In the Catholic church, married priests are not new (there were many in early times.  Nowadays of course, there are many more who have joined the Catholic church after first serving as married priests with other denominations.  I noted recently there are also a very large number of priests who have married after leaving active ministry and receiving “dispensation” to marry.

There are also very many gay priests (possibly half of all US priests, according to some estimates).  Many of these have partners, some have married them, quietly and discreetly – but this is the first occasion I have come across of a priest who is not only marrying, but doing so in the full glare of publicity.  In Toronto,  Father Karl Clemens is getting married Saturday to his partner Nick.

Fr Clemens is 70, retired from parish work and has spent the past decade ministering in Toronto’s gay village, so it is perhaps not quite as dramatic a move as if he were a young parish priest with a suburban congregation.  Still, he will have to face the  reaction of the local bishops and other Catholics, many of whom are unlikely to be impressed, and some of whom will be vocal in their self-righteous outrage. Clemens says he is not doing this to start a revolution, but because he feels strongly that it is the right thing to do.

Of course it is.  It is well known by now that clerical celibacy is a myth. A substantial proportion of priests are sexually active, notwithstanding their supposed celibacy. Pretending otherwise, and continuing the fiction that they should at least be striving to maintain this unnatural state as a compulsory imposed condition, simply forces them into a clerical closet, and leaves in its wake countless numbers of abused victims. I was taught at  my Catholic school that honesty and truth are vital ingredients in a Christian life. This applies also to sexual honesty.  The ECLA last summer, in approving the decision to recognise lesbian and gay pastors in committed, monogamous relationships, stated that they wanted them to have the opportunity to be accountable to their congregations, just as conventionally married pastors do. open, honest and accountable sexual relationships for clergy are far healthier than the secret, exploitative and opportunistic liaisons that are otherwise all too common.

In making a public demonstration of their commitment to each other, Fr Clemens and Nick are behaving honestly and honourably.  I applaud and congratulate  them both for this honesty and courage.  I hope that this brave move will encourage others to follow.

From the Edmonton Sun:

Canada’s first openly gay Catholic priest is to mark another milestone.

Father Karl Clemens is getting married Saturday to his partner Nick.

He says he’ll be the first man of the Catholic cloth to enter into a same-sex marriage in Canada, and maybe even in North America.

“I’m not doing it to start a revolution, but if people want to exercise their right, and so forth, that’s terrific,” Clemens told Sun Media yesterday.

“I feel very strongly about it.

“I’m leading the way, or pioneering, as it were, in something that I think is very important,” Clemens said. “It’s a human right.”

Clemens, who is approaching 70 and who retired from the Kingston, Ont. diocese after serving there for 33 years, moved to Toronto more than a decade ago to work in, and advocate for, the city’s gay village.

Regarding his same-sex marriage, he’s prepared for a backlash from the church and some of its followers, as he was when he came out of the closet in 2005.

“There will be Catholics who feel, because of their lack of understanding, that this is a very wrong thing and therefore will not be pleased,” Clemens said.

“But those are consequences we have to be willing to deal with because we feel strongly about the issue at hand, which is the right to be able to enter into same-sex marriages.”

Clemens and his partner will be married Saturday afternoon in the couple’s home.

Well, not exactly – but they could just as well have done, as I will explain later.  first, what they actually did say:

“The nation’s largest doctors’ group has agreed to join efforts to repeal the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.

The American Medical Association also voted to declare that gay marriage bans contribute to health disparities for gay couples and their children.

Both gay-rights policies were adopted Tuesday at the AMA’s interim policy meeting in Houston.

The AMA says the ‘don’t ask, don’t-tell’ law creates an ethical dilemma for gay service members and the doctors who treat them.

The other measure declares that marriage bans leave gays vulnerable to being excluded from health care benefits, including health insurance and family and medical leave rights. The new AMA policy stops short of opposing the bans.”

– Associated Press.

There is a delicious irony in a medical group condemning discriminatory practices against gay and lesbian people, as it is well known that the much abused word “homosexual” was originally coined late in the 19th century as a medical term to denote what was then seen as a pathology. Time has moved on, and personal orientation is no longer seen as a pathology for medical treatment, no matter what NARTH and the so-called “ex-gay” movement have to say about it.    Even the Catholic Church agrees that the “inclination” in a person is natural and not in itself sinful – they just need to allow their theology to catch up with the implications of this. Unfortunately though, the simple recognition that there is no pathology is not enough:  the damage has been done.

Let us now look at that late 19th century coinage, “heterosexual”. Yes, this too was a word invented in the 19th century, after its counterpart “homosexual”, and was also originally a medical term, used to denote a pathology.  Yes, that’s right – a pathology – specifically,

“a morbid obsession with the opposite sex.”

Now, “homosexuality” is no longer taken seriously as a pathology, but I submit that heterosexuality, as “a morbid obsession with the opposite sex”, is indeed a pathology and requires serious attention.  Let me explain.

