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Reflections from Our Executive Coordinator,
Michael J. Bayly, MA
(from The Wild Reed: Thoughts and Reflections from a
Progressive, Gay Catholic Perspective, November 16, 2006)
Michael J. Bayly is Executive Coordinator of the Catholic Pastoral
Committee on Sexual Minorities, a 26-year-old Twin Cities-based independent
coalition dedicated to creating environments of safety and respect for
GLBT persons within both the Catholic Church and society. He can be
reached via his website, www.hangingrock2001@yahoo.com.
A Christmas Reflection by James Carroll
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Friends,
The following Christmas reflection by James Carroll was first published in the Boston Globe in December 2004.
Carroll’s exploration of the “politics of the Christmas story” is insightful and continues to be relevant to current events.
The images that accompany this exploration are from the film The Nativity Story, which is currently showing in cinemas in Australia, and which I saw recently with a priest friend in Port Macquarie.
Peace,
Michael
__________________________________
The Politics of the Christmas Story
By James Carroll
The Boston Globe
December 21, 2004
The single most important fact about the birth of Jesus, as recounted in the Gospels, is one that receives almost no emphasis in the American festival of Christmas.
The child who was born in Bethlehem represented a drastic political challenge to the imperial power of Rome. The nativity story is told to make the point that Rome – and all it represents – is the enemy of God, and in Jesus, Rome’s day is over.
The Gospel of Matthew builds its nativity narrative around Herod’s determination to kill the baby, whom he recognizes as a threat to his own political sway. The Romans were an occupation force in Palestine, and Herod was their puppet-king. To the people of Israel, the Roman occupation, which preceded the birth of Jesus by at least 50 years, was a defilement, and Jewish resistance was steady. (The historian Josephus says that after an uprising in Jerusalem around the time of the birth of Jesus, the Romans crucified 2,000 Jewish rebels.)
Herod was right to feel insecure on his throne. In order to preempt any challenge from the rumored newborn “king of the Jews,” Herod murdered “all the male children who were 2 years old or younger.” Joseph, warned in a dream, slipped out of Herod’s reach with Mary and Jesus. Thus, right from his birth, the child was marked as a political fugitive.
The Gospel of Luke puts an even more political cast on the story. The narrative begins with the decree of Caesar Augustus calling for a world census – a creation of tax rolls that will tighten the empire’s grip on its subject peoples. It was Caesar Augustus who turned the Roman republic into a dictatorship, a power-grab he reinforced by proclaiming himself divine.
His census decree is what requires the journey of Joseph and the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem, but it also defines the context of their child’s nativity as one of political resistance. When the angel announces to shepherds that a “savior has been born,” as scholars like Richard Horsley point out, those hearing the story would immediately understand that the blasphemous claim by Caesar Augustus to be “savior of the world” was being repudiated.
When Jesus was murdered by Rome as a political criminal – crucifixion was the way such rebels were executed – the story’s beginning was fulfilled in its end. But for contingent historical reasons (the savage Roman war against the Jews in the late first century, the gradual domination of the Jesus movement by Gentiles, the conversion of Constantine in the early fourth century) the Christian memory de-emphasized the anti-Roman character of the Jesus story.
Eventually, Roman imperialism would be sanctified by the church, with Jews replacing Romans as the main antagonists of Jesus, as if he were not Jewish himself. (Thus, Herod is remembered more for being part-Jewish than for being a Roman puppet.)
In modern times, religion and politics began to be understood as occupying separate spheres, and the nativity story became spiritualized and sentimentalized, losing its political edge altogether. “Peace” replaced resistance as the main motif. The baby Jesus was universalized, removed from his decidedly Jewish context, and the narrative’s explicit critiques of imperial dominance and of wealth were blunted.
This is how it came to be that Christmas in America has turned the nativity of Jesus on its head. No surprise there, for if the story were told with Roman imperialism at its center, questions might arise about America’s new self-understanding as an imperial power.
A story of Jesus born into a land oppressed by a hated military occupation might prompt an examination of the American occupation of Iraq.
A story of Jesus come decidely to the poor might cast a pall over the festival of consumption.
