It occurs to me that there's a good discussion to be had around this question, but let me say in no uncertain terms that I'm going to unpublish any comments that are abusive, vitriolic or significantly off-topic.
So, why don't gay Catholics leave the Catholic Church? It could be that they are part of a parish that, in violation of Catholic teaching, affirms that their homosexuality is a moral good -- in other words, they don't feel at the local level any significant pressure from Catholicism's prohibitions against homosexual behavior. (This is, I think, why so many conservative Episcopalians remain Episcopalian). It's fairly easy to live as a Catholic without having one's homosexuality (or sex life at all) come up in parish life. In all my time as a Catholic, the only time I ever heard homosexuality addressed from the pulpit was two or three times at my Fort Lauderdale parish, in which the priest attacked "homophobia."
I could be wrong, but I very much doubt Andrew Sullivan ever has to hear a word spoken against homosexuality at his parish in Washington, DC. If he did, it's not hard to find parishes that don't hassle him about it, and to live one's life as an openly gay Catholic without having any kind of in-your-face conflict. In most ways dealing with the church's hard teachings (hard for our culture to take, I mean), most American Catholic parishes are functionally AWOL. It's Moralistic Therapeutic Deism all the way down. And not just in Catholic churches, I hasten to say! The idea that poor, put-upon gay Catholics are having to sit there every week and hear priests denounce their affections from the pulpit is simply nonsense, as is the hoary pop-culture cliche that priests are obsessed with sex and harp on it in sermons. For better or for worse, that just doesn't happen.
But the Church's principled stance against homosexuality bothers him a great deal -- and it should bother him, given what he believes is true about homosexuality. In a case like the gay marriage referendum in Maine, in which the state's Catholic bishops lobbied against same-sex marriage, it makes perfect sense for gay Catholics who believe the Church is deeply wrong about homosexuality to be offended, inasmuch as the Catholic bishops, in fighting for what the Catholic Church teaches is true, contributed to a public policy outcome detrimental to the same-sex marriage cause. For gay Catholics, that's not nothing.
So why do they stay in a church that condemns homosexuality [Clarification: that condemns homosexual acts, but not homosexual persons, a distinction many gays insist is one without a difference -- RD], and that's not going to change on the subject, when many (at least in big cities) have plenty of other options for worshiping as Christians in churches that fully affirm their sexuality? What is the reason for staying in a Church whose teaching on sexuality you definitively reject (as distinct from wrestling with in good faith), and in so doing implicitly reject the Church's binding authority in matters of faith and morals? I'm not asking as a rhetorical question; I'd really like to hear what you readers -- gay and straight, Catholic and non-Catholic -- think. One non-Catholic reader wrote to me this morning about his own wrestling with ordination in his Protestant denomination, and how his experience arguing with church folks who doubted his motives for seeking ordination under his particular set of conditions taught him something about why gay Catholics stay:
Over the years, I have come to realize there was probably no small measure of passive-aggressiveness in my stubbornness. I still believe the call to ministry was and is there, but I still can see some measure of seeking affirmation, even if it meant causing a stir along the way. What I have come to realize about gay ordination as a result, even though I am not a supporter, is that what those pursuing it desire above all else is to force the Church, not only to acknowledge them, but also to affirm them. Thus, they act in this passive-aggressive manner and then proceed on to outright aggressiveness. They can't move on because to do so is to admit defeat in their quest for affirmation. Yes, they certainly could gain that elsewhere, but that's not what they want. They want everyone's hearts and minds, not just the like-minded. And to gain that, there is no measure of resistance they will not endure.
This, by the way, is why I have no faith at all that the orthodox churches, synagogues and religious institutions will be left alone once gay rights advocates have the fullest constitutional protection. Tolerance will quickly be insufficient; affirmation will be the minimal standard -- or else.
That's my view. I welcome yours -- but again, be as sharp and as pointed as you like, but vitriol, abuse, name-calling and the like will be deleted.
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I eat meat on Friday. Is it time to leave the Church?
Rod,
I am straight, but I don’t really understand your mystification at Catholics who stay when they “definitively reject” some peripheral teaching of the Church. More precisely, I think it reveals that you weren't brought up Catholic, as other readers have alluded to above.
