This weekend our pastor, a much-loved Irish priest in his late sixties, a bit nervously addressed the congregation of our church on a topic that I am sure made him feel uncomfortable: What to do in the light of the recent Supreme Court's decisions on gay marriage.
I wrote to thank him for his honesty and courage, knowing that he was doing his best to follow the bishops' stance that only a marriage between a man and a woman can provide a stable home for the rearing of children.
I began by saying that I, too, have wrestled in recent years with the use of the term 'marriage' to refer to two persons of the same sex. I have come to realize that the only legal way to make equal opportunity happen for the minority who wish to commit themselves for life is through marriage.
Since I had noticed that our priest, always a very human and non-judgmental man, had openly worried about two things: where would this lead the country? and what was he to do with invitation he had received to the gay wedding of a young man he knew.
On the latter issue, I said that those who sent this priest the invitation were brave and would hope for the kind of loving response that Jesus would give: wishing these two young men happiness and success in being faithful to each other, even though the church's blessing cannot be extended. What I didn't say is the obvious fact that at issue is civil marriage, not marriage as a sacrament in the Catholic Church, so in a sense the hierarchy's concerns seem overblown.
Heterosexual marriage in this country, I went on, is in deep trouble, which has nothing to do with gays being married to each other.
I went on to say what has been said by many before me: that both sexes are capable of love and nurturing in families and there is every reason to be more optimistic about the future than our priest is. Legalizing same-sex unions "will expand the possibility of more adoptions and allow same-sex people to being nurturing and love to any children they choose to adopt and to each other, in a more stable form."
So I see a future marked by an increase in love, a decrease in promiscuity among gay men, and an expansion of the idea of marriage. "I can understand why the church's blessing cannot be given to these unions, yet I remain glad and hopeful that in the secular sphere, the gay people I know can become a bit more accepted in this land of opportunity."
Facing radical change of this kind, especially to those of us of a certain age is tough to do. It is easy to see some of these same-sex unions as trendy and to worry that they will not last. But when I think of all the single moms and some dads running households and raising kids, I am not worried that two men together or two women, with the security of marriage, will, overall, do an equally good job. Society will be better off.
Showing posts with label Catholic bishops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catholic bishops. Show all posts
Monday, July 1, 2013
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Same-Sex Marriage: Who is Threatened?
Although I have had reservations about the use of "marriage" to refer to the legal union of two people of the same sex who love one another and might wish to be legally joined, I have never felt that these civil unions, or marriages, if that is the legal term, threaten my marriage or anyone else's. Many of these same-sex couples adopt children and apparently raise them successfully.
Gay marriage, which the Cardinal Archbishop of New York recently called "the defining issue of our time," concerns about one percent of the population. He and most of the others on the right insist that it undermines marriage. But are they right?
As Eugene Cullen Kennedy, the Loyola University psychologist, writes in National Catholic Reporter, the bishops might be better advised to look at the facts, which are often inconvenient: co-habitation and illegitmate births have been soaring in recent decades. Since 1970, marriage has been declining in this country quite apart from the divorce rate. Kennedy gives the full statistical picture, which is not pretty.
The conclusion: if we want to focus on a threat to marriage, let us focus on the social conditions that lead so many, especially in the lower socioeconomic class, into relationships that produce off-spring but little stability. The family unit is indeed under threat, but it is not coming, in my view, from those gays and lesbians who wish to be treated as equals.
Gay marriage, which the Cardinal Archbishop of New York recently called "the defining issue of our time," concerns about one percent of the population. He and most of the others on the right insist that it undermines marriage. But are they right?
As Eugene Cullen Kennedy, the Loyola University psychologist, writes in National Catholic Reporter, the bishops might be better advised to look at the facts, which are often inconvenient: co-habitation and illegitmate births have been soaring in recent decades. Since 1970, marriage has been declining in this country quite apart from the divorce rate. Kennedy gives the full statistical picture, which is not pretty.
The conclusion: if we want to focus on a threat to marriage, let us focus on the social conditions that lead so many, especially in the lower socioeconomic class, into relationships that produce off-spring but little stability. The family unit is indeed under threat, but it is not coming, in my view, from those gays and lesbians who wish to be treated as equals.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Bishops Behaving Badly
If the Catholic hierarchy were to design a plan for driving people away from the church, they could not have found a more effective method than the ongoing embarrassments coming from Rome and from certain American bishops.