A story of the Jewishness of Jesus might undercut the Christian theology of replacement.
Today the Roman empire is recalled mainly as a force for good – those roads, language, laws, civic magnificence, “order” everywhere. The United States of America also understands itself as acting in the world with good intentions, aiming at order. “New world order,” as George H.W. Bush put it.
That we have this in common with Rome is caught by the Latin motto that appears just below the engraved pyramid on each American dollar bill, “Novus Ordo Seculorum.” But as Iraq reminds us, such “order” comes at a cost, far more than a dollar. The price is always paid in blood and suffering by unseen “nobodies” at the bottom of the imperial pyramid.
It is their story, for once, that is being told this week.
James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Boston Globe. His most recent book is Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War.
For a 2005 interview with James Carroll, click here.
See also the previous Wild Reed post, Revisiting a Groovy Jesus (and a Dysfunctional Theology).
posted by Michael J. Bayly | 2:36 PM | 0 comments
Be Not Afraid: You Can Be Happy and Gay
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declare their recent document, Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination, to be “positive, pastoral, and welcoming”. In it they also praise those gay Catholics who are “ardently striving”, by means of chasity, “not to fall into the lifestyle and values of a ‘gay subculture’”.
Of course, this “lifestyle” and these “values” are never defined – nor is there any indication of awareness, on the part of the bishops, that just as there are diverse attitudes and behaviours among heterosexuals towards all aspects of life, including sexual relationships, so too is there a wide range of perspectives and behaviours among homosexuals. Indeed, I think it’s misleading to talk about a “gay community” or “subculture”, as in reality, there are many and varied groups and communities of gay people.
[Resume here from Home page]
Yet in typical broad brush strokes, the bishops paint gay people as either suffering celibates or promiscuous deviants. (Someone please direct them to Somewhere In Between.)
Of course, the extremes do exist, and I was reminded of this when I read an excellent commentary written by Leonard Pitts Jr. and published recently in the Miami Herald.
Entitled “A Twisted View on ‘Flaunting’ Gay Identity”, Pitts’ commentary contrasts the recent coming out of actor Neil Patrick Harris (of Doogie Howser, M.D. fame) and the ignoble goings-on of disgraced Christian evangelical, Ted Haggard.
Pitts notes that Harris, in talking about his homosexuality, has declared: “I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest.” Pitts also notes that for some people, such calm acknowledgement amounts to “flaunting” one’s homosexuality.
In comparing Haggard and Harris, Pitt’s commentary does an excellent job at exposing the destructiveness wrought to self and others by living a lie, as opposed to accepting and integrating one’s homosexuality, and thus getting on with happily living life to the fullest – even if such living is considered by some as “flauting it”.
“Wouldn’t you much rather be Neil Patrick Harris than Ted Haggard?”asks Pitts. “In other words, wouldn’t you rather be a content gay man living life to the fullest, than a closeted gay hypocrite living lies to the fullest?”
Pitts then goes on to make some incisive observations: He maintains that what social conservatives (and I would add Catholic bishops) miss is that “in a culture that allows gay people room to be gay people, there is no need of lies. In a culture that does not – i.e., theirs – lies are rampant. And that’s unfortunate, not simply for the person in question, but for all the people in his or her life. And here, I'm thinking of Gayle Alcorn. She and Haggard have five children. They’ve been married 28 years. That’s a long time to sleep next to a lie. I bet she wishes he had ‘flaunted’ his homosexuality a long time ago.”
In reading Pitts’ insightful analysis of Ted Haggard’s life of lies and the destruction it has wrought, I was reminded once again of the similar parallel that exists between the horrendous sexual scandals that have plagued the Catholic church for decades, and this same church’s deeply dysfunctional sexual theology – one that “lives a lie” in its ignoring of the experiences and insights of gay people who have accepted their sexuality and are committed to living their lives to the fullest.
Also, when Pitts ponders, “Can’t we now safely assume that any conservative who rants about the homosexual agenda is a lying hypocrite gayer than a Castro Street bar?”, I was reminded of Richard Sipes’ “preliminary review of sexual orientation of some American bishops” on his extensive and insightful website, Priests, Celibacy, and Sexuality.
