I attended a Roman Catholic baptism about two weeks ago. A crowd of young parents and others of all ages stood in semi-circle around the font. The atmosphere was reverent yet festive. Toddlers squirmed. The church was exquisite. Blades of late-morning light slid down through colored glass. The priest exuded hope and delight as he kicked off the rites. As the two parents approached the font to offer their child to the church, I began to tear up. My 11-year-old daughter, not unaccustomed to my poet's penchant for being capsized by moments so tender, saw my waterworks start up, rolled her eyes as adolescents do, smiled, and handed me a tissue. As I often do when my emotions get the best of me in the presence of my children, I get all pedagogical on them. I whispered sidebars to my girl: "That's the litany of the saints, it's beautiful when sung in Latin... And that the part about Satan and the empty promises -- it's technically an exorcism!"
I didn't have to explain that it was no ordinary baptism we were witnessing. She knew it was extraordinary, because I had taught her. The two parents at the font were bravely (or so I believe) demonstrating their desire not to throw the baby out with the baptismal water.
They were two gay dads asking a church governed by bullies to bless their child.
My daughter later asked how it was that gay people could have their children baptized in Catholic churches but not be married in them. Good question. I broke it down for her. I told her a far greater percentage of Catholics support gay marriage than support the Vatican. I characterized the failure of my church to offer gay Catholics marriage in the church as just that -- "a failure." And a sin.
There are many layers to the sin of homophobia that the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church commits. Most people within and outside the church know, for example, that the Vatican preaches homophobia and does not consecrate same-sex marriages.
But many Catholics do not know that hundreds of thousands of their charitable dollars to groups like Knights of Columbus are currently being used to bankroll the fight against legislation that would make civil gay marriage legal.
Most Catholics know that the church is in a unique position when it comes to the question of gay marriage for several reasons, not the least of which is that by many estimates, more than 50 percent of Catholic priests are gay. Many Catholics know that many of the bishops who set the homophobic agenda are themselves closeted gay men grappling with the psychological fallout of growing up gay in a hostile homophobic world and church. Rumbling so ironically beneath the surface of the Catholic homophobia question is that even the most conservative Roman Catholic often has an expansive view of gay priests. Catholics of all stripes agree that many of our finest priests are gay.
Another unique feature of Roman Catholic homophobia has to do with the way we look at the Bible. Catholics don't construe the Bible literally, so Catholic objections to homosexual marriage tend not to fix upon the biblical notion that being gay is an "abomination." Indeed some of the most holy among us enjoy the biblical abominations without the slightest fear of being accused of sinfulness: we eat shrimp and pork at every opportunity, and we give little thought to shaving our beards or to wearing linen with wool.
No, the Vatican's homophobia derives from political and economic concerns, as well as from the larger erotic dysfunction that pervades the church. Patriarchal heterosexual marriage keeps the coffers filled. Two gay men or two lesbians may have a few children but they won't be easily coerced by doctrine to welcome a child a year. People who actually plan the size of their families aren't likely to make the kind of large lockstep Catholic clans the Holy See envisions for its City of God.
The Pope is smart enough to make small accommodations in order to keep gay people in the pews. Gay people are currently welcome to receive the sacraments and serve in ministry, but reminders from Vatican City never let it be forgotten that only gay people who abstain entirely from sex are truly fit for the sacraments. While the prohibition against all sexual activity outside sacramental marriage extends to straight, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, it can hardly be said to apply equally to all when for a gay Catholic there is no sacramental marriage option.
Catholics are leaving in droves, but dissenters, many of whom are gay, are also staying in droves. On the matter of gay Catholics, the Holy See wishes to have its cake and eat it, too. Thus, the Pope blesses with one hand and pummels with the other.
But the dissenters have a City of God in mind, too.