The bishop of Peoria, IL, who compared President Obama to Hitler and Stalin, is too stupid to warrant much response. He condemns himself out of his own mouth. The bishops who excommunicate politicians who do not vote the pro-life agenda do everyone involved a disservice.
The recent Vatican action of stripping American nuns of the right of self-governance by condemning the Leadership Conference on Women Religious has prompted Garry Wills to react, somewhat overheatedly, in the New York Review of Books. "Is it any wonder so many nuns have left the orders or avoided joining them? Who wants to be bullied?"
Wills is one of many intelligent Catholics who try to remain faithful to a life of prayer and the sacraments while deploring the reactionary activities of the men in power, celibate men who are afraid of women, sexuality, change, and even discussion of such issues as clerical celibacy, the ordination of women, the rights of homosexuals in the church, and contraception.
The Vatican officials involved in the recent scrutiny of U.S. nuns, Wills says, are upset that these women, who have done heroic work for generations, do not follow the bishops' thinking. We should be grateful they do not. "Nuns have preserved Gospel values while bishops have been perverting them."
Strong stuff, yet the state of the macro-church, as opposed to the parish-level life of the church, is in a crisis that will lead either to a second Reformation or a tragic schism.
The nuns are accused of being more interested in ministering to those affected by the AIDS crisis, just as their forbears ran soup kitchens and hospitals and supported the civil rights movement, than in the Gospel teachings on contraception, which do not exist (Wills notes). They are criticized for teaching the "social Gospel" as if there was another kind --one that doesn't say love thy neighbor or challenge injustice.
While mixing politics with religion at the highest levels in Washington, in an effort to defeat Democrats, the bishops oppose religious women and laypeople from being overly political. How long can thinking people tolerate such hypocrisy?
As Wills and other have long observed, women in particular must be singled out by our frightened hierarchs for public chastisement, the very women whose humility stands in such stark contrast to episcopal arrogance.
So we have a hierarchy distrustful of the People of God, as the Second Vatican Council defined the church, and interested in reverting to Latin ritual practices, turning the clock back while the world moves on. These leaders are fearful of the intelligent discussions that female and other progressive theologians want to have, and their fear leads to anger and the threat of excommunication of anyone who dares defy church teaching on sexual morality. These are, of course, the same bishops who, as a group, have mishandled the sexual abuse crisis to the great shame and embarrassment of us all.
Calling the state of the church sad, a writer in Commonweal (4-9-12), Jo McGowan, addresses the blindness of many clergy in the area of sexuality. She does so as a prolife Catholic mother who has "practiced only Natural Family Planning." She is saddened by the priests' limited understanding of contraception as it re-surfaced in the recent debate over health insurance (and the candidacy of Rick Santorum).
She finds it "unsettling when men who may never have experienced sex feel qualified not just to speak about it but to pronounce on it with certainty." She wants the clergy to understand that defending contraception within marriage is not defending sexual license. "The church has made a spectacle of itself by promoting an immature version of sexuality that is missing the sinew of lived experience." (emphasis added)
She does not raise the issue of mandatory celibacy for priests, but this is obvious from her heartfelt and thoughtful article. Insisting on all priests remaining permanently celibate, however noble and beautiful, is at the root of the shame and ignorance that church leaders have displayed for years whenever issues of sexual morality arise.
What we face in the future is the decline of a church as a large tent that can embrace all--even gay men and women, even dissidents from the official teaching--and focus on the Gospel mandate for social justice in the world rather than a small-tent church of narrow thinking and exclusion. (Sister Joan Chittister has, among others, used this helpful tent metaphor.)
I pray that one day, after I am gone from this earth no doubt, the Catholic Church will become more inclusive, the kind of church envisioned by the Second Vatican Council that the bullies in Rome seem determined to thwart. These men need more than prayers. They need to be called to account regularly, as Garry Wills and members of Call to Action have been doing, demanding change.
The bishop of Peoria, IL, who compared President Obama to Hitler and Stalin, is too stupid to warrant much response. He condemns himself out of his own mouth. The bishops who excommunicate politicians who do not vote the pro-life agenda do everyone involved a disservice.