In the context of a simple orientation, or as specific sexual acts, I obviously do not suggest that “heterosexuality” is diseased or unnatural, any more than I would make that claim about any other sexual orientation or activity.  However, at the level of society as a whole, the 20th century fixation with heterosexuality as a cultural norm to be imposed on all, fostered by this belief that it was “diseased”, aided and abetted by religious misinterpretations of Scripture and selective extracts from theology purporting to show that it is grievously sinful”, can certainly be called a morbid fascination, which has caused untold damage to the mental and physical health of many millions of people.  It is this insistence that people conform to externally imposed sexual norms, quite contrary to innate orientation and psychological health, that has caused much higher rates of youth suicide among gay and lesbian youth than among their peers; that has led to the bullying that is often the proximate cause of the suicides; that leads people in to lives of duplicity and fear in a closet; that has led to active persecution by many governments, from Nazi Germany to Iran, Sudan and Uganda today – and which lies at the bottom of the bans on gays in the military, or on gay marriage, which are the immediate issues addressed by the AMA.

This obsession is entirely unnatural.  Le t me restate once again, what should by now be well known, but sadly isn’t:

The homoerotic orientation is entirely natural, and has been found in all periods of history, in all parts of the world, and in most animal species.

Scientific research suggests that most people are neither exclusively attracted to the opposite sex, nor exclusively to the same sex. We lean more or less strongly to one or the other, but most of us are capable of responding to at least some degree to either.  Social pressures however, influence how we deal with this.

Societies too are not typically exclusively modelled on the patterned on the modern, misnamed Western idea of “traditional” marriage. This model, a monogamous union of one man and one woman joined in a love relationship consecrated in church to raise children, is unique to the last two centuries in the West. Before that, Western marriage was primarily about protecting property and inheritance rights. In many parts of the world, and among the Hebrew patriarchs, polygamy was commonplace. In classical Greece and Rome, where European culture largely began, men did not expect to find sexual or emotional fulfilment in marriage, but took it from slaves, prostitutes, concubines or male lovers – if they were privileged citizens. If not, chances are their sexual lives were determined by their owners or masters, not by themselves.

Among Christians, marriage in church was not required (and was sometimes not possible) until the 12th century. Indeed, it has been suggested that a church ceremony was obligatory only for priests who chose to marry.

Outside of Europe and North America, the so-called “traditional”, “time-honoured” model was even less typical until it was imposed by Western missionaries and colonial powers.

Even in the animal kingdom, exclusive heterosexuality is rare. Some degree of homosexuality is now known to occur in many, possibly most, animal species.

In short, the evidence from psychology, medicine, anthropology, history and zoology is that whereas homoeroticism is entirely natural if not common, exclusive heterosexuality is both unnatural and rare.  As such, I have no hesitation in labelling the social “morbid obsession with the opposite sex”  orientation as exclusive practice, and the resultant insistence on heterosexist laws and theology not only a social sexual perversion, but an extremely dangerous one.

The Church of Sweden on Sunday consecrated its first openly gay bishop.

Eva Brunne, 55, became bishop of Stockholm, Sweden’s capital, in a ceremony in nearby Uppsala, reported Agence France-Presse and the website The Local. Brunne is in a civil partnership with a woman, and they have a 3-year-old child.

Consecrated with her was another woman, Tuulikki Koivunen Bylund, who will be bishop of Härnösand in northern Sweden. This was the first time the church had consecrated two female bishops at the same time.

- from The Advocate

UPDATE:  COMMENT.

When I originally posted this item, it was already midnight and I was on the point of preparing for sleep.  With no inclination at that time for adding commentary, I though of simply including it in my news column on the right, but thought it was too important to be so sidelined, and added it without comment.  now I would like to draw your attention to two readers’ comments, and add a brief note of my own.

William Lindsey describes at as a sign of God’s sense of humour:  just as we are feeling battered by the result in Maine, God presents us with a counterexample, to show how we are indeed included in the Church community, no matter how much some would attempt to exclude us.

KittKatt says simply but effectively: “A lesbian bishop? Allelujah”.

I endorse both these comments, but must also add that this is just one more example in a broader pattern.  Across the globe, in a wide range of denominations, there are signs of the traditional hostility of the church being softened or even overturned.   Openly gay and lesbian bishops, the ordination or recognition of non-celibate gay clergy, liturgical celebration of same sex marriages or church blessing of gay unions are just the most visible, dramatic examples. Also important are the smaller shifts, and signs of dissent, coming from other denominations.

Just this morning I have posted two   surprising news items. In Salt Lake City, the LDS (that’s right, the Mormon Church of Prop H8 notoriety) has endorsed non-discrimination ordinances for the city. (Is it purely coincidence that a few days ago, as I noted in the news column, that Mormon gay rights sympathisers delivered petitions in a traditional Mormon handcart to LDS headquarters?)

In Taiwan, some gay Christians and clergy are speaking up for gay rights, noting that there are alternative explanations of the clobber texts.  This is no longer new – but this is Taiwan, not California.

On the political front, there have been extraordinary gains over the last few years,  in Iowa, New England, elsewhere in the US and across the world.  Maine was heartbreaking, but we must not allow this to cloud our recognition of the wider pattern:  we may have lost one battle, but are winning the war.

