This post has moved to my new domain at http://queering-the-church.com/blog
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Ignatian Spirituality – and Me.
September 11, 2009 — Terence7 Responses to “Ignatian Spirituality – and Me.”
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- Queer Saints and Martyrs (& Others)
- James Stoll, Unitarian Pioneer of LGBT Inclusion in Church December 8, 2012Rev. James Lewis Stoll, who died on December 8th 1994, was a Unitarian Universalist minister who became the first ordained minister of any religion in the United States or Canada to come out as gay. He did so at the annual Continental Conference of Student Religious Liberals on September 5, 1969 in La Foret, Colorado. Later, he led the effort that convinced […]
- Blessed Charles de Foucauld December 1, 2012CHARLES DE FOUCAULD (Brother Charles of Jesus) was born in Strasbourg, France on September 15th, 1858. Orphaned at the age of six, he and his sister Marie were raised by their grandfather in whose footsteps he followed by taking up a military career.He lost his faith as an adolescent.His taste for easy living was well known to all and yet he showed that he c […]
- Blessed Bernardo de Hoyos: "The Spouse of Christ" November 30, 2012In Catholic spiritual tradition, there is an important and honoured place for the idea of "The Bride of Christ". At one level, we are taught to think of the Church as a whole as such a bride of Christ, and the wedding at Cana as a metaphor for the marriage of Christ to his bride, the Church. At another level, religious women think of themselves as […]
- Harvey Milk November 27, 2012b. May 22, 1930 d. November 27, 1978Harvey Milk became the first openly gay person to be elected to a significant public office when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He served eleven months before he was assassinated."The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it. […]
- James Stoll, Unitarian Pioneer of LGBT Inclusion in Church December 8, 2012
- Queer Scripture
- The Gay Centurion March 15, 2012In Catholic tradition, Longinus is the name given to the Roman centurion at the crucifixion who pierced Christ's side with his spear. Some writers, like Paul Halsall of the LGBT Catholic Handbook, also identify him with the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his "beloved boy", who was ill. It is this second person that I am interested in here. […]
- Faith vs Religion: Ecclesiolatry, Scribes and Pharisees. February 6, 2012There is an important distinction between "faith", which refers to belief and a relationship with the divine, and "religion", which refers primarily to the human structures which support it, with their rules, rituals, and clerical castes. They are obviously linked, interdependent, and ideally, support each other. There are grave dangers t […]
- The Bible and Textual Abuse: The Case of "malakoi" and "arsenokoites". January 24, 2012Sane and rational discussion of the Bible and same-sex relationships are bedevilled by difficulties with language, arising from problems with translations on the one hand, and vastly different cultural conditions which make it difficult sometimes to make sense of the applicability of the words, even where the literal meaning is clear. This is especially imp […]
- Trans in Scripture May 6, 2011The Ethiopian Eunuch is our most famous trancestor. However, there are many more scattered through the Bible, both visible and invisible. We shall meet many more later. -Lewis ReayThe Many Eunuchs Hidden in ScriptureThere are numerous trans themes and characters in Scripture. If these are not immediately familiar to us, this is because often, they are simply […]
- The Gay Centurion March 15, 2012
- Queer Spirituality
- "The Last Judgement", and the Homoerotic Spirituality of Michaelangelo. November 14, 2010One of the great paradox's of queer church history is that a period of extreme persecution of "sodomites" by the Inquisition, directly at their own hands or indirectly by secular authorities at their instigation, largely coincided with a remarkable series of popes who had sex with men, who protected family and friends who did so, or spent vast […]
- James Alison on Growing Up Gay November 2, 2010James Alison is another important theologian for gay men, although he described himself not as a "gay theologian", but as a theologian who writes from a gay (male) perspective. He was formerly a Dominican priest, who like Fr John McNeill,, was forced out of the priesthood for daring to speak honestly, in his case about gay priests. He has since cre […]
- Come Out, Stand Proud. (The Catechism Commands It!) October 11, 2010Yes, really - in a manner of speaking. Browsing through the Catechism section on sexuality, which you will find under the sixth commandment, I was struck by two passages in particular:"Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity." (2333)and"Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological wor […]
- Was Jesus a Second Class Citizen? August 11, 2010At Religion Dispatches Magazine, Louis A. Ruprecht makes an important point: One of the more striking things about all of the ink that has been spilled over California’s now- infamous Proposition 8, and its long legal aftermath, is the almost reflexive assumption on all sides that marriage, somehow, is a norm, a desirable norm. And so the argument swiftly be […]