I think it needs to be pointed out that compared to a doctrine such as the divinity of Christ or the Assumption of Mary or transubstantiation, the Church’s teaching on homosexuality is peripheral. The teaching on homosexuality may be important, but it isn't as important as the teaching on the sacraments. It isn't even close to as important as the teachign on the sacraments. We could substitute the teachings on contraception, divorce, and or celibate priesthood (of course, the last example being clearly a discipline, rather than a doctrine).These sorts of “doctrines” are way out on the outer most edge of the periphery of Catholic teaching.
The “core” tenants of the faith – the articles that matter the most – are those that have been solemnly defined – and particularly those that find expression in the creeds. Martyrs shed their blood to defend the doctrine of resurrection. As far as I know, nobody has shed blood to defend the notion that marriage is solely between one man and one woman. Even the teaching on abortion is not in the category of solemnly defined central tenants of the faith. Indeed, about 90 percent of what is considered “authentic doctrine” is not solemnly (infallibly) defined, or central. Even the teaching on women’s ordination, which Pope Benedict considers “infallible”, as not been solemnly defined by either extraordinary papal magisterium or an ecumenical council.
It also isn’t just “liberals” who question Church teaching. In America, many social conservatives question the Church’s teaching on the death penalty (that there is no instance in actual practice where it is morally licit in modern society). Or they question the Church’s teaching on just war (that is definitionally a military defense against aggression in progress, such that it cannot be waged preventively, or unilaterally in the case of a humanitarian intervention against a dictator). Or they question any real application of solidarity or economic justice, etc….
I think you’d be hard pressed to find a single Catholic anywhere – even Mark Shea – who agrees one hundred percent with every jot and tiddle of the Catechism as Pope Benedict interprets the Catechism (and, aside from being the Pope, he had a large hand in writing the Catechism, giving his interpretation a sort of double privileged weight as Pope and as a chief author of the text).
Why do so many dissidents on both the right and the left stay?
Being Catholic has almost nothing to do with embracing a set of teachings. The Church actually teaches this, if the teaching is any measure of what it means to be Catholic. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, as the saying goes. You do not choose Catholicism. It chooses you. You are born into it (or born-again into it). Through an indelible seal imparted at baptism you are conformed to Christ for all eternity. Being Catholic is emphatically not like joining a political party – not at all. To see it this way is to completely misunderstand what it means to be Catholic. It entirely misses the point. Being Catholic is more like being born into a family. You are made a member of the Body of Christ, and that is something that happens to you on an ontic level – on the level of the philosophical category of being. Being Catholic is not about what you believe. It about what you are!
We are born into Catholic faith, where “dad” (the Pope) seems to pop off with all sorts of opinions about life, the universe and everything. And just like I might disagree with my biological father from time to time, I might disagree with my spiritual father from time to time. That doesn’t make me any less Catholic than disagreeing with my biological father makes me less a member of the “Cecil” family.
As to holding an opinion that “definitively” rejects a teaching of the Church, I take for granted that is a certain set of common experiences of what we mean by holding an opinion. First, each and every one of us holds his or her own opinion to be true in some sort of objective sense. Even the relativist believes the absolutist is objectively wrong. Second, we all hold our opinions with varying degrees of certitude. I may be relatively uncertain about a political opinion, while having a very high degree of certitude about the outcome of a math equation. When a person “definitively” rejects a teaching of the Church, my experience is that few of us mean that we are mathematically certain the Church teaching is incorrect.
Circling back to where I started my response to your article, most of the teachings that stir up dissent among Catholics who don’t leave the Church are not solemnly defined. The teachings are not considered “infallibly defined” at this point in history. That means that while there may be truth in the teaching, the truth may be imperfectly formulated – even mixed with error. If I hold an opinion different than what the Church expresses (which I do on many subjects), what I am saying is that at this point in time, I believe that the objective truth (God’s truth) reveals an imperfection in the way authentic teaching is currently formulated (the way it is put in the Catechism as interpreted by Pope Benedict). Or, my opinion is that Dad’s admittedly non-infallible opinion is somewhat faulty. Of course, just as discussion at the Cecil dinner table is seldom this abstract and polite, dissent in the Church is seldom framed so politely or abstractly. We’re far more likely to simply yell “B.S. An exclusively male priesthood isn’t infallible. Of course women can be ordained. Women are equals of men aren’t they?”