Tagged: Changing Church, church of Sweden, gay christians gay bishops, lesbian vishop ]]> http://queeringthechurch.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/lesbian-bishop-consecrated/feed/ 6 queeringthechurch Lesbian Bishop Eva_Brunne_GETTY http://queeringthechurch.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/church-marriage-required-only-for-priests/ http://queeringthechurch.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/church-marriage-required-only-for-priests/#comments Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:23:00 +0000 queeringthechurch http://queeringthechurch.wordpress.com/?p=3605 ]]>

One of the delights I find in taking that “bracing walk in history” is the frequent discoveries that what we usually assume to be the “common sense” understanding of modern practices and institutions is nothing of the source, forcing us to rethink what in fact these mean.  Two of these examples are of “traditional marriage”, and of priestly celibacy. Both of these I have referred to (separately) before, but never thought of combining them. Now I have come across a source that does consider them together, and presents the remarkable observation:

Indeed, the most learned authority on the subject argued forcefully that for the first thousand years Christianity required nuptial blessings only for priests; for the laity, an ecclesiastical ceremony was an honour, only permitted to those being married (to their own class) for the first time.

This statement comes from John Boswell, referring to the work of Korbinian Ritzer, in “Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe” which I am now rereading. This was one of the first books on homosexuality and the church that I ever  read, but I foolishly gave it away some years ago, thinking I would soon replace it – but never did.  For a long time now I’ve been feeling the need to read it, and am now delighted finally to have a replacement copy.

In rereading a book, one often gets to see different aspects to those that were apparent on first reading, and so it is here.  first, for the perspective that it offers on heterosexual relationships and “marriage” in classical and medieval times, which was so different to our modern conception of what “Traditional” marriage is supposed to have looked like, and also for the aside on the priesthood. Last month I came across a question on the New Zealand blog “Liturgy”, which bothered me, because it looked so simple, but there was no clear answer. The question out by Fr Bosco Peters was simple: It is clear that in the early church ordination was possible for married men, as it is today in the Eastern church,  but before the reformation, is there any evidence that priests could marry after ordination? Fr Peters seemed to think that there was no such evidence:

I have been involved in some discussions about this. The contention is that there is no evidence in the Tradition of marriage after ordination. None! There is, according to that position, not a single example of marriage after ordination until the Reformation. I find this an astonishing and fascinating claim. I would be fascinated if any reader could come up with a refutation. Or, of course, references to this being correct.

I would imagine that Boswell’s quotation from Ritzer clearly settles that question:  there would be no requirement for priests to marry in church if it were nto permitted fro them to marry at all.  But my primary interest in “Same sex Unions” is of course the one that has caused all the fuss.

This book, like its predecessor Christianity Social Tolerance and  Homosexuality is justly famous and celebrated among gay historians, activists and Christians for bringing to light a forgotten but important part of our lost history:  that for many centuries the Christian Church in the East celebrated, in church, the union of same-sex couples in a liturgical rite. Unlike the earlier book, “Same Sex Unions” has evoked bitter controversy and come under fierce attack for the suggesting that ti might be in any way comparable to conventional, heterosexual marriage.  It may have been for this reason that the English scholar Alan Bray was far more cautious in his alter book on the comparable rite in the Western church. Noting that the Western rite was called simply “sworn brotherhood”,  (a close equivalent to the Eastern “adelphopoeisis”, which is quite literally “making of brothers”), Bray called his book simply “The Friend”, describing it as a discussion on “friendship”.

It is for this reason that I found the opening quotation above striking.  Arguments over how far adelphopoesis in the East, or “sworn brothers” in the West, resemble modern marriage are completely misplaced: they should rather be compared with opposite sex relationships at comparable times, which were not necessarily blessed in church, were certainly not seen as sacramental until relatively late, and were most unlikely to have been about love or even friendship, but were essentially civil contracts to protect property and inheritance considerations.

I will leave it to the scholars to dig further into the ongoing controversy over the precise relationships conferred, and the significance of these liturgies for us today.  Rather, I appreciate both these books just for reminding us of  the indisputable evidence that male same sex couples in close relationships were known throughout the early church, both Eastern and Western, in both fact in in myth. In the East, Sergius & Bacchus (pictured on the cover of Boswell’s book) are the best known, but there are also Polyeuct and Nearchos, and the “two Theodores” (one of them better known to us as St George, of alleged dragon –slaying fame.”). In the Western church, for all Bray’s protestations that the “sworn brothers” signified nothing necessarily more than friendship, he cannot gloss over some key points. while some of the couples he describes were married and may well have had relationships that were not in any way erotic, that certainly does not apply to all.  Just among the English kings, Edward II and Piers Gaveston, and later James I and Buckingham, had relationships that are well known were certainly more than simply platonic .  Among the lesser known couples he describes,  some were buried in shared graves, in a manner exactly comparable to some husbands buried with their wives.   Let us also remember that an alternative word for the “sworn” brother was the “wedded” brother, united in a wedding -exactly the same as the word currently used for the celebration of a marriage. Sure, “wedding” then did not mean quite what it does today, but that is precisely the point.