- "The Last Judgement", and the Homoerotic Spirituality of Michaelangelo. November 14, 2010
- Queering Theology and Ministry
- Progressive Catholic Group Ordaining Transgender Priest January 9, 2013
- Do gays need a church of their own anymore? December 29, 2012
- Response to Benedict: Dutch Gay Catholics De-Baptize Themselves December 28, 2012
- Untitled December 18, 2012
- Clerical Abuse Watch
- The Catholic Church's Secret Sex-Crime Files September 7, 2011The five co-defendants sit close enough to shake hands in the Philadelphia courtroom, but they never once acknowledge one another. Father James Brennan, a 47-year-old priest accused of raping a 14-year-old boy, looks sad and stooped in a navy sweater, unshaven and sniffling. Edward Avery, a defrocked priest in his sixties, wears an unsettlingly pleasant expr […]
- Australian Professor says church suppressed child abuse report September 5, 2011"A LEADING child protection expert has urged the Victorian government to hold a public inquiry into the handling of child-sex cases by a Catholic religious order after the Catholic Church suppressed a report it asked him to write. Sydney University law professor Patrick Parkinson wrote yesterday to the Victorian Attorney-General, Robert Clark, and Polic […]
- Clerical abusers shielded by 'cabal' -Dr Diarmuid Martin September 4, 2011The Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has admitted that "a cabal" protecting clerical sex abusers may be operating at the highest levels in the Catholic Church. Dr Martin said: "There may be a cabal in Cloyne. They may have friends in other parts of the Irish Church. They may have friends in Irish society. There may be friends in the Vat […]
- The Catholic Church's Secret Sex-Crime Files September 7, 2011
September 11, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Terry, thank you for a beautiful, and profoundly moving, statement about the roots of the spirituality underlying Queering the Church. I needed to hear this today. I have felt lately, both with my own blog and in my own life, a bit bewildered.
You remind me that even when the paths are not evident before us, we remain on an important journey, once we have set foot in faith into the wilderness. As I think I’ve mentioned to you before, my undergraduate study at a Jesuit university has given me a similar appreciation for Jesuit spirituality, and, in particular, for the daily practice of offering oneself and all that one has to the Lord.
You are making an important contribution by showing how very traditional forms of spirituality can be wedded to queer theology–because those of us who are gay or lesbian can and do live spiritual lives, despite the incessant charge of many of our brothers and sisters that we are incapable of spirituality.
September 11, 2009 at 2:06 pm
It is a mission Terry and one that is shared. Discernment is always a difficult proposition especially when one can’t quite see the end goal.
For me that’s what makes the spiritual path so dependent on trust. That may be the gift that gays can offer the Church. Gays have been villified and mistrusted for so long with in a Catholic context, that many of us have learned to look for trust elsewhere—-inward. Which is exactly where Jesus said to look.
September 12, 2009 at 11:41 am
Colleen, Bill:
What a pleasant surprise to open up today, after a little while without internet access, to find two such supportive comments to something I posted with some hesitation. But I believes more and more that the best way to stand up to the spiritual bullying of the hierarchy is to develop the spiritual path. I wanted to include a quotation from Karl Rahner that I came across earlier in the week – but could not find when I needed it. the gist thought, was that talking about God, or making rules about god, cannot compare with the direct experience of God. Hence, for one who has had that experience of God, manmade rules that contradict that experience are of no consequence. This is precisely the I feel about it, and the only way to fnd that direct experience, which Rahner believes is available to us all, is through spirituality
September 12, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Terry, you say, “But I believe more and more that the best way to stand up to the spiritual bullying of the hierarchy is to develop the spiritual path.”
Amen. And that’s just where I have ended up in my own little discernment process this week–as I described in my posting about that yesterday at Bilgrimage. I had to spend some days in silence to remember that it was those shining threads that got me going with the blog–that it is about a spiritual path along which I’m walking.
And now that we see a number of us being nudged by the Spirit at the same time along the same path, perhaps it’s time to find a collaborative platform from which to speak? 🙂
September 14, 2009 at 7:18 am
Count me in! Look forward to joining you on this queer race to the finish line!
September 14, 2009 at 8:02 am
Thank you, Philip, for the encouragement.
Does this “count me in” mean that we can expect some contributions of your own? I hope so.
September 15, 2009 at 4:44 am
Of course! Its just, its seemed that the ecclesiastical gay news cycle has simmered down a bit… =P