In another assault on LGBT rights, Minnesota's Roman Catholic bishops are urging parish priests across the state to form committees to help get a proposed marriage amendment passed by voters in 2012. Archbishop John Nienstedt wrote in a letter to his priests:
It is imperative that we marshal our resources to educate the faithful about the church's teachings on these matters, and to vigorously organize and support a grass-roots effort to get out the vote to support the passage of this amendment.
I've thought quite a lot about the severity of opposition from the Catholic Church toward same-sex marriage and equal rights for gay people in general. This is bigger than a few passages in the Bible. This is a zealous commitment of time and resources to reach out beyond their congregations to force their beliefs on non-Catholics. If they were generally of this practice across the breadth of their doctrine, then it would be just another example of a church pushing its faith on others. It's not. They don't commit all resources to ending legal divorce, enacting Sunday closing laws, or getting Ash Wednesday made a national holiday. No, gay issues are different.
I've come to only one reasonable explanation. Most Roman Catholic priests must be gay (or if not most, enough to be a major force in the church hierarchy). I'm hardly the first person to have thought or observed this (also here, here, here, and here). This speculation isn't insulting of the Church or the priesthood. There's nothing wrong with being gay or being a gay priest. There is something wrong with fighting against the equal rights of gay people.
In my estimation this is a result of two things: the extreme stigmatization of homosexuality in Catholic faith communities, and the celibacy of priests. Consider the situation of the young, gay male, growing up in a Catholic family, church, and community, especially in decades or even centuries past. He knows with absolute certainty that his family and community will never tolerate him living as a gay man, to the point of excommunication or even death. He has been told and believes that what he feels inside is a sin. His family, especially his mother, have high expectations of him to marry and have children. His mother is always trying to set him up with nice girls. And they are nice girls. He is running out of excuses to avoid these relationships. What are his options? Enter a sham marriage? Face his family's disappointment from living alone or leaving his home and community?
What about the priesthood? By becoming a priest, he will be required to be celibate, which he has resigned himself to anyway, so he doesn't have to marry a woman. He will be honoring God, gain a position of high status in his church and community, have employment for life that does not require hard labor, and bring honor to his family. How can he lose?
I submit that the clergy has been a refuge from marriage for young, gay, Catholic men for centuries, so much so, in fact, that most members of the Catholic clergy today are gay, and this has been true for a very long time. The celibacy of priests has been an extreme disincentive for young strait men to enter the priesthood, while being an attraction to young gay men.
It would be naïve to think that this persistent assault on the gay community is in no way affected by the fact that these are mostly gay men driving it. Other religions speak against homosexuality, but few rally their entire church to fight against the rights of gay people outside their church. One simple theory is that it's just basic gay bashing by closeted gay men trying to stay closeted. Another is basic self-loathing. Their faith gives them a deep shame of what they are, so they attack other gays as a vicarious form of self-flagellation.
I'm inclined to think that their motivations are more practical in nature. Today, the entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church is rooted in the stigmatization of homosexuality coupled with the celibacy of priests driving young, gay men to enter and operate their organization. It's probably an accident that celibacy had this consequence, but after centuries, it's a basic part of the structure of the Church and is the primary motivator they have for recruiting new priests. As one Jesuit Priest put it, "As a Catholic priest, I know there would be no church without gay people. ... I assume priests are gay until proven otherwise."
But the world is changing. There are far more options available to young, gay men today. It's becoming easier all the time to live out. Families are becoming accepting of their own gay children. They can enter relationships and find happiness. The result: fewer and fewer young men are entering the priesthood. The Catholic Church can't get enough priests to meet the needs of their congregations. The number of U.S. priests has plummeted from 59,000 in 1975 to 40,600 in 2009, while, the country's Catholic population has grown to 65 million, leaving thousands of parishes without a resident priest. They're in deep trouble.
Their options? One would be to lift the celibacy of priests. There is nothing in scripture that demands it. The problem is that most priests now are gay, and if they did this, priests would go from an expectation of celibacy to an expectation of marriage overnight. Any parish priest would be seen as the supreme catch for nearly every single woman in his congregation. These men would be fending off female advances left and right, putting them right back in the situation they entered the priesthood to escape in the first place. Few in church leadership will foist this on themselves, and most of the priests they have now would probably leave the clergy. In the short run, it would decimate the Church before they could recruit enough new priests to recover.
Their other option? Try to maintain the status quo, dig in their heals and stop the progress of history. Try to thwart any attempts to raise the social acceptability of homosexuality and give young gay men other options. Fight like hell to maximize the social stigma that drives gay men into the priesthood to keep their church alive. This appears to be the choice they have made.
The last option would be to both end celibacy for priests and officially embrace gay people. Their priests could come out, stay in the church, and they could begin to attract more strait men to enter the priesthood. Throw in the ordination of women and they just might make it. Somehow, I can't see millennia-old social inertia changing that quickly.
The Catholic Church is fading. To save it, the church leadership either has to give up the lives they've built for themselves, or they have to hold down and demonize gay people. They are not fighting to stop sin or protect marriage. They are fighting to save their church, and they are desperate.
Legal marriage has always been about property rights, and has had the consequence of creating special privileged classes of people. Even the children of marriage were called “legitimate” while children born outside of marriage were called “illegitimate” through no fault of their own. They are all children and they are all human, regardless of the circumstances of their parents. Attempts to deny marriage equality to same-sex couples is an attempt to relegate them to lower social classes, keep them in a state of illegitimacy, and refuse to accept them as social peers deserving of equal rights and privileges in American society.
But that's the thesis of another essay.
Let gay people get married. Done.
Calling it something else because we don't want to share with you icky gays is not a valid argument.