In posting names of bishops in his “review”, Sipes makes it clear that there is no accusation of sexual activity on their part. Rather, listed are “opinions of sexual orientation”. “Each name”, says Sipes, “has been closely vetted based on some – usually public – facts that can lead to a reasonable opinion”.
Collectively, these “reasonable” opinions on the sexual orientation of U.S. Catholic bishops leads to the equally “reasonable” conclusion that the majority of these men are themselves gay, or in the language of the Vatican, “objectively disordered”. Not surprising, the bishops' guidelines discourage “general public self-disclosures” of sexual orientation. How convenient for them.
Richard Sipes, a well-respected researcher, lecturer, and author, is adamant that in light of such a situation, to “neglect open and honest dialogue leaves the church and clergy open to ridicule, and worse, hypocrisy”.
Sipes is also critical of the Vatican’s teaching on homosexuality: “I do not believe – in fact, I emphatically reject – the Vatican statements that declare that homosexual orientation is an ‘objective disorder’”, he says. “This opinion has no scientific merit, it is not a position of ‘human reason illuminated by faith’. It is simply false. It is wrong-headed. Homosexual orientation is not an objective disorder.”
In reality, gay people participate in the very human process of being true to themselves and to the God they discern in such journeys of integrity. Many also courageously seek to build and sustain a loving, committed relationship with another of the same gender – a relationship that is experienced and expressed in a myriad of ways, including sexually.
All such endeavours of integrity and love are undertaken with a purity of heart – making them embodiments of the God of Love proclaimed by the Catholic Church.
Interestingly, this “purity of heart” is the real meaning of chastity. As the bishops correctly point out, “Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of [each person] in [their] bodily and spiritual being”.
Accordingly, when the U.S. Catholic bishops praise gay Catholics who are “ardently striving” to live lives of “chasity”, they’re actually praising many of the people they’re simultaneously condemning! After all, for the vast majority of LGBT people, integration of their sexuality and the subsequent experiencing of bodily and spiritual well-being, are facilitated through a loving, committed (and sexual) relationship with another of the same gender.
Chaste living, the bishops remind us, is an affirmation of all that is human. Accordingly, when LGBT people violate the dictates of their own human nature, they will suffer. Of course, the bishops are not meaning to affirm LGBT people, their sexual orientation, and such orientation's sexual expression. Nor do they mean to warn against the suffering that comes from denying one's orientation and living a closeted life. I'm therefore left dumbfounded that they can say such words yet totally misunderstand and distort their meaning in relation to the lives of LGBT people.
It’s up to us, to Catholics of informed conscience and generous compassion to be the prophets and teachers within our church. It is up to us to provide enlightenment and guidance to those who are in positions of authority yet who so clearly lack authority in matters of human sexuality.
“To be a Catholic requires a certain choice,” said Bishop Arthur Serratelli, chairman of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Doctrine Committee. It does indeed, but it’s not a choice of blind obedience to church doctrine, but rather compassionate engagement with others.
After all, each and every one of us is a living, breathing, spirit-infused vessel within which God’s “good news” can be found. And collectively, we embody a living, growing, spirit-infused church. As lay Catholics we must never tire of inviting our clergy to see and treat themselves and us as such bearers of good news. We must encourage one another in the engagement necessary to reveal such liberating and healing good news. And when some refuse to join in the dance, we must joyfully perseverve and model this engagement wherever we find ourselves to be within the church.
Through such holy work we will contribute to and one day witness the emergence of a church document on ministering with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons – a church document that will be truly “positive, pastoral, and welcoming.”
And I say we name it: Be Not Afraid: You Can Be Happy and Gay!
See also the next Wild Reed post, When “Guidelines” Lack Guidance.
Back to Top
An Editorial from Our Executive Coordinator
Michael J. Bayly, MA
(from The Wild Reed: Thoughts and Reflections from a
Progressive, Gay Catholic Perspective,
November 15, 2006)
When “Guidelines” Lack Guidance
Yesterday the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a set of
“pastoral care guidelines” for those ministering to “persons with a homosexual inclination”.
The bishops, however, fail to offer an authentic pastoral approach for two fundamental reasons.
