes the interstructured forms of oppression – gender, race, class, nationality, sexuality and the like – that result in power differences and injustice. Kyriarchy is used to distinguish the hierarchical, clerical model of church from the larger Catholic community. She includes a useful discussion of kyriocentrism in her Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001.

** In the same book Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza explores the “ecclesia of women.”


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
CPCSM’s Year in Review
Authentic Catholicism: The Antidote to Clericalism
Comprehending the “Fullness of Truth”
Beyond a PC Pope
Casanova-inspired Reflections on Papal Power – at 30,000 Ft.
What the Vatican Can Learn from the X-Men
Paul Collins and Marilyn Hatton
The Many Forms of Courage

“And a Pitcher to Go”

I’ve always appreciated and enjoyed unusual musical collaborations, especially when such collaborations seem unlikely and, accordingly, convey an element of risk and adventure and are infused with a certain energy of edginess and abandon.

I mean, think of country legend Johnny Cash collaborating with rock and rap producer Rick Rubin to rework the Nine Inch Nails song, “Hurt”, or legendary pop/soul singer Dusty Springfield duetting with techno-pop duo The Pet Shop Boys. In both cases great songs resulted, with the artists involved pushing themselves beyond their comfort zones and producing some of the most compelling music of their careers. And it's because they collaborated with others - a collaborating that some may even had initially advised against.

Recently at Cheapo Discs in Uptown, Minneapolis, I bought a copy of Loretta Lynn’s 2004 award-winning album, Van Lear Rose - an album produced by rocker Jack White (of the band The White Stripes).


“To country and rock separatists,” notes one critic, “honky-tonker Loretta Lynn’s partnership with garage revivalist Jack White seemed like a freaky, fleeting alignment of planets from opposite ends of the solar system.”

Yet of such a seemingly unlikely collaboration, music critic Marc Greilsamer declares, “Yes, we all know the world is rapidly shrinking, but now we’ve seen everything. Most stunning of all – they nailed it.”

Notes Greilsamer: “White’s production – mostly stark and atmospheric – ranges from more-traditional country to straight-up White Stripes, with most tracks falling somewhere in between. White duets with Lynn on the rousing one-night-stand story “Portland, Oregon,” but he does not need to sing to leave his personal stamp. At 70, Lynn seems thoroughly engaged and delighted; at times she delivers some of the most emotionally potent singing of her career. A decade earlier, Johnny Cash turned to rock and rap producer Rick Rubin, and the move resuscitated Cash’s career. Now, Jack White has done the same for Loretta Lynn, another country legend whose music is simply too raw and honest for the contemporary country crowd. Van Lear Rose exceeds all expectations – a bold collaboration in which artists from two different musical universes forge a memorable work that neither could have created alone.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Luke Torn observes that, “The artistic gambles are part of the album’s charm, and Van Lear Rose’s looseness and off-the-cuff spontaneity, dismally lacking in today’s technology- and money-driven recording industry, make Loretta Lynn’s entirely unexpected comeback a rousing success.”

I couldn’t agree more. But don’t take my word for it, listen (and see) for yourself with the following video clip of the “killer” track, “Portland, Oregon” – courtesy of YouTube.com.



Recommended Off-site Link: Rolling Stone’s review of Van Lear Rose.

NEXT: Another unusual collaboration – Kate Bush and Larry Adler.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Rhythm Divine
All at Sea
The Beauty and Wisdom of Rosanne Cash
The Onward Call
Soul Deep
Callas Remembered
Wow!

Stamping Out the Light

Joan Chittister, OSB, has written an insightful commentary on the recent “removal” of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton as auxiliary bishop of Detroit and pastor of St. Leo Parish.


As well as being an internationally-renowned advocate for justice and peace, Gumbleton (pictured above) has also long been a supporter and advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons and their families. He notes that the experience of having a gay brother played a foundational role in his call to speak out on the need for change in church teaching regarding homosexuality.

Not surprisingly, when CPCSM approached Bishop Gumbleton to write the foreward to the organization’s soon-to-be released book, Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students: A Catholic Schools Perpective, he didn’t hesitate.

Following are excerpts from Chittister’s piece, one entitled “Gumbleton: Nothing But the Truth”.

The resignation/removal/whatever of [75-year-old] Bishop Gumbleton brings to the foreground some issues of church that no amount of canon law can ever dispel.

. . .The Urban Parish Coalition, a group under the umbrella of the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, placed ads in the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News that read “Bishop Thomas Gumbleton . . . Life-long Detroiter, Priest, Pastor, Bishop, Elder, Global Peacemaker, Visionary, Prophet, Spiritual Leader and Friend . . . We honor, respect and love you. . . . We are opposed to the decision to remove you as Pastor of St. Leo the Great Parish, Detroit.”

How many of those kinds of ads, ads praising a bishop, have we seen lately? It’s a far cry from the ads run in the Boston Globe, for instance, calling for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law. You’d think a church would be giddy with glee to see such a thing happen.

So, the question is not whether or not what has been done has been done legally. Of course it has. Rome has the power, we are reminded often, to do whatever it wants to do to the clerical personnel of the church. The question is only, “Should they?”