A third gay Catholic medieval historian has a completely different approach to the issue, which I rather like. “Blessing Same Sex Unions” makes the important point that

At most church weddings, the person presiding over the ritual is not a priest or a pastor, but the wedding planner, followed by the photographer, the florist, and the caterer. And in this day and age, more wedding theology is supplied by Modern Bride magazine or reality television than by any of the Christian treatises on holy matrimony. Indeed, church weddings have strayed long and far from distinctly Christian aspirations. The costumes and gestures might still be right, but the intentions are hardly religious. Why then, asks noted gay commentator Mark D. Jordan, are so many churches vehemently opposed to blessing same-sex unions? In this incisive work, Jordan shows how carefully selected ideals of Christian marriage have come to dominate recent debates over same-sex unions. Opponents of gay marriage, he reveals, too often confuse simplified ideals of matrimony with historical facts. They suppose, for instance, that there has been a stable Christian tradition of marriage across millennia, when in reality Christians have quarrelled among themselves for centuries about even the most basic elements of marital theology, authorizing experiments like polygamy and divorce.

-Book Overview from “Google Books”

Mort de Joseph (Ablis)

I am not an enthusiastic liturgist, and have not followed all to and fro controversy over the much ridiculed and condemned proposed new English translation of the Mass. Joseph O’Leary on the other hand is an English scholar as well as a priest, and his own critique deserves to be taken seriously.  This passage in particular is an obvious howler. Although apparently “approved” as it stands this simply must be changed:

In communion with those whose memory we venerate, especially the glorious ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ, and of blessed Joseph, Spouse of the same Virgin, your blessed Apostles and Martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew and all your Saints: through their merits and prayers, grant that in all things we may be defended by your protecting help.

“Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ, and of blessed Joseph”?

O’Leary gives some background showing exactly how this stupidity arose. The original draft referred to “in memory of the glorious ever-virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ, then of blessed Joseph, husband of the Virgin.” This fuller phrase at least makes sense.  However, “in memory of” was removed, without consideration of the impact on the meaning of the rest of the phrase, which was disastrous. The “of” before Joseph now lost its appropriate antecedent, and can only be interpreted as “Mother ….. of blessed Joseph, spouse of the same Virgin..”

At the beginning of his post, O’Leary gives an extended description of the internal deliberations on the text and how it came to be approved, which reads rather like a parody of a committee at the end of lengthy deliberations, where nobody seems to know quite what they are voting on, but go ahead and vote anyway, just because votes must be taken. He then continues with a line by line critique of the full Eucharistic prayer.  Here is another sample:

CURRENT TEXT:

We come to you, Father, with praise and thanksgiving, through Jesus Christ your Son. Through him we ask you to accept and bless these gifts we offer you in sacrifice. We offer them for your holy catholic Church, watch over it, Lord, and guide it; grant it peace and unity throughout the world. We offer them for N. our Pope, for N. our bishop, and for all who hold and teach the catholic faith that comes from the apostles.

NEW VERSION:

To you, most merciful Father, we make humble prayer and petition, (unidiomatic and pleonastic) through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. We ask you to accept and bless these gifts, these offerings, these holy and unblemished sacrifices, (pleonastic and fulsome), which we offer (offerings which we offer – clumsy) you first of all for your holy catholic Church. Be pleased to grant her peace, to guard, unite and govern her (pleonastic and uncommunicative) throughout the whole world, together with (the Church together with the bishops?) your servant N. our Pope and N. our Bishop, and all those who, holding to the truth (sounds like propaganda, and is rather vague in its denotation), hand on the catholic and apostolic faith.

(If you are like me, and do not sprinkle “pleonastic” into your daily conversation, I can now tell you that it appears to mean “having too many words”, from the Greek for “excess.”) Read O’Leary’s full objections to the proposed translation of the Eucharistic prayer at Virgin Mary Accused of incest.

This specific fuss is about details of the liturgy, but to me it also illustrates a wider problem. In fiddling with the minutiae of the wording in a single phrase, they have made a nonsense of the meaning of the complete sentence.  Is this not a magnificent symbol of how, in fiddling with the minutiae of scholastic arguments about sexuality, the establishment completely loses sight of the wider Gospel message of love, inclusion, and justice for all?

9th November is the day the Eastern Orthodox Church remembers the feast of St Matrona /Babylas of Perge, another of the group of female saints in the early church who dressed as men to be admitted to all-male monasteries.

Our Holy Mother Matrona (492 AD):

She was from Perga in Pamphylia, and married very young, to a youth named Domitian, to whom she bore a daughter. The couple settled in Constantinople. Matrona became so constant in attending all-night vigils in the city’s many churches that her husband suspected her of infidelity and forbade her to go out. This was unbearable to Matrona, who fled the house with her daughter. Determined to embrace monastic life, she gave her daughter into the care of a nun named Susanna, disguised herself as a eunuch, and entered the monastery of St Bassian (October 10) under the name of Babylas. Though she amazed all with her zeal and ascetic labors, Bassian one day discerned that she was a woman. Though he reprimanded her severely because of her zeal, he was unwilling to drive her away from monastic life because of her zeal; so he directed her to go to Emesa in Syria to enter a certain women’s monastery there.