Another way of looking at the whole is this. If everyone of us who disagreed with a papal teaching simply left, the Pope may never change his mind. If we stay and argue with him time and time again, he will either refine his argument to the point where we find it compelling, or we will slowly change his mind.
As far as the pain gays feel, I live in the Washington DC area, and I feel it with them. There are parishes that are very welcoming to gays, as you allude to in your article. However, especially out in the suburbs, you will also find those parishes that seem hostile to gays. It may not be preached as the main theme of a homily, but it will come through when a priest adds a petition to stop the DC council from legalizing gay marriage, or in a pamphlet stocked in the back of the Church, or in the statement by the Archbishop, etc.... Honestly, there are moments when I am embarrassed for my Church for being so far behind on the issue.
Peace!
Sorry - My name got deleted while posting the above comment....
"What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?" Jesus asks in Luke 11:11-12.
Answer: the Catholic God.
Being gay and Catholic, I lived for three decades with the idea of a God that was loving and who created me in "his" image. When I was in seminary getting my Masters of Divinity, I learned that spirituality and sexuality were two sides of the same coin, of the same energy source planted deep within our beings, and the energy that drove each of us towards union with not only God but with others. I was taught that even in homosexuals this energy was a gift and in the image and likeness of God.
Of course, to act upon that gift genitally was sinful and depraved.
The closeted gay clerics that are condemning homosexuality are doing it in a way that makes the same compartmentalization of their sexualities that they use to remain "celibate" the norm for all: "I'm not a gay person, or a gay Catholic, or a gay priest. I'm a priest, catholic, or person, who happens to be gay." This is compartmentalization at its psychological worst, and an affront to true integration of one's self that the Church claims to preach.
The distinction between acts and thoughts is a dualism in which even Jesus didn't believe, for in Jesus' words just to think about a sexual act was to commit the act. (Mt 5:27-29)
So, the Catholic Church will go on telling homosexuals that they have a place in the Church, that their God loves them, and accepts them, but at the same time the bishops will continue to decry homosexuals and will use their bully pulpit to raise money to take away LGBT persons' rights (in Maine they even took a special collection at all Masses to raise money to strip people's civil marriage rights) and threaten to boycott serving the poor if civil marriage equality is granted to all couples (as the the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. did last week).
Joe C. is right in his previous comment, the Catholic Church is a family. It's an extremely dysfunctional family.
So why stay with a spouse, who tells you that he loves you as he continues to beat you? Why believe in the Catholic God, one that hands out scorpions and snakes, when his children ask for eggs and fish?
Andrew Sullivan wrote in response to Rod's posting saying: "But it also true that absence from the sacrament of communion is for me an unbearable thing after too long."
The sad truth is that Sullivan and so many like him believe the only place they can experience the ultimate communion with their God is in the Catholic Church and it sacraments. This is mind game that the Catholic Church has won: form your flock to believe that you have the monopoly on truth, God, communion, etc. and you can get them to stay, even at the cost of their own integration and health.
Slap your followers with theological edicts that condemn them, but then tell them that you love them and don't discriminate against them. That is the sick dynamic that gay Catholics live in everyday.
Also, the US Catholic Conference of Bishops gave large chunks of money to take away marriage equality rights of gays and lesbians in both California and Maine, and many individual dioceses from across the country also gave money. Where did that money come from? From the people in the pews who put money into the collection plates, part of which the parishes tithed to their dioceses, and part of which was sent to the USCCB.
So, to all you gay Catholics, Andrew Sullivan included, who give money to your "progressive" parishes, part of your money is still being used to take away the rights of LGBT persons, who are not even Catholic, in far away places around the nation. Thank you for supporting your own kind!
I for one speak from the bottom of my ontologically changed priestly soul when is say that am thankful everyday that I left the dysfunctional nightmare of the Catholic Church and its priesthood behind.
I have lived my entire life in a very devout Catholic town. We are very diverse Catholics and almost all of us were born into Catholicism. Catholic, is one way we define ourselves. To leave the Catholic church would be to leave a piece of ourselves.
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