And that’s where the scriptures provide an eerie challenge to the news story of the day. “Let your light shine,” it reads. But how shall we recognize what is the light? The criteria is plain: (Matthew 5:1-10) The light is in those who are poor in spirit and gentle, who mourn over the suffering of the world and thirst for justice; who are merciful and pure of heart; who are peacemakers and persecuted for the cause of right.

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, international peacemaker, advocate for the poor and oppressed, proponent of justice and truth-teller of the church – even about the church – people everywhere are saying, meets that criteria with startling clarity. That only makes the situation harder to understand, more difficult to grasp. It’s not so much either the resignation or the loss of the parish, however difficult that may be for everyone involved, that makes us wonder. After all, there’s nothing wrong with change.

But in this case, at this time in church history, at this moment when the church has lost such public credibility, when the church needs priests, when this is one of the most effective proclaimers of the Gospel in the public arena, when this is obviously one of the most loved church leaders we have, why lose this one to the public face of the church?

If you read the comments of parishioners and colleagues which this story has evoked, it is the rest of the scripture that troubles them, it seems. “No one,” the scripture goes on, “lights a lamp to put it under a barrel; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house.”

“No pastoral office whatsoever,” the letter from the Congregation for Bishops accepting his resignation says. No position in the diocese at all? No office of peace and justice? No position as special envoy to anyone for anything? Strange, isn’t it? But if this is the case, what happens to the light?

When Cardinal Bernard Law resigned for not telling the truth about pedophile priests, Rome gave him a promotion, a position on five of the curial congregations of the church, St. Mary Major, one of the four principal churches in Rome, and a luxurious Roman apartment. On the other hand, this bishop, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, told the truth, even about his having been abused by a priest himself when he was a young seminarian. Most of all, he took the position that it is the obligation of bishops to bring transparency, accountability and justice to the plight of sex abuse victims, whatever the financial ramifications for the church itself.

From where I stand, it looks to me as if we won’t know for sure what really happened here till we see what they give Tom Gumbleton. But in the meantime, the question looms large for all of us: What is going on in a church that stamps out the light?

To read Joan Chittister’s “Gumbleton: Nothing But the Truth” in its entirety, click here.


Note: The above photo of Bishop Gumbleton was taken on February 6, 2002, and is from my website Faces of Resistance. The caption that accompanies it reads as follows:

Over a thousand people filled the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis to hear Bishop Gumbleton talk on “Peace, Patriotism and Nonviolence: Another Way to Confront Terrorism.”

Bishop Gumbleton is a consistent and outspoken critic of war and the social inequality that fuels it: “If we don’t close the gap between the rich and the poor, if we don’t try to make our world really one with [the] human family sharing all the resources that God gave for all and not just a few, [then] violence will only become worse.

“The poor of the world are outraged [that] this gap is getting larger and larger, a gap filled with violence that is killing them and a violence that will ultimately destroy us. We must do something to bridge that gap, to bring us closer to the poor of the world, to understand why they are angry and why they hate us so much.”

Bishop Gumbleton is also critical of his own church’s so-called “just war theory”: “[We should] take that ‘just’ war theology, put it in a drawer, lock it, and never open it again.

“As war is rejected as the failure that it always is and the [non-violent] way of Jesus is embraced, we will begin to experience the reign of God in our land. Any nation that continues to build up arsenals of weapons of destruction is a nation approaching spiritual death.

“It’s up to us to make the choice to follow Jesus and to make his way of transforming the world a reality. It's an extraordinary challenge, but it's one that with God’s help each of us can accept and live out.”


Recommended Off-site Links:
• The Peace Pulpit: Homilies by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
• Bishop Gumbleton: “For Gay Catholics, Conscience is the Key”

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Authentic Catholicism: The Antidote to Clericalism
• The Catholic Church and Gays: An Excellent Historical Overview

Back in the U.S.A.

It’s hard to believe but it’s been almost a week since my return to the U.S. from Australia.

I’m really happy to be resuming my work as executive director of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) and reconnecting with my friends in the Twin Cities.

On the night of my arrival (Thursday, January 25) several friends organized a wonderful party to welcome me back.










Since then I’ve been kept busy with completing CPCSM’s annual membership report to Community Solutions Fund - one of our chief funders. With this task complete (as of this afternoon), I can now turn my attention to planning CPCSM’s next Rainbow Spirit journal and our spring program of educational events.

In addition to CPCSM-specific programs and initiatives, there’s a couple of other upcoming events with which I’m looking forward to being involved.

Next Thursday, for instance, I’ll be facilitating a discussion on the book Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men with members of the Basilica of St. Mary’s Boulevards group.

Then in March, my friend Julie Madden and I will lead a workshop entitled “Breaking Bread: Gay and Lesbian Parish Ministry” at New Ways Ministry’s Sixth National Symposium on Catholicism and Homosexuality.

Held this year in Minneapolis, New Ways Ministry’s 2007 symposium is entitled “Outward Signs: Lesbian/Gay Catholics in a Sacramental Church.”

Speakers and workshop presenters include author Brian McNaught (speaking on “Baptism and the Experience of Coming Out”); Archbishop Francis Hurley (“Healing Our Wounds and Building a Eucharistic Community”); internationally-renowned advocate against the death penalty, Sister Helen Prejean (“Reconciliation, Liberation, and Lesbian/Gay People”); author Gregory Maguire (“Gay Parenting in a Sacramental Church”); and theologians Margaret Farley (“Matrimony and Same-Sex Relationships”); Richard McBrien (“Ordination to the Priesthood and Gay Men”); Diana Hayes (“The Sacrament of Reconciliation and Homophobia”); Luke Timothy Johnson (“Word Made Flesh: Scripture and Homosexuality”); and James Alison (“Faith and Coming Out”).