First, they fail to reflect a credible understanding of the reality of the homosexual orientation, referring to it, as they do, as an “disordered inclination”, and insisting that it “does not constitue a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc”. Science and human experience, however, totally undermine the bishops’ flawed terminology and presuppositions.
Second, the bishops fail to reflect any semblence of awareness concerning the faith journeys of the vast majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Catholics. This is hardly surprising given the fact the LGBT Catholics were not consulted during the lengthy writing process of the “guidelines”.
In their document, the bishops discourage announcements of one’s sexual orientation – outside, that is, of a close circle of friends and supporters within the church. Given the people I know who are championing this document, this “support” will be, first and foremost, to the official teaching of the church (considered the final word and incapable of changing), and not to the actual individual coming into awareness of their homosexuality.
[Resume here from Home page]
Such awareness, like homosexuality itself, is something to be kept hidden away from public view, according to the bishops. You can be sure that participation in National Coming Out Day celebrations is not encouraged. It seems that the bishops would rather promote the psychologically destructive existence of the closet.
The guidelines also warn those in Catholic ministry not to advocate against church teachings or adopt a position of “distant neutrality” toward them. So much for the Catholic teaching of the
primacy of conscience. Indeed, this important tenet of Catholicism is not even mentioned in the guidelines.
Writing in the
New York Times, Sam Sinnett, president of DignityUSA, the nation’s largest Catholic LGBT organization, notes that while some language in the guidelines “sounds welcoming”, the document repeats “all the spiritually violent things [the Vatican has] been saying about gay and lesbian Catholics for decades – that we are ‘objectively disordered’ and our relationships are intrinsically evil.”
Sinnett and others are also critical of the bishops’ failure to consult with LGBT people while drawing up their “pastoral” guidelines.
As both a gay man and a lay pastoral minister within the Catholic community of the Twin Cities, I’ve come to recognize that a truly pastoral approach is one that helps LGBT people recognize and celebrate their own God-given truth, primarily by discerning God’s loving presence in their lives and relationships. Listening is crucial in such a holy process.
Yet as has been noted, the bishops’ so-called guidelines fail to even invite and encourage LGBT people to name and proclaim their own reality. Not only do the bishops not want to listen to LGBT people, they don’t want LGBT people to even listen to themselves!
Listening, however, is a life-giving act. Religious educator and author Maria Harris also reminds us that, “genuine wisdom involves learning from the wisdoms of other forgotten or overlooked people”.
Like LGBT persons, women within the Catholic community are also often “forgotten” and “overlooked”. Benedictine nun,
Joan Chittister, has written eloquently of “the value of being listened to” when marginalized within an institution like the Catholic Church.
“No set of rules,” she writes, “no prescriptions from on high, ever carried me through the dark or gave me courage for the heights. It was the people who took time to listen to me who gave me something more important than the rules to live by. They gave me back a sense of myself, of my own convictions, of the law of God within my heart.”
It seems certain that the US bishops’ guidelines for ministering to “persons with a homosexual inclination” are not interested in giving people a sense of self, not interested in helping them discern and celebrate the loving and transforming presence of the sacred within themselves.
Instead, the guidelines seem to be all about repression, denial, and unquestioning obedience to an outside authority unreceptive to the presence of God within the lives of LGBT persons.
Accordingly, the bishops’ guidelines will fail to resonate with LGBT people of faith as our journeys of faith have taken us beyond the false god worshipped by cults of unquestioning obedience and promulgated in doctrines, statements and guidelines written about us by those who “have ears but do not hear”. This failure to listen undermines Jesus’ message of liberation, radical inclusiveness, and compassion.
My hope is that all Catholic ministers who seek a genuine pastoral approach for ministry
with LGBT people will first listen to these same peoples’ experiences and insights before considering the Catholic bishops’ “guidelines.”
In doing so, they may well discover that it is the members of the church hierarchy who are in more need of help and “pastoral care” with regards the issue of homosexuality, than are the majority of LGBT Catholics and their loved ones.