Celibacy translates into control both of personnel and “product/services.” If you visit a strange city, it is comforting to know that Starbucks is there and you know exactly what to expect, that is part of the appeal of Catholicism. The second largest “religion” in America is former Catholics; however, that too is part of a standardization of beliefs/practices. At the beginning of his papacy pope Benedict XVI prophesied, “a purer, smaller Church.”
“But the world is changing” Yes and no. The vast majority of Catholics live in Africa, South America and Polynesia and most of those societies are still very traditional/conservative when it comes to social values. Although it is notable that Argentina and Mexico City have legalized same-sex marriage and similar legislation is being considered by Brazil, Chile, and Columbia. Africa and Polynesia are churning out large numbers of priests. Your next “American” parish priest may well be from Burundi.
Celibacy is still being imposed on priests for the same reason. The Vatican wants to keep power and it will do anything to keep it, including drive millions of people out of the church.
Why, if you had even spent as much as a half hour looking at the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, you could have figured it out. The "reasonable explanation" you give is completely wrong, the REAL reason is that they understand what you do not: that marriage is much more than a contract between two individuals, is it a social institution. It is even one of the very oldest social institutions, one no society can freely redefine without flirting with disaster.
Nor does one have to be Catholic to realize all this. But the Catholic clergy realize is acutely, because they are still very much under the influence of Thomas Aquinas, even though his is no longer the sole, official theology of the Roman Church.
You and your ilk, Keppler, are to family law what the Bolsheviks were to property law. Russia suffered from the Bolshevik delusion for 70 years, and has net to recover. Yet now you threaten us with something even more destructive, to an even more fundamental institution than property law.
Slavery was a social institution that had been around nearly as long as humans walked this earth, is completely approved of in the Bible and is not a sin in scripture, was vital in building this country in its early decades, was the foundation of a very large portion of the American economy, and we still got rid of it because it was wrong. Dead wrong. The Bible can be wrong. The Catechism can be wrong. Religion can be wrong.
In this case, same-sex couples are in no way trying to eliminate the institution of marriage. Quite the opposite. They want it expanded to include them because that is fair, and the needs of their relationships are no different than the needs of differing-sex relationships. and their rights as citizens are no different as well. This inequality shall not stand, and the Catholic Church had better stop fighting it and find a way to deal with the eventuality that they will no longer have a pool of gay men they can exploit to run their church.
it is a true blessing for the rest of us, Syllo.
Also, Rome has been trying to discourage even that, by various subltle means. Not for any great dogmatic reasons, but because it is easier to move priests around at will and underpay them if they don't have a family.
i published the research i did on the sexual attitudes and behaviors of gay Catholic priests in the active ministry back in 1981. it was unprecedented and Church leaders were horrified that i broke the code of silence around the issue. the publication of my dissertation also destroyed my priesthood and ministry.
my name is Richard Wagner and i'm the author of Secrecy, Sophistry And Gay Sex In The Catholic Church; The Systematic Destruction Of An Oblate Priest. this book tells the story of how the Church retaliated against me and tried to quash and discredit my research.
the problem is the church is ocming to us, and attempti ng to exercise its so-called authority over non-believers and non-members.
you don't have to give up your idea that marriage is between a man and a women, though why you would think that your brother is not entitled to exactly what you have is beyond me. you don't have to go to your brother's "fake" wedding, you don't have to pose for photos, and you don't have to be a part of their lives if you don't wish to.
And just for the record, the church has been consistently opposed to civil unions as well. You sohukld see what happened in Hawaii earklier this year, and what was said about your gay borther and hisp partner, and what continues to be spouted off by this church of yours, about gay people, evil, and being of satan.
What a mess of illogic; Minnesota is not a theocracy so the civil authorities don't dance to the tune of any church's teachings. The Catholic Church can follow it's teachings without trying to compel the civil authorities, or other church's to join in their practice of discriminating against gay and lesbian citizens.
Thank goodness I'm not a Minnesotan. It's challenging enough to be a Catholic without the in-your-face bigotry.
However, I will say these few words in response. Marriage equality is based on love. It’s based on building a life with someone. It’s based on planning a future with someone. It’s based on growing old with someone. It’s based on being there for the one you love in their time of need, and having someone there when you need them the most. Those basic human needs, desires, comforts, and joys of our brief but beautiful lives are hardly exclusively entitled to couples of differing sex. They are shared by all, and should be denied to none.
I do have to thank you for posting your comments. No measure of words I might express could so vividly illustrate the mentality of those who hate.
As for the claim that all enjoy marriage equality because all can engage in heterosexual marriage, that's the same as saying people living in Saudi Arabia enjoy religious freedom because all are entitled to attend mosques. The claim is also an indication of staggering stupidity. If you indicate that opposite sex marriage is a universal right, why what objection can you have to a gay man marrying you?
Of course the church is now run by a man who learned his absolutism growing up in Nazi germany. A hard right extremist who realizes that with any crack in the foundation of the beliefs, the whole rotten mess will collapse.
And of course the church needs a distraction from the endless hidden molestation of children, where molesting priests were simply moved to new locations, where unknown they continued their crimes.
Why were most of the molested kids boys - because the church until recently didnt allow alter girls.
Anyway, 20 % of the victims were girls.
a few judicious links...................
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23369148-pope-led-cover-up-of-child-abuse-by-priests.do (and cover up)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childprotection (about letter from Vatican telling bishops to hide the molestation.)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/18/world/main7257626.shtml
http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/archbishop-timothy-dolans-gay-bashing-letter-to-president-obama-130346308.html
(( is doaln threatening civil war? BTW he headed the milwaukee diocese from 2002 to 2009. It went bankrupt in jan 2011 due to the awards re molestation.))