As you can see, it’s going to be a incredible gathering of some of the most preeminent Catholic thinkers and pastoral ministers, and I’m honored to have been invited to join their ranks as together we discern and facilitate discussion on the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Catholic Church.


See also the previous Wild Reed post: CPCSM's Year in Review.

Last Days in Australia

Friends,

Good News: On Monday I was granted green card status at the US consulate in Sydney!

As many of you know, Monday’s “interview” at the consulate was the last step in a much longer-than-expected process – one which has seen me living back in Australia since May of last year.

Now with green card status secured, I will be able to return to the U.S. and continue my work with the Minnesota-based Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities. It’s shaping up to be a big year for the group – especially in light of the upcoming publication of our first book, Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students: A Catholic Schools Perspective.

Last Thursday’s medical examination (a necessary procedure in the green card application process), along with Monday’s “interview”, both went incredibly smoothly. Thank you to all who have sent positive energy my way and who have kept me in your thoughts and prayers. And a big thank you to my wonderful immigration attorney in St. Paul, Minnesota.

I’m still finding it hard to believe that my long sojourn in Australia is finally coming to an end. Although I’ve certainly enjoyed spending time with my family and reconnecting with friends, I’m nevertheless looking forward to getting back to my own space, work, life, and friends in the States.



Above: Sydney - Thursday, January 18, 2006.



Above and below: While in Sydney for the various appointments necessary to secure my green card, I stayed in the nearby city of Wollongong with my friend Garth.

On Sunday, January 21, my friend Kerry traveled to Wollongong from her home in Exeter in the Southern Highlands. Together we visited the Nan Tien Temple – the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere.




Above: The view from my room at the Wynard Travelodge where I stayed Sunday night, January 21. My appointment at the U.S. consulate, located on the 59th floor of the MLC Centre (building at center right) was scheduled for 8:00 a.m. the next morning.



Above: Back in Port Macquarie after successfully securing green card status, I enjoyed a surprise visit on Wednesday, January 24, from my childhood friend, Jillian (see Gunnedah, Part IV) and her family, currently holidaying on the coast. Pictured from left: Me and my nieces, Jillian and her family.



Above: My nieces lend me a helping hand with sorting and packing on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 24 - the day before my departure for the U.S.



Above: With my parents, brother, and sister-in-law - Wednesday, January 24, 2007. I leave tomorrow for the U.S.



Above: Sunset over Port Macquarie.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
CPCSM's Year in Review
An Australian Christmas
This Time Last Year
Update from the Great South Land
Australia Bound

The Many Forms of Courage (Part III)

Part II of “The Many Forms of Courage” concluded by explaining why Catholics can, in good conscience, reflect upon and dissent from the Vatican’s stance on issues like homosexuality.

This third and final installment begins by looking at the supposed biblical condemnation of homosexuality, before exploring the question of authority within the Roman Catholic Church.


Adam, Eve, and Steve

So what about the Book of Genesis and the “design” supposedly laid out by God through its story of Adam and Eve – a “design” vigorous defended and promulgated by movements such as Courage and by theological undertakings such as Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body?

All such efforts leave me to wonder: are we to subscribe to Clement Butel’s view that “whatever may be a Catholic’s personal beliefs, faith requires acceptance of the Genesis account of human creation as being literally and historically true”?

Contrary to Butel, I and many other Catholics view the Genesis account of creation as metaphorical. I also think that every aspect of creation speaks of evolution. And “every aspect of creation” includes human sexuality and our understanding of it.

Dr. Simon Rosser, a renowned researcher in issues of human sexuality, has noted that “ultra-conservatives are fond of saying that ‘God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’ ”

“Well that’s not reality,” says Rosser. “Based on science’s current understanding of the origins and stability of sexual orientation, God made Adam, Eve, and Steve; and until we have a theology that can deal with that complexity the Church is neither healthy nor living in reality.”

In light of such an insight, I’m intrigued when people like Alice Von Hildebrand declare that, “God did intend to create human beings of two different sexes. [ . . .] He clearly had His own divine plan in mind, and we ought to discover reverently what this plan is, for it will give us guidelines as to how we – men and women – should shape our lives in order to conform to our Creator's design”.

I’m intrigued because I’m left wondering: what are the sources being used to support such a theological claim and such an assumption about “the Creator’s design”?

Is it solely scripture and tradition?

And what of those who don’t fit this “design”?

And perhaps most importantly, should the design dictate the reality of human experience, or should the diverse reality of human experience inform our understanding of the design?

At best, a literal reading of Genesis could be used to champion heterosexuality. But such a reading, besides being intellectually dishonest, does a great disservice to the spirit behind the text. Also, it’s ludicrous to use such a reading of Genesis to champion heterosexual marriage as we know it today, or to say that the Catholic Church has always understood marriage as it understands it today. It’s indisputable that marriage, and the Church’s understanding and recognition of it, has changed over the centuries.