The Ad Hoc Committee of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, in its "Defense of Marriage," defines traditional Roman Catholic marriage as "a covenant between one man and one woman directed to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children." Although the traditional view is that marriage is first and foremost procreative, there's more to it. There's the good of the spouses. Were non-procreative marital sex viewed by the Magisterium as sinful, menopausal wives and sterile spouses would be called upon to abstain from sex even within marriage. But the bishops do not teach that all marital sex need be procreative. Allowances are made for sex they characterize as "unitive." Sex to keep the marriage strong, in other words, has a divine purpose. I like this idea; It reminds me of how Shabbos (marital) sex is thought by many Jews to be a mitzvah. While committed gay partners obviously cannot have procreative sex, they can and do certainly have the unitive kin, yet the Catholic Church hierarchy persists in depriving LGBT people of this mitzvah (blessing) on the grounds that marriage is essentially procreative even while teaching that marriage is not exclusively procreative.
It's no secret that Ratzinger's enmity and the bishops' disrespect for LGBT people runs deep. The bishop of the Brooklyn and Queens diocese has already been caught on the radio comparing homosexual love to bestiality. A child being educated in Catholic schools learns that only gay men and women who abstain from sex are worthy of the sacraments, but that sinful heterosexual lovemaking is transformed by a sacrament (marriage) powerful enough to render the sexual aspect of love a radiant reflection of Christ's love, from which radiance the Vatican insists gay Catholics should be excluded.
Fortunately, many gay Catholics, and so many others in the church, disregard the perverse and tyrannical efforts of the bishops to police the sex lives of Catholics and discern. But tuning out the hatred the bishops disseminate may not be enough when it comes to homophobia.
When the daughter of the two aforementioned dads undertakes preparation to receive the sacraments, it is entirely possible that she will be exposed to the diluted version of the "God hates fags" message that issues from the Vatican today. Parents like hers will surely interfere; they will come between her and the hideous so-called "Christian" message. Such vigilance can help to protect the 10 percent of children in the pews who happen to be gay, but Catholics must not leave this work to gay Catholic parents alone. Pastors, catechists and parents who fail to challenge homophobia help to make the church a dangerous place for gay children and keep the world outside the church safe for bigotry.
I worked for more than a decade teaching writing in New York high schools and colleges, during which time I came to notice that the autobiographical writing of many of my gay male students frequently contained talk of suicide. So common were these accounts of suicide attempts and fantasies that I came to expect them, as cultural norms, almost, in coming-out/coming-of-age narratives. I was as confounded as I was alarmed by the preponderance of variations on the following plot: kid comes out to his parents, kid gets beaten by his parents, kid runs away, kid is victimized by street predators, kid tries to make it all go away with an accidental overdose. The preoccupation with suicide seemed to go beyond depression. These young men had learned self-hatred early. The musings on suicide seemed not so much about the desire to end one's own misery as about seeking to murder oneself. Sexual identity is not an incidental or add-on; it infuses one's whole self.
Which is why the "love the sinner, hate the sin" principle does not apply. Being gay is not a sin.
My brother Scott came out of the closet about a decade ago at the age of 42 and died three years later. I still can't get my head around the idea that he didn't come out to me sooner. We were very close; we both knew that I would have celebrated his coming out. When he finally did come out, we talked about why he had waited so long. "I couldn't come out to myself," he said.
What is a church good for if it requires its people to divorce themselves from who they are?
What is a church good for if it's not a sanctuary for all who would come out of the closet?
I have vivid memories of our father's disapproval of Scott in childhood. When I look at my own children, I find it almost unbearable to imagine them suffering such a lack of acceptance at home. As the parent of a child with a developmental disability, I have seen close-up how damaging the failure to educate children about prejudice can be. No child should ever learn from a trusted adult that that it is somehow unholy to be gay. That truly is an abomination.
My children were about eight and four when their Uncle Scott brought his partner, to whom he referred as "Uncle Frank." I told him to "slow down on the Uncle Frank thing." (I'd have said the same thing about an "Aunt Franny.") But once I met Scott's beloved, I wanted him to be "Uncle Frank." I wanted my children to witness my brother's freedom to claim his right to love in a committed, authentic, whole and holy way. I jumped at the chance to present "Uncle Frank" to my children and saw the opportunity to do so as a blessing, for there may be no lesson more important than teaching children to eschew bigotry in all its guises.