Matrona continued to advance in the virtues, and once healed a blind man by anointing his eyes with myrrh from the head of St John the Baptist (which had been miraculously discovered around that time). The miracle became widely-known, and because of it Matrona’s husband learned of her whereabouts. When he came to her monastery she escaped to Jerusalem, but he pursued her there too. She fled from place to place, even living for several years in an abandoned pagan temple in Beirut, where she was constantly assaulted by the demons that inhabited the place. In time several pagan women, seeing her struggles, asked to be her disciples, and a small monastic community sprang up in the pagan temple. After a few years she and her disciples made their way back to to Constantinople, where St Bassian received her joyfully and helped her to establish a monastery. There she was visited by the Empress Verina, wife of Leo the Great, and many other noblewomen of the City, some of whom left all to join Matrona in monastic life. Saint Matrona lived to be almost one hundred years old and reposed in peace, having foretold the day of her death.

(God is Wonderful in His Saints, November)

(For some general observation on the full group, have a look at “Transvestite Saints?”)

In Minnesota’s Twin Cities, there is a fascinating and important process now underway, as it has been for some time. This may seem parochial, and some of the work very narrow in focus, but I believe it has much wider importance for all of us. To illustrate, I want to begin with an example at the micro scale, about which Michael Bayly has written at the Wild Reed. Michael serves as the executive co-ordinator of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, and is currently working with a group of people who comprise a “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Work/study Group.  It is the work of this group that Michael wrote last week, calling it “An exciting Endeavour” .

(Michael Bayly and Friends: Picture from the Wild Reed)

Parochial / local? Narrow/ tightly–focussed? Certainly.  Exciting?  Absolutely.

The reason for the tight focus is simple:  this is just one part of a broader project of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform, which. In parallel with the work of this group, has convened further study groups on a wide range of topics, or “areas of disconnect”

between current church practices and the church’s mission to manifest God’s love. These areas of disconnect include: Church Authority and Governance, Bishop Selection, Clericalism, Communication in a Polarized Community, Church as a Community of Equals, Catholic/Christian Identity, Catholic Spirituality, Emerging Church, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Social Justice, and Faith Formation of Children and Youth.

This is an impressive but also disturbingly long list.  Impressive, because it is comprehensive and covers pretty well all bases.  Disturbing, because this is a list of areas of “disconnect”.  Are things really that bad?  Well, possibly. More important, is that they are being addressed, as the CCCR is convening  these study groups in preparation for a diocesan synod which they have called for 2010. That’s right – a diocesan synod, which they are calling themselves. Last month, the convenors released a second progress report,. Paula Ruddy’s report, available on NCR or at the Progressive Catholic Voice, is worth reading.

Most of us in the room were of a certain age, meaning we grew up in the 40’s and 50’s, in an era that believed change is initiated from the power positions at the top, that it is predictable, controlled, and that you can look to history to tell you the future.

But now:

We now know that each person is an agent in the creation of the future. We know that each action has unpredictable influence on other actions because of the connectedness of everyone within the systems. What emerges from each set of interactions creates the future. We don’t look to “the man” to have a master plan. We are in charge of the future ourselves. Every person has power; every action counts.

Glenda and Lois talked about the power of language to influence change. ……Using words that describe imbalances of power can diminish a person’s view of his/her place in the scheme of things. For example, the phrase “the hierarchy” puts the people referred to in a superior category within the system. We can re-think our language to reflect an egalitarian balance of power.

So, Michael’s small group is just one part of a wider programmes for Minneapolis. We can now see that it is not after all narrow in focus, but is it nevertheless parochial?  Why do I suggest that it is of significance for the rest of us? Well, because it is just one model, one way of doing something that we should all be engaged in, but too few of us are. This is not, in Paula’s words, an example of a group of laiety waiting patiently and anxiously for change to be “initiated from the power positions a the top”.  (In that diocese, such is most unlikely to come too soon.) instead, they are recognising the reality on the ground, and have recognised that indeed they are themselves “in charge of the future “, “Every person has power; every action counts”.

Many people will be shocked at this apparent rebellion against the clerical establishment (I now longer call them the “hierarchy”), but this reaction is inappropriate – it is an expression of exactly what the Church has told us to do. It is well-known that the Vatican Council resolved there should be greater lay participation in the work of the Church – but failed to create suitable structures to provide for this increased participation.  Since then, the established interests in the power structures have not displayed any intention of completing this unfinished business.  Many of us of course, are quite happy, and would rather sit back and wait for priests to do the work and take al the decisions.  Others are impatient and frustrated, recognising that we have unique gifts and experiences not shared by a celibate ordained clergy, and that with the critical shortage of priests, we have no alternative but to use all the talents we have. But whether we have been given the tools or not, it remains a task that was entrusted to us by the Council.  If we have not been given the tools, we have no choice but to make them for ourselves.