Also, Pope John Paul II interpretation of Genesis in his Theology of the Body is just that, an interpretation – one of many that theologians have offered throughout the ages. Like all interpretations it needs to be measured against a number of things – scripture and tradition, of course, but also reason and human experience. All four should be in dialogue. Yet in the case of the latter, the pope’s interpretation (obviously shared by Von Hildebrand and others) fails to acknowledge or reflect the fullness of human sexual experience.


The sources of our understanding

The reality is that GLBT people, along with heterosexual people, can and do experience sexual relationships marked by justice, wholeness, and life-giving love.

Shouldn’t such experiences be considered as sources in any theological discussion on human sexuality? And if not, why not?

What exactly are the sources of the Vatican’s current theological reflection on human sexuality?

Shouldn’t such sources include the findings of science and people’s experience?

Science, for instance, tells us that gender and sexuality are vastly complex realities. When will the Church’s official teaching begin to reflect such complexity?

These are the types of questions that many Catholics are asking. They are legitimate questions with important theological implications.

Yet sadly, the Vatican’s response to such questions is woefully inadequate. It’s simply not good enough to say, “Well, this is how it’s always been, so it must be right,” especially since it’s clear that the basis of “what it’s always been” has been informed by limited sources. And when we limit our sources, we’re limiting and obstructing God’s wise and loving outreach to us.

I think that Catholics are intuitively sensing the truth in statements like the following by National Catholic Reporter editor, Tom Roberts, who in January 2006 wrote that, “[Some insist] that current thinking that is tolerant of homosexuality [is] ignoring ancient wisdom. I happen to think that current wisdom that welcomes homosexuals is, more correctly, finally dropping centuries of ancient ignorance.”

The editors of the 1994 anthology Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources of Theological Reflection suggest that this ignorance stems, in part, from the fact that “throughout most of Christian history the vast majority of theologians who wrote about sexuality tried to approach the subject from one direction only: they began with affirmations and assertions of the faith (from scriptures, from doctrines, from churchly teachings, and so on) and then applied those to human sexuality. Now, theologians are assuming that the other direction of inquiry is important as well: What does our sexual experience reveal about God? About the ways we understand the gospel? About the ways we read scripture and tradition and attempt to live out the faith?”

Such questions, I admit, can be unsettling. But I think that it is not the Catholic way to shy away from them and to retreat instead into some fantasy world where, despite evidence to the contrary, we insist that we have all the possible answers (and thus knowledge) available to us about what it means to be human.


A question of authority

Supposed scriptural condemnation of homosexuality is highly problematic as “homosexuality” as we understand and define it today is a very recent development. Accordingly, many reputable biblical scholars question if condemnation of homosexuality can be backed up by the Bible. And of course, the historical Jesus said absolutely nothing about homosexuality.

Some Catholics maintain, however, that Jesus has and does speak on this issue whenever the Magisterium speaks. This attempt to basically equate the Gospel with the Catholic “tradition” which developed afterwards is highly problematic. For a start, this tradition, when it comes to matters of human sexuality, has been clearly shaped by previous eras’ limited understanding of this complex human reality. And that’s fine and appropriate. We are, after all, a pilgrim Church growing in awareness and understanding.

Yet ever since the papacy declared (relatively recently) that it can never be wrong in matters of faith and morals, and that therefore the Church’s teaching on homosexuality has always been correct and can never change, the teaching charism of the Church has been seriously compromised.

Such an “infallible” way of thinking prevents many within positions of church leadership from taking on board the insights and findings of science and human experience as they can’t risk proving that the church has been wrong and that its understanding of such matters has and can change. In short, the Magisterium has painted itself into a corner.

Most Catholics recognize this dilemma, but rather than address it head on and demand and work for structural change within the Church, they choose instead to quietly do their own thing – especially when it comes to matters related to sexuality. They no longer put their trust in the authority of the Church hierarchy, but rather in their own experience of ever-deepening relationship with God mediated by their struggle to be true to themselves.

It really does come down to the question of authority. Therefore, I think it’s important to remember that ultimately it is the spirit of the risen Christ which is the one true pastor of the church. And this spirit speaks through the life experiences of all people – regardless of their position in the male-designed and dominated structure of the church hierarchy, a structure which due to its homogeneous development and maintenance cannot adequately represent or speak definitively for the richly diverse reality of the Body of Christ.

In 2004, in my role as executive coordinator of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM), I interviewed Catholic theologian and author Mary Bednarowski for The Rainbow Spirit, the organization’s journal. She had the following to say about authority:

“Church history is very helpful [on this matter] – essential, I would say. To think of ‘the Magisterium’ as highly authoritarian and centered in Rome and in the authority of the Pope is a fairly recent interpretation of a kind of teaching function that, historically, was perceived as somewhat speculative.

“By speculative I mean creatively reflective in responding to the realities of human life and experience in and of the world. It is also an interpretation that has not gone unopposed. In reality, the Church has always had what I consider realistic and sophisticated means by which to ‘question authority’: the emphasis on the primacy of the individual conscience, for example, or the system of ‘probabilism’, are ways through which change emerges.”