The recent Vatican action of stripping American nuns of the right of self-governance by condemning the Leadership Conference on Women Religious has prompted Garry Wills to react, somewhat overheatedly, in the New York Review of Books. "Is it any wonder so many nuns have left the orders or avoided joining them? Who wants to be bullied?"
Wills is one of many intelligent Catholics who try to remain faithful to a life of prayer and the sacraments while deploring the reactionary activities of the men in power, celibate men who are afraid of women, sexuality, change, and even discussion of such issues as clerical celibacy, the ordination of women, the rights of homosexuals in the church, and contraception.
The Vatican officials involved in the recent scrutiny of U.S. nuns, Wills says, are upset that these women, who have done heroic work for generations, do not follow the bishops' thinking. We should be grateful they do not. "Nuns have preserved Gospel values while bishops have been perverting them."
Strong stuff, yet the state of the macro-church, as opposed to the parish-level life of the church, is in a crisis that will lead either to a second Reformation or a tragic schism.
The nuns are accused of being more interested in ministering to those affected by the AIDS crisis, just as their forbears ran soup kitchens and hospitals and supported the civil rights movement, than in the Gospel teachings on contraception, which do not exist (Wills notes). They are criticized for teaching the "social Gospel" as if there was another kind --one that doesn't say love thy neighbor or challenge injustice.
While mixing politics with religion at the highest levels in Washington, in an effort to defeat Democrats, the bishops oppose religious women and laypeople from being overly political. How long can thinking people tolerate such hypocrisy?
As Wills and other have long observed, women in particular must be singled out by our frightened hierarchs for public chastisement, the very women whose humility stands in such stark contrast to episcopal arrogance.
So we have a hierarchy distrustful of the People of God, as the Second Vatican Council defined the church, and interested in reverting to Latin ritual practices, turning the clock back while the world moves on. These leaders are fearful of the intelligent discussions that female and other progressive theologians want to have, and their fear leads to anger and the threat of excommunication of anyone who dares defy church teaching on sexual morality. These are, of course, the same bishops who, as a group, have mishandled the sexual abuse crisis to the great shame and embarrassment of us all.
Calling the state of the church sad, a writer in Commonweal (4-9-12), Jo McGowan, addresses the blindness of many clergy in the area of sexuality. She does so as a prolife Catholic mother who has "practiced only Natural Family Planning." She is saddened by the priests' limited understanding of contraception as it re-surfaced in the recent debate over health insurance (and the candidacy of Rick Santorum).
She finds it "unsettling when men who may never have experienced sex feel qualified not just to speak about it but to pronounce on it with certainty." She wants the clergy to understand that defending contraception within marriage is not defending sexual license. "The church has made a spectacle of itself by promoting an immature version of sexuality that is missing the sinew of lived experience." (emphasis added)
She does not raise the issue of mandatory celibacy for priests, but this is obvious from her heartfelt and thoughtful article. Insisting on all priests remaining permanently celibate, however noble and beautiful, is at the root of the shame and ignorance that church leaders have displayed for years whenever issues of sexual morality arise.
What we face in the future is the decline of a church as a large tent that can embrace all--even gay men and women, even dissidents from the official teaching--and focus on the Gospel mandate for social justice in the world rather than a small-tent church of narrow thinking and exclusion. (Sister Joan Chittister has, among others, used this helpful tent metaphor.)
I pray that one day, after I am gone from this earth no doubt, the Catholic Church will become more inclusive, the kind of church envisioned by the Second Vatican Council that the bullies in Rome seem determined to thwart. These men need more than prayers. They need to be called to account regularly, as Garry Wills and members of Call to Action have been doing, demanding change.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Politics and the Catholic Bishops
The editorial "Bad Reaction" in the current issue of Commonweal is must reading for any thinking person (especially Catholics) concerned, as I am, about the right-wing alliance between the U.S. Bishops Conference and the evangelicals to protest anything related to "Obamacare." (See www.commonwealmagazine.org for 2-26-12.)
At issue now, of course, is the recent compromise offered by the President on the contraceptive issue that the bishops have rejected out of hand, with apparent haste and with little thought. Even before the details of the president's proposal were known, says Commonweal, the bishops were opposed; they are now demanding that no employer be required to offer free contraception coverage to its employees.