What the CCCR have done is a good demonstration of what Len Swidler of the ARCC describes in New Catholic Times (sensus fidelium) as implementing  Vatican II from Below. Swidler’s programme is designed  for a parish context, and so may not be feasible where parish conditions are suitable. Where they are appropriate though, they could be worth exploring. These are listed as  the first 6 steps:

1. Prepare the minds of the laity to take responsibility
2. Discuss and deliberate among all the parish the making of the Constitution
3. The name “Constitution”
4. What should and should not be in a Constitution
5. Liturgical Installation
6. Live by the Constitution

Presumably, steps 7 – 10 will follow later.

These are two very different examples, both from within the formal bounds of the Catholic church structures. There are many more possible approaches, some from just outside the church, some of which are quoted by  in her excellent address to   “The Underground Church”, which I found in The Wild Reed’s valuable archives.

By now, we have moved from a reference to a narrowly focused, local initiative to argue that as an example of what should be happening universally, it is in fact far from as parochial as it seems:  it has significance for us all.  In Michael’s words:

By changing church practices we envision transforming the culture of our local church into one that faithfully lives out its mission. In doing all of this we aim to model a type of participation led by a coalition of the baptized that will serve as a template for church reform within dioceses across the country.

Now I want to return to Michael’s local, specialist work ‘study group and take a closer look at not what they are doing, but how, and what they are finding. Part of the process is reading and study, coupled with brainstorming ideas that can be implemented or proposed reasonably early in the process of reform.  For example, they all agreed (quite quickly, I would think), that

the recommendations we come up with and eventually present next September at the 2010 Synod should convey an alternative theology on human sexuality to the one currently being promulgated by the Vatican. This “alternative” theology would be open to being shaped by both faith and reason, i.e., by the presence of God within the lived experiences of all, and by the insights on sexual orientation and gender offered by the sciences.

Note the reference to “faith and reason”.  This principle is right at the heart of church teaching – Benedict XVI himself recently stressed its importance.  It is true of course that the Church shows extraordinary inconsistency in applying it own standards, but I would think that is precisely why we should muck in and assist in pointing out these inconsistencies – which is another task the group have set themselves. They also recognise the limits of their own knowledge and experience, so deliberately are seeking to fill in the gaps. One example here is a plan to learn more about transgender lives and perspectives.

Wisely, they recognise that for the most part, there is no need for them to attempt to develop new theology – its already there, even if it is not yet embedded in establishment teaching.

An “alternative” theology already exists; we, as members of the CCCR Work/Study Group on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, are well aware that we don’t have to create it. It’s not only already being lived at the grassroots, but it’s been developed and articulated for decades by many highly respected Catholic theologians and scholars. We see our job as researching the writings of these theologians and scholars so as to find support for the recommendations we would like to see implemented within our local church.

One book that they are studying at present is  The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology by Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, from which Michael quotes an extended extract. Michael summarises this as

Put another way, faith and morality can and should be capable of being informed and shaped by reason. They also observe that this intellectual conversion is reflected in a “disconnect between many of the Magisterium’s absolute proscriptive sexual norms and the methodological and anthropological developments explicitly recognized and endorsed throughout Catholic tradition, especially since the Second Vatican Council.”

One of the disconnects in the Church’s practice concerns the infamous, much abused text from Genesis on the destruction of Sodom.   The official approach to Scripture insists that we should use proper literary-critical scholarship (among other means) to interpret Scripture, the Catechism quotes this passage to denounce homoerotic sex, even though the best scholarly evidence now denies that the passage has anything at all to do with homosexuality. Similarly, it is well known that the teaching on sex (homosexuality and contraception in particular) completely ignore science, and thus the “faith and reason” that is elsewhere exhorted as the proper basis.

In short, we can say that in recommending an approach based on faith and reason, on textual evidence in Scripture, and on findings of scientific evidence, not scientific speculation, the Church is calling for reality- based theology.  This they singularly  fail to provide.

Instead, consider the words elsewhere of Simon Rosser:

I have a lot of hope because I think the situation is so bad that American Catholics will be forced to think for themselves. And that’s a good thing. Whether it’s homosexuality, contraception, premarital sex, divorce, masturbation, or HIV prevention, the official Church position is now so extreme, so negative, so ultra-conservative, and ill-informed, that I’m confident that less than 5 percent of Catholics actually believe or follow Catholic sexual teaching.

I accept that common practice is not the same as an appropriate standard, but still I find it striking that church teaching, claiming but failing to be based in reality, instead ends up reflecting the views of just 5% of Catholics.

Which do want, a genuinely reality-based theology, or the 5% solution?

If the former, what are the ways in which you can follow the examples of the Twin Cities, or of Len Swidler, and begin to implement Vatican II from the ground up?

Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement represent some of what is best in the Catholic tradition. (Read about her, and the Catholic Workers as a whole, at the Catholic Worker website).

I have received from a reader an email message about her connection with the LGBT community, and telling of a book which is being prepared, telling personal stories which illustrate this connection.  This sounds to me like a great project, which deserves support. There has already been a strong, even international, response, but more stories  and pictures are needed. If you have personal memories of Dorothy,or if you know friends or family who may have done, please read the messages which follow, and offer your recollections or other material.