The Body of the Faithful and the Infallible Church

Clearly, personal experience, including the personal experiences of LGBT people, should not be ignored when, for instance, the Catholic Church makes ethical and/or doctrinal judgments on matters related to human sexuality. Having said that, I don’t believe personal experience is the sole norm governing behavior. Scripture and tradition obviously have their role. But all too often, we forget that it is human experience which is the locus of divine revelation and accordingly, the seedbed for the emergence and ongoing interpretation and development of both scripture and tradition.

When we acknowledge the significance of human experience in discerning foundational truths about human life and relationships, the role of the laity comes into much clearer focus. Australian theologian Paul Collins, for instance, reminds us that, “Consulting the laity in the formulation of doctrine is part of Catholicism’s theological tradition. Also, the whole Church’s acceptance of papal and episcopal teaching is an integral part of testing the veracity of that teaching. The hierarchy does not have a monopoly on truth.”

Collins finds support for such claims in the writings of the great English theologian, Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90), “who said unequivocally that the laity have to be consulted in matters of doctrine, especially when teachings concern their lives so intimately”. (Collins, P., Between the Rock and a Hard Place: Being Catholic Today, ABC Books, Sydney, 2004, p. 12.)

Wrote Newman: “The body of the faithful is one of the witnesses to the fact of the tradition of revealed doctrine, and [. . .] their consensus through Christendom is the voice of the Infallible Church”. (Newman, J.H., On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, (1859), ed. John Coulson, Collins, London, 1961, p. 63.)


Gospel democracy

In relation to issues of faith and morals, however, the Vatican operates from a model of leadership that assumes to always have the last word. Yet in the hierarchy’s insistence on such a model, many detect an element of fear and mistrust towards the laity, qualities that are totally alien to the trusting and compassionate model of leadership personified in Jesus.

In one of her Lenten reflections, author Donna Schaper writes on the model of leadership that Jesus exemplified. She notes that Mary Magdalene’s confusing of Jesus with the gardener on Easter morning, indicates “the radical nature of the risen Christ: he is more like a friend, more like the gardener, more like a woman. He is not big but little, not strong but weak, not above us but one of us. We will be raised from the dead when we understand that Jesus is accurately confused with the gardener. He is more like the gardener than he is like the owner of the garden.”

Schaper goes on to apply this example of “gospel democracy” and the “friendship model” of leadership it procures, to ministry. She notes that “we minister in a world that is ideologically hostile to the gospel, [to] that word from God in which Jesus says to all disciples, not just the ordained ones: ‘I have called you friends’. Here Jesus is illuminating us to a radically new relationship between people and God [. . .] It is like a garden we all work in together, not a garden where one is the employed and the other the employer”.


Loving the unfolding truth, and loving truthfully

Such an understanding of leadership reminds me my favorite saying of Pope John XXIII: “We are not on earth to guard a museum, but to cultivate a flowering garden of life”. It’s an understanding of church that implies that revelation is an ongoing process.

I’ve come to believe that such an understanding of revelation is central to our faith. It’s compels us to build and maintain a relationship with that sacred source that is behind and ultimately beyond all our limited scriptures and doctrines; it ensures that our faith is a living faith; and it compels us to seek right relationships with others as together we continue our journey as a pilgrim church, loving the unfolding truth, and loving truthfully (to paraphrase Pope John Paul II).

As history has shown, such an understanding of revelation has meant the periodic changing of the way we “package” our understanding of God. Such theological transitions can be very traumatic, and can incite resistance and even violence on the part of those secure in the old packaging and/or fearful of change.

As a way of illustrating this, I recall Robert J. McClory recollection of Patty Crowley in the December 9, 2005 issue of the National Catholic Reporter. In remembering how Patty and her husband Patrick, as members of the Papal Birth Control Commission of the late 1960s, clashed with those fearful of change, McClory writes:

“The Crowleys were outspoken in their own views on the subject [of birth control]. During a heated discussion about how the Church could save face if it were to allow couples to decide how to limit offspring, Marcelino Zalba, a Spanish Jesuit member of the commission, asked, ‘What then with the millions we have sent to hell’ if the rules are relaxed? Patty immediately responded in what became perhaps her most memorable quote. ‘Fr. Zalba,’ she said, ‘do you really believe God has carried out all your orders?’”

It’s so true: so much of what we attribute to God is in fact our own historical and cultural “packaging”. And this seems especially true when it comes to matters of human sexuality.


Amazing and courageous choices

Thankfully, things are changing. The old packaging is being discarded and we’re glimpsing and recognizing God’s love in ways we once did not – primarily, in this current time, in the lives and relationships of LGBT people open to God’s spirit of transforming love.

This spirit can inspire some amazing and courageous choices. I don’t doubt that it can compel some to live lives of celibacy. Yet it is also capable of compelling others to seek and maintain a loving relationship with another of the same gender – a relationship that is experienced and expressed both sacramentally and sexually.

And then there’s the beautiful choice of my friend Chad. For a while he was a member of Courage. Becoming disillusioned with the group’s “ideological commitments,” he chose not only to abandon Courage but also the Catholic Church. Yet he has recently returned to the church, and earlier this year I asked him to write about his journey for The Rainbow Spirit.