See also the previous
Wild Reed posts:
The Catholic Church and Gays: An Excellent Historical Overview
A Catholic's Prayer for His Fellow Pilgrim, Benedict XVI
The Non-negotiables of Human Sex
“Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality is Complex and Nuanced”, says Theologian
Celebrating Our Sanctifying Truth
On Civil Unions and Christian Tradition
This “Militant Secularist” Wants to Marry a Man
The Sexuality of Jesus
Reflections on the Primacy of Conscience
The Question of an "Informed" Catholic Conscience
The Bible and Homosexuality
Back to Top
Instead of
Scapegoating, Church Ought to Repent
By Michael J. Bayly
(Executive Coordinator, CPCSM)
Star Tribune, September 8, 2005
Pope Benedict seems certain to issue a directive barring gay men from
ordination as Roman Catholic priests. For the majority of Catholics
– and in particular gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT)
Catholics – such a development is akin to rearranging the deck
chairs on the Titanic. It's a desperate, misguided and futile ploy –
and one that signals the need for urgent reform within a Catholic Church
rapidly declining in credibility.
For a start, how credible is the Vatican's appeal to the language of
psychology in justifying its ban on "disordered" gay men,
when the mental health and medical professional associations do not
consider homosexuality to be any type of "disorder"?
The Vatican's frequent claim of an intrinsic link between homosexuality
and pedophilia is similarly devoid of any scientific backing and is
thus erroneous. Reactionaries within the church, however, continue to
bolster such a claim with "research findings" from groups
such as the National Association for the Research and Treatment of Homosexuality
(NARTH). Yet what isn't reported is that neither NARTH's findings nor
its methodology are seldom, if ever, offered to peer-reviewed journals
for critical analysis. In short, the group lacks any respect from the
wider scientific community.
Despite this, the Catholic Church's official "support group"
for GLBT people, "Courage," often substitutes the word "homosexuality"
with the NARTH-coined phrase, "same-sex attraction disorder"
– a term unrecognized by any professional health association. Following
NARTH's lead, some members of Courage even consider their "disorder"
to be curable, and explain its origin using debunked theories of dominant
mothers, distant fathers and abusive family relations.
The quackery of NARTH is clearly endorsed and encouraged by some within
the leadership of the church. It's not surprising, then, that this same
leadership fosters the erroneous connection between homosexuality and
pedophilia. This is all the more deplorable when one surveys the findings
of mainstream scientific studies that refute any link between homosexuality
and the sexual abuse of minors. These studies conclude that "the
belief that homosexuals are particularly attracted to children is completely
unsupported" (Groth and Birnbaum), and that "a gay man is
no more likely than a straight man to perpetrate sexual activity with
children" (Stevenson).
Yet despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Vatican
insists on blaming gay priests for the ongoing sexual abuse scandal
within the church. Without doubt such a scandal exists, but who is really
to blame? Who should be held accountable? Pedophile priests must be
brought to justice, that's a given, as must members of the church hierarchy
who knowingly ignore such priests' criminal activity and simply transfer
them to other parishes or dioceses. Yet what of the structures and attitudes
that surround, enable, and even encourage and reward such deplorable
actions?
Could it be that the scandal is so overwhelming because of the church's
dysfunctional hierarchical culture – one more reflective of imperial
hubris than of the egalitarian model of community offered by Jesus?
It is a culture clearly prone to face-saving silence and conspiratorial
efforts at covering up and scapegoating rather than acknowledging and
reporting long-term abuse of children and youth.
It is clear that the Vatican has failed in many ways. It has failed
in promoting a teaching that reflects the diverse reality of human sexuality;
it has failed in encouraging GLBT people in particular to celebrate
and integrate their God-given gift of sexuality, preferring instead
to promote through groups such as Courage, a shame-based preoccupation
with sexual repression; it has failed to protect children from sexual
abuse by pedophile priests; and it has failed to hold itself fully accountable
for its own complicity in this abuse.
It is time for Catholics to publicly and vocally reject the misguided
scapegoating tactics of the Vatican and to demand an end to its discriminatory
policies preventing not only gay men, but also married straight men
and women from entering the priesthood. It is time for Catholics to
demand an open and thorough accounting of the real issues behind the
church's tragic sex abuse scandal. Only then will we see a reformed
priesthood and a renewed Catholic Church - one truly universal and open
to the gifts of all its members.