A call for submission of stories, letters, memories and photographs.

Dear Catholic Workers and friends of CWers;
LGBT persons have been part of the Catholic Worker movement across the world since its founding 75 years ago. For many decades the LGBT community and CW Communities/ Houses have worked together, engaged in works of mercy and witnessed for peace and justice.We are seeking letters, stories and photographs of LGBT women and men from around the world whose lives and hearts have been transformed and influenced by Dorothy Day (1897-1980) and the Catholic Worker. This collection will be a unique and insightful remembering of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin and the CW movement through the eyes of LBGT people. Up to now this has been an untold or incomplete story.

We are seeking stories of LBGT people who knew Dorothy in person, through her writings, her legacy of spirit or simply by heartfelt affection or association with Catholic Worker communities. The essays will be a gathering of stories at that “crossroads” of encounter between personal/ spiritual radicalism and LGBT humanity. This proposed book comes out of the crossroads where the LBGT and Catholic worker communities embrace and interact. Here in open hearted story -telling style, will be a gathering of voices as around a hospitable Catholic Worker kitchen table. We seek to break through the historical silence in honest and heartfelt ways that soulfully reveal, some perhaps for the first time, lives of pain and joy, struggle, compassion, laughter, despair and hope.

We invite you to share your stories of coming out, of coming home, of conflict and pain, transformation and healing, rejection and hope. As in any other family, community or church there is a variety of experiences for those who are lesbian and gay. Our hope here is to go beyond the idealized portraits of CW community’s houses of hospitality and true to CW spirit, however uneasily, welcome and include a wide diversity of experiences and life journeys. We request that you send
us these art, photographs, stories and essays before November 25, 2009.  Get in touch anyway….

Please contact Brendan or Michael at the below email addresses or feel  free to call us on the phone. We look forward to hearing from all who might want to submit a story or essay for this proposed book, “Friends of Dorothy- The Catholic Worker & the LGBT Community”.

Contact:

Brendan Fay: “Brendan at stpatsforall dot com”
(718) 721-2780

Michael Harank: “mharank at yahoo dot com”

(510) 482-6448
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of his request. If you think of other people who we might contact for contributions to the book, please don’t hesitate to make some suggestions.

In peace,

Brendan Fay
Michael Harank

Dear friends,

I am forwarding to you our call for submissions for stories in the hope you will consider writing, to an interview or suggesting a friend or two. Perhaps you know an artist, someone with a photograph, an insight or a simple story worth telling!

The response so far has been enthusiastic and international. Some are very simple first person stories. Some are memories about Dorothy. Others are from LGBT persons whose spiritual lives have been profoundly by the witness Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. There are histories of founders of farms and houses of hospitality. Others speak of the warm hospitality, hope and solidarity during the AIDS crisis. There also also letters of pain and exclusion as people wrestle with and overcome prejudice in themselves and communities. Other writers and contributors are straight but whose sons and daughters, friends or family are be gay or lesbian.

Our collection will also honor the generous lives and loves of a few forgotten LGBT CW saints who have gone before us!

Please help us with this. Pass on the good word

We hope to unwrap some neglected cw history, to inspire; others to witness in solidarity with LGBT brothers & sisters in poverty, in exile, or treated as second class in church & society, to honor the gifts of gay /lesbian CW founders and holy rebels for peace, justice and mercy; to welcome in a spirit of healing and hospitality stories of pain and hurt and to break through silences.

to primarily announce and proclaim stories of openness and liberation and hospitable healing. We want our gathering of stories to be good news rather than a volume that simply denounces homophobia & prejudice

We welcome stories from your circles of CW friends

There will be a number of sections here
Personal stories’
Documents , prayers and letters from years past
Reflections
Photographs or art
Memories and stories of those who paved the way, who have gone before us.

Contact:

Brendan Fay: “Brendan at stpatsforall dot com”
(718) 721-2780

Michael Harank: “mharank at yahoo dot com”

(510) 482-6448
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of his request. If you think of other people who we might contact for contributions to the book, please don’t hesitate to make some suggestions.

In peace,

Brendan Fay
Michael Harank

Before assessing the current church positions, consider the view of St Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, early in the 12th century:

The Council of London in 1102 wanted to enact ecclesiastical legislation which declared – for the first time in English history – that homosexual behaviour was a sin, and they recommended that offending laymen be imprisoned and clergymen be anathematized.

But Anselm as Archbishop of Canterbury prohibited the publication of their decree, advising the Council that homosexuality was widespread and few men were embarrassed by it or had even been aware it was a serious matter; he felt that although sodomites should not be admitted to the priesthood, confessors should take into account mitigating factors such as age and marital status before prescribing penance, and he advised counselling rather than punishment.

-Gay History and Culture, Rick Norton

Now consider the reaction from religious leaders this week:

Religious leaders around Maine had mixed reactions Wednesday to the voters’ repeal of same-sex marriage on Election Day.

