Recently in Catholicism Category

Things are getting hardcore in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC: gay activists have organized to force gay priests out of the closet to protest the Catholic Church's stand against gay marriage. Excerpt from the Church Outing website:

Lastly, we encourage every Catholic priest to trust in God and in the power of the Christ to help you through this difficult, but important act of truth, faith and love. It is not the intention of this site to complicate the lives of closeted gay priests, rather to help them make the difficult choice to stand up against the hateful and harmful new direction the Church hierarchy is taking the Holy Mother Church.

Disclaimer: The goal of this site is not to force Catholic priests out of the closet against their will. The goal of this campaign is to aggregate reports on every gay priest in the Archdiocese, so that we can work with them, one on one, helping them stand up to the the church hierarchy's stand on this important issue.

Translation: denounce and disobey the hierarchy or we'll expose you.

Truth to tell, there are a lot of orthodox Catholics who agree with the liberal pro-gay ones when they say, as the Church Outing site does:

Even more shameful, is that many of these priests, while remaining silent, actually lead duplicitous lives rich with romantic and sexual relationships -- both homosexual and heterosexual.

This hypocrisy must end.

...except what the orthodox Catholics find shameful is that these priests are violating their vows regularly and unrepentantly.

I agree that the hypocrisy should end, and I can't say that I'd feel terribly sorry for a priest who leads a life "rich with romantic and sexual relationships -- both homosexual and heterosexual" who got busted for his duplicity (and I say that for Orthodox priests too). That said, I disapprove of outing on principle. The hypocrisy of these clerics makes me ill, but if there is no crime involved (e.g., sexual abuse), I find it a more frightening and offensive thing that someone would take it upon themselves to ruin somebody's life through outing.

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.

Andrew Sullivan, on a church in the Castro district of San Francisco:

There is one, of course, The Holy Redeemer, smack bang in the gay district in San Francisco, and unmolested, respected, admired. Rod Dreher's conflicts are a fantasy of his own creation. The truth is that gays have long been amazingly tolerant of the churches that seek to strip us of civil rights. One ghastly exception was Act-Up's assault on St Patrick's Cathedral, but that proves the rule. If anything, gay men actually do more to support the church than attack it.

Oh, really?

Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, in the heart of San Francisco's gay Castro community, was vandalized over the weekend by opponents of Proposition 8, the California resolution passed by voters in November that rejected gay marriage. Swastikas were painted on the church and the names Ratzinger (referring to Pope Benedict XVI) and Niederauer (the San Francisco Archbishop) were scrawled besides the Nazi symbol.

Photo here.

Said Pastor Steve Meriweather to KCBS: "I think it's unfortunate that they selected our community to attack, because it's the wrong one."

Unlike what, those other churches, Catholic and otherwise, that actually support Catholicism and traditional Christian moral teaching? Parishes that aren't tame? Parishes that, unlike Most Holy Redeemer, don't host Drag Bingo Night featuring men in nun drag calling themselves the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (shown here at the parish receiving communion in drag from the Archbishop of San Francisco)?

Right, some church. I'm not impressed. I don't know anything about the theology of the Christians chased out of the Castro by the gay mob, and I'm no longer a Catholic, but I guarantee you I'd stand with them in the middle of that storm any day, as opposed to stay in that scandalous Catholic parish. And I bet most Catholics I know would do the same thing. As long as you're a Catholic who rejects Catholic teaching on sexual morality, there's no conflict at all. But if you have the integrity to be an openly faithful Catholic, however peaceably, well, this is what they have in store for you in the Castro:

No comments on this thread. I'm tired of having to delete all the profanity and filth from those who disagree. I wouldn't have posted this at all except I can't let Sully's remarks about me go unanswered. He's living in unresolvable conflict with his church, and that's a painful place to be (I've been in a similar place, for very different reasons, and it hurts like hell), but denial is not a solution. I genuinely don't understand his position. He doesn't believe the Catholic Church teaches truth, except insofar as it coincides with what he believes. Staying inside the Catholic Church makes him truly miserable. So why stay? If he wants liturgy, smells, bells, and a complete blessing on the way he chooses to live his life, there's the Episcopal Church. I actually did believe in Catholicism, but for my own reasons was so tormented by staying that I lost my faith ... and so I left. I left in tears and heartbreak, but I left. Truly, it's a mystery to me why any free man would stay in a church in which he did not believe, and that made him so unhappy.

From an interview with acclaimed memoirist Mary Karr:

I wonder if finding your faith helped your writing. You say in Lit, when you're cautiously becoming Catholic, "It isn't the ritual of the high Mass that impresses me. But the people--their collective surrender. If I can't do reverence to that, how dead are my innards?" Does that acceptance of surrender help with your confidence? Your voice is so self-critical. You don't even give yourself credit for a good suicide attempt. You were like, lamest suicide attempt ever!

Well, the shrinks make a big deal out of it--it was a suicidal gesture, that's what they call it. I didn't actually put my hands on myself, so I'm a fuck-up. We know that. But yes, [my faith is] unbelievably helpful. And maybe it's no different than people doing the Power of Now or whatever. I think the Holy Spirit takes a lot of forms.

I really do write based on prayer. You could see that as talking to your most sane self or your sober self. Somebody said to me, "So, you think you've had all this success because God likes you better than other writers?" And I said, "Absolutely!" Because of my faith, I do have a sense that I'm supposed to be alive on the planet. Which, given the way I was brought up, I didn't exactly have going in.

Does that make sense? Talking about spiritual matters to a secular audience is like doing card tricks on the radio. It's like, "This is really cool, everybody," and they're like, "Yeah, OK!" So I know that it sounds a little nutty.

I don't it sounds that nutty, and I'm definitely part of the secular audience. I read you and Anne Lamott, and you're both people who never thought they would be spiritual but have become spiritual, and the way you write about spirituality is very comforting. It is self-acceptance, ultimately, so I think done well enough it can be relatable.

It's really just about not wanting to kill people on the subway. It's also about not wanting to kill myself when I get home for wanting to kill people on the subway.

I talk about the difference between happiness and joy. I can honestly say I was depressed for so much of my life that I think I knew how to be excited or enthusiastic, but I certainly didn't know anything about joy. Just that simple [feeling], when you run into the ocean.

I'm sorry, but this is funny:

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) - A northeastern Pennsylvania priest has been removed from his duties after church officials say he accidentally displayed inappropriate pictures from his computer before Sunday Mass.

The Diocese of Scranton said the Rev. Edward Lyman was using his computer on Oct. 25 to project an informational DVD about the annual diocesan fundraiser when four photos were displayed. They featured what church officials describe as "minimally attired adult males."

Diocese spokesman William Genello said the photos were not pornographic, did not include minors and were not taken by the priest.

Lyman has been removed as administrator of St. Anthony, St. Bridget and St. John the Baptist parishes in Throop. The diocese would not say where he is.

Well, I'll tell you where he's not: in the closet any longer. OK, it's not really funny -- it's tragic that this priest has fallen so far, and I hope he conquers his gay porn habit -- but honestly, can you imagine what the parishioners sitting there for the fundraiser thought? From the perspective of the parish, this is a felix culpa, if you ask me.

This episode brings to mind something a gay friend of mine who was once a Catholic priest told me about his former bishop. The bishop called the presbyterate together after, if memory serves, a priest of the diocese had been caught with incriminating visuals on his hard drive. The bishop advised his priests that if they had anything illegal (e.g., child pornography) on their computers, to "throw the thing in the river." Don't try to have it fixed or anything. Just get rid of it. Lovely advice from one's spiritual father.