Michael J. Bayly is executive coordinator of the Catholic
Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, a Twin Cities-based independent
coalition. He can be reached via the group's website, www.mtn.org/cpcsm.
Michael
J. Bayly: A Catholic's prayer
for his fellow pilgrim
A Commentary by Michael J. Bayly
(CPCSM's Coordinator)
Star Tribune, May 14, 2005
Star
Tribune Link
The
"primacy of conscience" is a core teaching of the Catholic
faith. It's a teaching that the new pope, as Father Joseph Ratzinger,
eloquently expressed in 1968 when the chair of dogmatic theology at
the University of Tbingen: "Above the pope as an expression of
the binding claim of church authority, stands one's own conscience,
which has to be obeyed first of all, if need be against the demands
of church authority."
Many
Catholics are hoping that as Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger will
honor the role of conscience and be open to the presence of God contained
within the insights and experiences of all who have been true to their
conscience. In particular, we pray that he be open to the wisdom of
gay and lesbian Catholics who have followed their conscience against
the church's demand for lifelong celibacy, and built loving, committed
relationships that are expressed and experienced both sexually and sacramentally.
In
this time of new beginnings, we also pray that the new pope will be
open to the forgiveness we offer all within the church who have promulgated
misguided, fearful and hurtful words with regard to gay, lesbian, bisexual
and transgendered (GLBT) people, their lives and their relationships.
Such
damaging words stem from the current closed-circuit nature of church
teaching on human sexuality -- teaching that, accordingly, is woefully
deficient in light of both modern science and the experiences of GLBT
individuals who have followed their conscience. Yet there is hope, as
many GLBT Catholics, in a spirit of love and forgiveness, are open to
helping the wider church discover and appreciate another part of the
unfolding fullness of God's truth.
Being
open to having church teaching shaped by new insights -- be they of
either science or conscience -- is not succumbing to "relativism,"
but rather acknowledging the incarnational aspect of our faith, one
that recognizes God's ongoing revelation through the conduit of human
life. Accordingly, many faithful Catholics contend that the relational
lives of GLBT persons who are following their conscience constitute
a teaching moment for the church -- one that should not be ignored or
discounted, but rather welcomed and celebrated.
Unfortunately,
however, many religious traditions are dominated by what theologian
Marcus Borg terms, "conventional wisdom" -- with its emphasis
on rewards and punishments; its penchant for hierarchies, literalism
and absolute answers for everything; its fear of ambiguity; and its
suspicion of those who follow their conscience. Such elements of conventionality
are all too easily propped up as idols, which is why Jesus, when condemning
the Pharisees of his day as "whitened sepulchers," identified
the way of conventional wisdom as the broad path to spiritual death.
As
GLBT Catholics, our prayer is that through respectful dialogue and the
sharing of our experience of God's presence in our lives, we may, like
our brother Jesus, invite all to embrace an alternative, life-giving
wisdom -- one grounded in an experience of God as abundant, surprising,
gracious and compassionate. Such qualities lead to understanding religion
not as unquestioning obedience, but as trustful openness to God who
is very much present throughout the vast arena of human life and relationships.
It is within this arena that we are called to continue our journey together
as God's pilgrim church.
In
facing the enormous task of leading such a pilgrimage, Pope Benedict
observed at his inauguration that "I am not alone. I do not have
to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone." In a spirit
of trustful openness, may the pope recognize that GLBT Catholics who
have followed their conscience "against the demands of church authority"
have something to offer that is both beautiful and holy when it comes
to the daunting yet exhilarating task of being part of the living, evolving
Catholic Church.
Michael J. Bayly is coordinator of the Catholic Pastoral
Committee on Sexual Minorities, a 26-year-old Twin Cities-based independent
coalition dedicated to creating environments of safety and respect for
GLBT persons within both the Catholic Church and society. He can be
reached via his website, www.hangingrock2001@yahoo.com.