To conclude this post on the “many forms of courage”, here’s an excerpt from Chad’s article. Note that Chad acknowledges the presence of suffering in his life. Yet this suffering is not the result of his homosexuality, but rather of the homophobia within the church:

“Now I have come back to Mother Church in spite of herself, really. The only thing more influential than Rome’s rivers of shame, fear, and anguish, is the love I have profoundly experienced in Jesus Christ. And so I choose to march on, uniting myself to the Catholic Church. I offer up to God the sufferings I will endure as a result: the pain Rome will try to inflict upon me.

“Such suffering has meaning and I am able to endure it. Such suffering has power because it flows from a love of Jesus and his message. I pray that such suffering can break the monolith of Rome, and fill the Church once again with the unconditional love and grace of Jesus Christ for all peoples.

“In the midst of such suffering my experience of God has been one of peace, love, and joy. And it has been this experience, echoing throughout the ages, that has given me the courage to move beyond the rivers of the Vatican; to swim to the other side and find myself.”


Image: Two Saints by Ted Fusby, used with permission.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Many Forms of Courage (Part I)
The Many Forms of Courage (Part II)
The Real Meaning of Courage
The Dreaded “Same-sex Attracted” View of Catholicism
Be Not Afraid: You Can Be Happy and Gay
The Catholic Church and Gays: An Excellent Historical Overview
Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality: “Complex and Nuanced”

Billabong Koala Park

Last Wednesday, January 17, members of my family and I visited the Billabong Koala and Aussie Wildlife Park located just outside of Port Macquarie.

The park has over 50 species of animals – mostly Australian (emus, kangaroos, wedge-tailed eagles, cassowaries, a large range of reptiles, and of course, koalas) but also some exotic species such as spider monkeys and peacocks.








See also the previous Wild Reed posts: A Visit to the Koala Hospital, Ellenborough Falls, Christmas in Australia, Boorganna (Part I), Boorganna (Part II), Afternoon, Goulburn Revisited, A Summer Afternoon, Flynns Beach, Rocky Beach, Pacific Skies, Alva Beach, Bago Bluff, Coastal Views, and A Solitary Ramble.

The Many Forms of Courage (Part II)

In the first part of “The Many Forms of Courage,” it was observed that for Catholics who disavow the term “gay,” and opt instead to describe themselves as “same-sex attracted,” an unquestioning obedience to the Magisterium, i.e., the teaching ability and authority of the Pope and those bishops in union with him, is often a major theological and ideological commitment.

This second installment of “The Many Forms of Courage” further explores the role and history of the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.


A bishop-centered church: “Not absolutely intrinsic to Christianity”

In theory, the Magisterium serves as the normative teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church. Such an office is appropriate and, indeed, necessary. Yet in current practice, the Magisterium is clearly hampered in its discernment of the Spirit within the Church as the People of God, as the Body of Christ.

Why is this? For the Magisterium to be a genuine normative teaching body within an understanding of “the church” as the living Body of Christ, it needs to be comprised of representatives from the entire Body of Christ – an entirety that includes, for instance, women and LGBT persons.

But what of the teaching that says that those who currently comprise the Magisterium, namely the pope and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, are the successors of the apostles? If this is true, who are we to question their authority?

In light of such an important question it is helpful to recall the observation of Catholic theologian and historian Hans Küng who notes in his book, The Catholic Church: A Short History, that “[A] church constitution, centered on the bishop, is by no means directly willed by God or given by Christ, but is the result of a long and problematical historical development. It is human work and therefore in principle can be changed.” (p.19)

Küng also observes that, “[In the early] Pauline communities there was neither a monarchical episcopate nor a presbyterate nor an ordination by the laying on of hands.” Despite this, the early Christian churches were considered “complete and well-equipped,” and “did not lack anything essential.” (p.20)

So what happened? Well, according to Küng, “After Paul a degree of institutionalization was unavoidable . . . [Yet] it cannot be verified that the bishops are successors of the apostles in the direct and exclusive sense. It is historically impossible to find in the initial phase of Christianity an unbroken chain of laying on of hands from the apostles to the present-day bishops.” (p.21)

What then can be demonstrated historically? “In a first post-apostolic phase,” writes Küng. “local presbyter-bishops became established alongside prophets, teachers, and other ministers as the sole leaders of the Christian communities (and also at the celebration of the Eucharist); thus a division between ‘clergy’ and ‘laity’ took place at an early stage. In a further phase the monarchical episcopate, of an individual bishop, increasingly displaced a plurality of presbyter-bishops in a city and later throughout the region of a church. [. . .] A monarchical episcopate can be demonstrated for Rome only from around the middle of the second century (Bishop Anicetus).” (pp.21-22)

Accordingly, says Küng, “The presbyteral-episcopal church constitution [in place today] is not based on any institution by Jesus Christ and can in no way be seen as absolutely intrinsic to Christianity, if one uses as a measure the words of Jesus himself, the earliest community, and the charismatic constitution of the Pauline churches.”

So has the development of the leadership model within the contemporary church been a mistake?

No. Küng is adamant that the presbyteral-episcopal church constitution “was not apostasy, and beyond dispute [was] of great pastoral use.”

“For good reasons,” he writes, “it became the norm in the early ecclesia catholica. All in all it was a meaningful historical development which gave the Christian communities both continuity in time and coherence in space, or as one could also put it, catholicity in time and space. So it is not to be criticized as long as it is used in the spirit of the gospel for the benefit of men and women and not to preserve and idolize the power of the hierarchs.”