-Religious Leaders React (Bangor Daily News)

I am convinced that in the longer term, the lasting value of the struggles for equality in California and in Maine will be the public airing of dissenting views within the Christian churches on the subject of homoerotic relationships. For far too long, there has been an automatic assumption that the mainstream churches are unanimously opposed, and that the usual interpretations of Scriptural proscription are sound. That made it easy to depict the legal restrictions as based in “morality”, and “traditional beliefs” , and to paint the struggle simply as one of “Christian values” against “sinful lifestyles”.  The emerging recognition that there is not a single religious view, that sincere and knowledgeable people of faith could differ, will become as damaging to the traditional opposition as the secular, scientific recognition that we are not talking about a chosen “lifestyle”, but about a fully natural, internal orientation.

Of course, the result itself was grievously disappointing – but pause, and take encouragement from some supportive local church leaders. First up is the Episcopal bishop of Maine

The Rt. Rev. Stephen Lane, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, expressed disappointment Wednesday over the election results. He spoke in favor of same-sex marriage at the hearing before the Judiciary Committee in April.

“Many faithful Episcopalians are deeply grieved at this decision,” Lane said in a written statement. “They had hoped that they and their families might enjoy the recognition and protections afforded heterosexual couples. The rejection of the law also feels like rejection of them as persons. I join in their grief that the right of same-gender couples to enter into a lifelong, monogamous marriage has been denied.

and the Unitarians:

The Rev. Mark Worth, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Castine and a member of the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine, reminded members of his flock in an e-mail that the struggle for justice can be long.

“It was not until 100 years after the Civil War that we ended legal racial segregation,” he said. “Only in 1968 did all states allow interracial marriage. I am confident that history is moving toward justice, and that the right to marry will continue to spread throughout the land. It may take time, but justice will not always be denied.”

Even the Catholic Bishop Malone of Portland, who was one of the most prominent and controversial religious figures fighting against civil marriage rights, had some oddly comforting words in a tortured egg dance of an attempt at reconciliation.

“Respect and acceptance of all people regardless of sexual orientation is not a point of controversy — indeed, it is a teaching of the church,” he concluded. “While the Catholic Church will continue its commitment to work for the basic human rights to which all people are entitled, it remains devoted to preserving and strengthening the precious gift of marriage.”

-Religious Leaders React (Bangor Daily News)

Of course, these basic human rights do not seem to extend to the right of legal protection for our loving relationships in civil contracts on the same terms as heterosexual couples who choose civil marriage contracts over those of the church, nor does the commitment to basic human rights extend to signing a UN declaration seeking decriminalization (far short of seeking the entrenchment of our human rights).  But, I let this pass on this occasion. Instead, let us take comfort in the statement of good will and good intentions towards human rights.  This will make it easier for us to advance the cause for arrangements like those in Washington, which provide for marriage like benefits without the name, and for more general anti-discrimination measures, like those in Kalamazoo, which if widely accepted would benefit many more people. (not everybody is or wants to be married, or even partnered – but we all want to be protected from discrimination.)

The bishop’s endorsement of human rights also leaves us free to continue to show that the argument over marriage equality is indeed about civil rights, and not about the sanctity of marriage. This brings me back to St Anselm’s position, with which I started this post.

Take careful note of Anselm’s position, and the context.  This council of London, as late as 1102, is described as the first time the church wished to make a formal declaration that homosexuality was a sin. (John Boswell shows clearly that some early church fathers saw it as sinful, but that the view was neither universally shared, nor was it regarded as particularly serious, until much later.) Anselm accepted the view that it was sinful – but not especially abhorrent compared with the many other sins of the world, and refused to single it out for special attention.

This is the question we need to be putting to Catholic and other church leaders who, like Bishop Malone, argue simultaneously that Christians should support human rights, yet oppose same-sex civil marriage:  if the homosexual condition is an “intrinsically disordered” but entirely natural condition, for which there is no church sanctioned possibility of marriage, why is natural sexual for us to be judged any more harshly than “intrinsically evil” heterosexual cohabitation, which could be avoided by the simple expedient of a church marriage?

Conversely, if there is no suggestion of a moral double standard, why is one form of civil marriage vigorously opposed, while the other is morally deplored but left as a civil matter?

Meanwhile, the backlash continues against the Mormon heavy involvement in the Californian ballot last year.  In Salt Lake City, a group of gay supportive Mormon’s have adopted a high visibility tactic to register their objections, using a traditional Mormon approach. From the Salt Lake Tribune:

Gay-rights group pulls Mormon-style Handcart to Make a Point

Mormon Handcart Protest

We have already seen the start of a Catholic backlash in Maine.  I expect that this will continue in the years to come, just as it has done in the case of the LDS. The battle in Maine will resume (we just don’t yet know when, although it could be in 2011).  Both a legal panel and Maine activists themselves have predicted that the battle will resume, and will ultimately be won.  The electorate is getting younger, while the religious arguments get weaker year by year. The electoral statistician Nate Silver has calculated that support for equality grows by two percentage points each year.  In Maine, that would be enough to eliminate Tuesday’s margin within two years.

Bishop Malone and NOM should prepare for an even tougher fight next time.