My
Response to Pope John Paul's Recent Book,
Memory and Identity
By Mary Lynn Murphy, President of CPCSM
March 2, 2005
To
Phyllis Plum and Other CPO Members:
Please Stop Spreading False Information
About GLBT Persons
by David J. McCaffrey, 8/10/03
CPCSM Founder and Board Member
The
CPO Does Not Speak for All Catholic Parents
by Michael J. Bayly and Mary Beckfeld
Star
Tribune, 7/5/03
Religious
Maturity: A Catholic Feminist View
By Mary E. Hunt, PhD
March 20, 2002
Presentation from CPCSM's 2001-2002 Speakers' Series, The Sacramentality
of Human Experience: Empowerment Toward Prophesy.
The Biblical Case for Full
Equality for GLBT Persons
in the Church
By William Coughlin Hunt, STD
March 14, 2001
Presentation from CPCSM's 2000-2001 Outreach Luncheon Series.
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Presentations
and Publications
from Other Sources
On civil unions and Christian tradition
WISCONSIN'S MARRIAGE AMENDMENT
WILLIAM C. HUNT, STD
St Paul Pioneer Press, Oct. 31, 2006
Christians concerned about the so-called marriage amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution would do well to examine our own religious tradition, in particular a centuries-old condemnation of an "unnatural" practice.
This practice is mentioned more than 15 times in the Hebrew Bible —
always in the negative sense of a serious offense. Christian leaders
condemned it as an unnatural vice for more than 1,500 years. In 1312
an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church condemned as heretics all
those who argued that this practice was not sinful. Dante places people
guilty of this vice in the seventh ring of hell. Martin Luther equated
this sin with theft and murder and insisted that anyone who engaged
in this activity should not be buried in consecrated ground. (Resume
article here:)
What was this sin? Homosexual activity? No, it was taking interest on loans, a practice called usury.
How did church leaders go from universal condemnation of interest-taking to the situation today, where Thrivent Financial for Lutherans sings the praises of compound interest and the Vatican runs a bank?
Part of the explanation comes from a radical change in our understanding of money. Ancient peoples thought of money as merely a medium of exchange. If you loaned your neighbor a cow, you could expect some payment for it because the cow was useful. It produced milk and pulled your plow and might even bear a calf. Coins, on the other hand, just lay in a bag and didn't produce anything. Charging interest was seen as contrary to the very nature of money. Treating something sterile as though it were productive was going against nature.
Also, lending money was closely associated with oppression of the poor, especially when interest rates were often 50 percent per year or higher. At the time of Jesus, high interest rates were driving more and more peasants off their land and into the ranks of day laborers and beggars who could not make enough to feed themselves and their families. Usury imposed a death sentence of slow starvation on its victims.
Over time, our understanding of money has become much more nuanced. For us, money is a human invention, not something with natural value. In addition to being a medium of exchange, we see money as equivalent to productive resources, an abstract measure of purchasing power (as opposed to bartering), and something that stores value.
Likewise, our understanding of interest has become more discriminating. Not all interest-taking is bad. Usury laws still prohibit unreasonable rates of interest that prey on the poor, but low-interest loans actually help poor people lift themselves out of poverty.
In the biblical period and for much of Christian history, homosexual activity was condemned for many of the same reasons as usury. Ancient peoples had no concept of homosexual orientation as a natural phenomenon. In a male-dominated patriarchal society homosexual activity among men was seen as degrading to the passive partner. It was unnatural because he allowed himself to be reduced to the essentially lower status of a woman. Also, biblical authors and church leaders commonly understood homosexual activity only in the context of idol worship, promiscuity and violence.
The 20th century witnessed a revolution in our understanding of sexuality, something comparable to the scientific revolution in Galileo's time. Today we hold to the natural equality of the sexes, and we are aware that committed, loving sexual relationships between persons of the same gender are possible. True, we continue to condemn promiscuity and rape in homosexual as well as in heterosexual relationships, but it flies in the face of facts to consider homosexual relationships only in that light.
To sum up,because we understand the nature of money differently, we are not opposed to all interest-taking. Now that we understand homosexuality differently, need we be opposed to all homosexual activity? Could it be that we are in the midst of a development of social consciousness and even of church teaching on this subject?
If so, just as now is not the time to reinstate laws that prohibit all interest on loans, so also now is not the time for a constitutional amendment that prohibits committed sexual unions between gay and lesbian persons.