“In a word,” says Küng, “the succession of bishops is functional rather than historical; the activity of bishops is rooted in the preaching of the gospel, and they should support the other charisms rather than quench them. In particular, prophets and teachers had their own authority.” (pp.22-23)


Good Catholics can dissent

For a growing number of Catholics, the “prophets and teachers” of the contemporary church are those men and women calling for reform of the church’s teaching on human sexuality. The experiences and insights of such people – including LGBT people – need to be incorporated into the deliberations and pronouncements of the Magisterium.

Until that time, Catholics can in good conscience reflect upon and dissent from the Vatican’s stance on issues like homosexuality. This is because in our Catholic tradition we have, in addition to the primacy of conscience, the system of “probabilism” which, as Catholic theologian Mary Bednarowski reminds us, basically says that, “if five or six truly reputable authors/scholars hold an opinion, it can be seen as a sign of its intrinsic probability.”

We also must not forget that there’s always been a strong and consistent calling within our tradition to come down on the side of compassion rather than condemnation, of trust rather than fear. Such compassion and trust leads us to be humbly open to the guiding Spirit of God, alive within the entire Church. These same qualities also serve to protect us from our own hubris, as the openness engendered by compassion and trust guard against embracing a triumphant, all-knowing mentality - one that, in actuality, limits where and how we seek and respond to the presence of God in human life.

NEXT: Part III of “The Many Forms of Courage.”


Image: Bearded Saint by Ted Fusby, used with permission.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Many Forms of Courage (Part I)
The Real Meaning of Courage
The Dreaded “Same-sex Attracted” View of Catholicism
Be Not Afraid: You Can Be Happy and Gay
The Catholic Church and Gays: An Excellent Historical Overview
Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality: “Complex and Nuanced”

The Many Forms of Courage (Part I)

I recently came across Sed Contra, the blogsite of David Morrison, a Catholic who lives his life “beyond gay” – an expression which serves as the title of a book he has written documenting his journey from gay activist to chaste Catholic.

The stated trajectory of Morrison's journey clearly reflects a perspective which considers being gay and/or an activist as inferior to being Catholic and chaste. I actually strive to be all four - although unlike Morrison, I don't necessarily equate chastity with celibacy. The former, after all, refers first and foremost to purity of heart not to sexual abstinence.

Morrison is also the founder and moderator of Courage Online, a cyber community for Catholic men and women “living with some degree of same sex attraction who wish to do so chastely”.


A clash of ideological commitments

Those within the Courage movement disavow the term “gay,” insisting that when someone refers instead to a person as being “same-sex attracted,” it simply describes an experience and condition. “Gay,” on the other hand, supposedly implies a whole set of ideological commitments.

Of course, 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 Roman Catholics like Morrison, 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.

Ironically, those who base their Catholic identity on such obedience have, in fact, grafted a reactionary, fear-based ideology onto a religion that in actuality is all about inclusion, justice, community, and compassion – all of which convey a sense of ongoing journey or pilgrimage when it comes to understanding and living our Catholic faith.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Catholics, and indeed all who advocate for the basic human rights of LGBT people within both church and society, embody such an understanding of the faith. Accordingly, they seem to me to be more aligned with the authentic Christian values of inclusion, justice, community, and compassion, than those who commit to unquestioning obedience to the teachings of the Magisterium and, by extension, an understanding of church modelled on the paradigm of absolute monarchy.

It’s important to remember that such unquestioning obedience to the Magisterium also means unquestioning obedience to the discredited science, impoverished sexual theology, and biblical and doctrinal fundamentalism which, sadly, goes along with the Magisterium’s understanding of human sexuality.


The Magisterium and human sexuality

The Magisterium teaches that homosexual acts are an “intrinsic moral evil” because, like masturbation and heterosexual sex involving contraception, such sexual activity is not open to the transmitting of life – which is solely defined in terms of biological procreation.

For the Magisterium, “genital sexual activity” is only ever morally acceptable when it takes place within a “heterosexual marital relationship” and when each and every sex act of this relationship is open to conception and thus, potentially, biological procreation.

In this series of three posts I’d like to explore the various questions and implications for theology and the lives of LGBT people that result from the Magisterium’s understanding of sexuality. Such a discussion will take us beyond issues of sexuality. After all, any questioning, discussion, and potential reform of the church’s official teaching on sexuality must also address issues relating to our understanding of revelation, authority, and the very nature of “the church”.


Experiencing God – as celibate or in a gay relationship

First, however, I need to stress that I’ve always maintained that if someone feels called to live a celibate life than they need to do so. I support them in their choice to be celibate.

No one should feel pressured by outside entities to be sexually active.

Yet no one should feel pressured by outside entities to be celibate, either.

I respect and celebrate anyone’s experience of God in their life of celibacy. I also respect and celebrate a gay couple’s experience of God in their loving and committed relationship.

David Morrison and the Courage movement, however, cannot. And the reason for this, more often than not, is because they are told not to by the Magisterium, the teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church.

For the members of Courage, the various doctrines of the Magisterium that attempt to address the issue of homosexuality comprise the final word on the matter. After all, as a proponent of Courage once told me, it is not just the Magisterium that is speaking but Christ himself.