What bothers me is what upset me in 2004, when the same coalition of the religious right contributed substantially to the re-election of G. W. Bush. Now the USCCB is urging priests to speak out in churches across the land, during an election year, indicating that the president is either opposed to religious freedom or is inherently anti-Catholic, both of which are nonsense.
As the editorial asks, why were the bishops not opposed to the Bush administration's use of torture? Why is it only the issues involving women and sexuality that inflame them? Do they not see that their political activism is counter-productive, playing into the hands of abortion-rights advocates who will claim, understandably, that (in the words of the editorial) "the church's opposition to abortion is motivated by a larger disregard for the health of women"? Anyone seriously opposed to abortion should be in favor of contraception, which lowers the rate and risk of abortion, among other things, as thinking Catholics have known since the unfortunate 1968 encyclical of Paul VI banned contraception.
As Andrew Sullivan wrote this week, "I find the protectors of child rapists preaching to women about contraception to be a moral obscenity." Garry Wills has a more thoughtful and lengthy response, "Contraception's Con Men," in the New York Review of Books (www.nybooks.com for 2-29-12). Wills notes that contraception is not a religious matter but a matter of arguable "natural law" rejected by most Catholics.
The bishops do not see that people attend church for many reasons, but these do not include listening to veiled messages that support the Republicans, whop are more than happy to attack Obama as anti-Catholic. I have heard these messages in my own parish and protested, and I will do so again.
The public perception of religion as divisive and judgmental, with negative views of human sexuality, will only be reinforced, and more church-goers driven away, by more political activity by the bishops. Milton attacked the "blind" bishops of his day (1637); thinking Catholics should do the same today.
Of course, to mention "thinking Catholics" may be a stretch. I am reminded of what Adlai Stevenson said to a supporter of his presidential candidacy in 1956 when she told him, "Every thinking person should vote for you."
He replied, "Madam, that would not be enough; I need a majority."
At issue now, of course, is the recent compromise offered by the President on the contraceptive issue that the bishops have rejected out of hand, with apparent haste and with little thought. Even before the details of the president's proposal were known, says Commonweal, the bishops were opposed; they are now demanding that no employer be required to offer free contraception coverage to its employees.
What bothers me is what upset me in 2004, when the same coalition of the religious right contributed substantially to the re-election of G. W. Bush. Now the USCCB is urging priests to speak out in churches across the land, during an election year, indicating that the president is either opposed to religious freedom or is inherently anti-Catholic, both of which are nonsense.
As the editorial asks, why were the bishops not opposed to the Bush administration's use of torture? Why is it only the issues involving women and sexuality that inflame them? Do they not see that their political activism is counter-productive, playing into the hands of abortion-rights advocates who will claim, understandably, that (in the words of the editorial) "the church's opposition to abortion is motivated by a larger disregard for the health of women"? Anyone seriously opposed to abortion should be in favor of contraception, which lowers the rate and risk of abortion, among other things, as thinking Catholics have known since the unfortunate 1968 encyclical of Paul VI banned contraception.
As Andrew Sullivan wrote this week, "I find the protectors of child rapists preaching to women about contraception to be a moral obscenity." Garry Wills has a more thoughtful and lengthy response, "Contraception's Con Men," in the New York Review of Books (www.nybooks.com for 2-29-12). Wills notes that contraception is not a religious matter but a matter of arguable "natural law" rejected by most Catholics.
The bishops do not see that people attend church for many reasons, but these do not include listening to veiled messages that support the Republicans, whop are more than happy to attack Obama as anti-Catholic. I have heard these messages in my own parish and protested, and I will do so again.
The public perception of religion as divisive and judgmental, with negative views of human sexuality, will only be reinforced, and more church-goers driven away, by more political activity by the bishops. Milton attacked the "blind" bishops of his day (1637); thinking Catholics should do the same today.
Of course, to mention "thinking Catholics" may be a stretch. I am reminded of what Adlai Stevenson said to a supporter of his presidential candidacy in 1956 when she told him, "Every thinking person should vote for you."
He replied, "Madam, that would not be enough; I need a majority."
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