William C. Hunt holds a doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of America. He writes from his home in rural Somerset, Wis.
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History Reveals Unsavory Mix of Religion, Constitutional Law
By Rev. Michael Tegeder
St. Paul Pioneer Press
January 10, 2006
A few days after Christmas other Roman Catholic pastors
in Minnesota and I received a mailing from the bishops of the state.
It was not a word of appreciation after one of the more demanding weekends
of the year, nor was it a word of blessing for the coming year. Rather
it was to inform us that we were to lead a postcard campaign in our
parishes petitioning our legislators to place the issue of a "constitutional
marriage amendment" on the ballot for November.
I find this campaign troubling, being unnecessary and mean-spirited.
Because five of the six bishops who lead our dioceses are not native
to the state, I would like to share with them some perspective from
Minnesota's history.
The Minnesota Constitution, like the U.S. Constitution, has a bill
of rights including anti-establishment and free exercise of religion
clauses. However, the Minnesota Constitution was amended in 1877. Article
13, Section 2, titled "Prohibition as to aiding sectarian schools,"
was added and read: "In no case shall any public money or property
be appropriated or used for the support of schools wherein the distinctive
doctrines, creeds or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious
sect are promulgated or taught."
Why was this added? Was there a fear back in the late 19th century
that some renegade judge would legislate from the bench creating a new
right for publicly funded parochial schools?
No, the prohibition clause was an example of the so-called "Blaine
Amendments" adopted by more than 20 states. They were considered
a direct result of the nativist, anti-Catholic bigotry, which was common
in American politics during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was
a message sent by way of the Constitution, especially to Catholics —
whose numbers were increasing through immigration — that they and
their practices were suspect and second class.
More recently, a group of ultra-conservative church leaders, joined
by the Catholic bishops of Minnesota, is promoting an amendment to the
state Constitution dictating that marriage is limited to one man and
one woman.
After 150 years, is this addition needed in our core document? No,
we already have state and federal laws so defining marriage. It seems
to be using the Constitution to send a message telling gays and lesbians
that they, their relationships and their families are suspect and second
class.
In addition, the amendment would take away the possibility of rights
enjoyed by other Minnesota families through civil union recognition.
These include fundamental human rights that our church professes to
uphold.
It seems hypocritical for our Catholic bishops to promote this amendment
as necessary for protecting marriage. A year ago, over the 2004 Christmas
weekend, the bishops wanted a pastoral letter disseminated in churches
throughout the state that spoke of grave threats to marriage.
They mentioned the usual suspects, artificial birth control and divorce,
and then added same-sex marriages. Obviously, if they sincerely believe
this, their main battle is with birth control and divorce, which are
much graver threats in terms of pervasive societal acceptance. Why then
do the bishops only promote a constitutional amendment against gays
and lesbians and their families?
Without the amendment, our church can continue to make distinctions
between sacramental marriage, legal marriage and civil unions.
My advice to our Catholic leaders is taken from one known to challenge
the religious establishment of his day, "Do unto others as you
would have done unto you."
My hope for my Catholic brothers and sisters is that we prayerfully
consider, "What would Jesus do?" Let those without sin send
the first postcard.
Tegeder is pastor of the Church of St. Edward in
Bloomington.
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Of
Many Things
By James Martin, SJ
America, December 16, 2002
Perspective:
A Wondrous Dance of Sex and Spirit
By Thomas C. Fox
National Catholic Reporter, December 13, 2002
Gay
comments concern bishops:
Vatican's remarks are feared to incite hate crimes in US
By Michael Paulson,
The Boston Globe, December 10, 2002
Affirming
gay and lesbian priests
By M. Thomas Shaw and Bud Cederholm
The Boston Globe, December 10, 2002
Sermon
in Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of
Dignity/New York
By John J. McNeill
October 27, 2002
John J. McNeill is a noted author, psychotherapist,
and former Jesuit priest who has been involved with DignityUSA for over
30 years. In 1997, he received DignityUSA's Life Achievement Award.
Also, in 1990, John was the keynote speaker at CPCSM's 10th anniversary
celebration.
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