Doctrinal fundamentalism

Such a perspective reflects and encourages doctrinal fundamentalism, which, unfortunately, is just as Christ-denying and soul-destroying as biblical fundamentalism. Simply throwing either scripture or Vatican rhetoric at complex and deeply human realities such as sexuality doesn’t cut it with the vast majority of Catholics – gay or straight.

Homophobic documents such as the Vatican’s 1986 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons are far from the definitive and final word on the matter of homosexuality. In actuality, that “word,” for the vast majority of LGBT Catholics, continues to unfold in their lives. And its message is very different from that of the Vatican’s Magisterium.

For instance, the aforementioned 1986 letter describes the homosexual orientation as “disordered”. Yet disordered from what? The “naturally ordered” way God intended and designed people to live, argues the Courage crowd.

Furthermore, this “ordered” way or “design,” they declare, is clearly laid out for us in the Book of Genesis, in “natural law,” and in the moral teaching of the Catholic Church which they insist has not only never changed, but is incapable of changing! So much for a living Magisterium and the living Catholic faith.

What happens, though, when LGBT persons don’t experience their sexuality as “disordered”?

What if accepting and expressing their sexuality leads LGBT persons to experiences of wholeness, love, and deeper connection with self, others, and God?

Of course, questioning and dialogue of this nature are not encouraged by the Vatican. Indeed, the message is clear: further dialogue on the matter is unnecessary and any attempt to facilitate such dialogue is an expression of disobedience.

Yet given the wealth of information and insight from both science and human experience currently available (and which clearly needs to be integrated into the Church’s living and thus developing teaching on sexuality), this cutting off of dialogue and hostility to other insights is very troubling to many Catholics.

Also, as Catholic theologian Daniel Helminiak has observed: “No Catholic ethical teaching is defined infallibly. Certain beliefs have been proclaimed infallibly, but never an ethical teaching. The Catholic mind is smart enough to know that right and wrong often depend on concrete circumstances and limited human understanding.”


NEXT: Part II of “The Many Forms of Courage.”

Image: Two Saints: Tete-a-tete by Ted Fusby, used with permission.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Real Meaning of Courage
• The Dreaded “Same-sex Attracted” View of Catholicism
• Be Not Afraid: You Can Be Happy and Gay
• The Catholic Church and Gays: An Excellent Historical Overview
• Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality: “Complex and Nuanced”

Southern Highlands

As I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts, I recently spent time with my friend Kerry at her home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

Kerry lives in the village of Exeter. Pictured above is Exeter’s picturesque railway station, which was originally called Badgery’s Siding when it opened in 1878.



Above and below: During my time in Exeter, Kerry was taking care of a relative’s nine-week-old Kelpie pup. The pup’s owners hadn’t named him, and because Kerry wouldn’t be keeping him, she felt she couldn’t give him a name. We just called him either “puppy” or “no-name”! He was certainly a beautiful little creature, and both Kerry and I remarked on how unusually calm and mature he was for his age.




Even though I lived and taught in nearby Goulburn for six years (from 1988 to 1993), I never really spent much time exploring the Southern Highlands’ many beautiful towns and places of interest.

One of these “places of interest” is the Sunnataram Forest Monastery (above) on the outskirts of the village of Bundanoon, which Kerry and I, along with little “No-name,” visited on Sunday, January 7, 2006.

For more images and reflections on Sunnataram Forest Monastery, visit my previous post, Learning from the East.



Above: His visit to the Sunnataram Forest Monastery was a bit too much for little No-name who, by the time we were ready to return to Exeter, was all “tuckered out,” as we say in Australia.



On Monday, January 8, Kerry and I drove to Jamberoo Abbey – a Benedictine retreat centre and abbey situated on the Jamberoo Mountain Road between the Southern Highlands village of Robertson and the coast.

Pictured above is a side view of the beautiful altar in the abbey’s church. The beautiful candles on the altar are handcrafted by the sisters. Candles for a range of occasions can be purchased at the abbey.



Little No-name was a real hit with the nuns at the Jamberoo Abbey, with one of them insisting we feel free to take him with us when we visited the abbey church. The nuns’ own dogs frequently accompany them to prayer, we were told.

In the photo above, No-name is resting outside the abbey’s bookstore where I purchased from Sister Gertrude two books (An Authentic Life: Finding Meaning and Spirituality in Everyday Life by Caroline Jones, and An Introduction to Spiritual Direction: A Psychological Approach for Directors and Directees by Chester P. Michael). I also found in the bookstore a beautiful set of Rosary beads handcrafted by the sisters from the seeds of the Persian lilac, also known as the Chinaberry or Bead Tree.



Above and below: The Southern Highlands township of Jamberoo - January 8, 2006. Earlier in the day we visited the town of Robertson where, in a little antique store, I found a second-hand copy of Doris Lessing’s autobiography, Under My Skin. I've been enjoying reading it ever since.




Above: This beautiful rose was photographed in the grounds of the Quest for Life Centre in Bundanoon. In the centre's bookstore, I bought an infomative book on Dru Yoga, something which I hope to get into once back in the US.


Postscript: No-name no more! Kerry recently informed me that she decided on the name Leicester for the little Kelpie pup featured in the above photos. Leicester is now with his brother back on the farm where they were born. Both pups are being trained as farm work dogs.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Learning from the East
Goulburn Revisited