Very recently, around the time of what would have been my brother's 51st birthday, I received a press release describing Equally Blessed, a new group formed by four Catholic organizations: DignityUSA, Fortunate Families, New Ways Ministry and Call to Action. Equally Blessed is "a coalition of faithful Catholics who support full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people both in the church and in civil society." Three of the Catholic organizations that comprise Equally Blessed have been in existence for more than 30 years. Call to Action has 25,000 members. Support for gay marriage in the Roman Catholic Church is strong and on the increase. Like Equally Blessed, Catholics for Equality, a group newly formed to "draw on the rich Catholic tradition of social justice teaching" to advocate for "equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) of any religious group on the United States" currently denounces the use (or misuse, rather) of Catholic resources to prevent civil gay marriage reform. It is important for active Catholics to support groups like Equally Blessed and Catholics for Equality because secular homophobia originates in and takes its license from worship communities.
Many priests like Georgetown sociology professor and author Joseph Palacios, who co-founded Catholics for Equality, speak out courageously against injustice as it pertains to gay people within and outside of the Roman Catholic Church, but Ratzinger and his legions are doing all they can to silence such men. It may be safer for a priest to sodomize a child than to challenge the Vatican's position on gay marriage.
How odd it is that as bishops begin to close down parishes for reasons of economic hardship, Catholic funding can be found to support efforts to defeat civil marriage legislation outside the church. (The Holy See doesn't recognize the civil marriages of Catholics!) The readiness to use Catholic donations to stop civil legislation indicates an increasing willingness on the part of church leaders to export Roman Catholic homophobia into the secular world. Too many leaders (of various sects) lend their seals of approval to those who would couch homophobic messages in doctrine or scripture, and use their spiritual and psychological leverage -- and cash donations -- to cheat LGBT people out of their legal and moral rights.
Until the homophobes in Vatican City grow up decide it is time to "reject Satan... and all his empty promises," all Catholics -- but especially catechists, pastors and parents of children receiving religious instruction -- need to step in as godparents to our leaders, summon the Holy Spirit, and work for peace by waging war on homophobia -- which people do die of.
Follow Michele Somerville on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NYpoet
Those such as these will never be willing to admit that many Church teachings are just that: Church teachings that have nothing to do with loving G*d, loving your neighbour, loving your partner or any commitment to love.
Identical scenes were repeated elsewhere, and in one place a woman cried out: "How terrible! There are even men who do not uncover before such a stupendous miracle!"
People then began to ask each other what they had seen. The great majority admitted to having seen the trembling and the dancing of the sun; others affirmed that they saw the face of the Blessed Virgin; others, again, swore that the sun whirled on itself like a giant Catherine wheel and that it lowered itself to the earth as if to burn it in its rays. Some said they saw it change colors successively....
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From the road, where the vehicles were parked and where hundreds of people who had not dared to brave the mud were congregated, one could see the immense multitude turn toward the sun, which appeared free from clouds and in its zenith. It looked like a plaque of dull silver, and it was possible to look at it without the least discomfort. It might have been an eclipse which was taking place. But at that moment a great shout went up, and one could hear the spectators nearest at hand shouting: "A miracle! A miracle!
Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was biblical as they stood bareheaded, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws---the sun "danced" according to the typical expression of the people.
As the children viewed the various apparitions of Jesus, Mary and Joseph the crowd witnessed a different prodigy, the now famous miracle of the sun. Among the witnesses there were the following:
From the Sister Lucia De Santos Journal
After our Lady had disappeared into the immense distance of the firmament, we beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus seemed to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands. When, a little later, this apparition disappeared, I saw Our Lord and Our lady; it seemed to me to that it was Our Lady of Sorrows (Dolors). Our Lord appeared to bless the world in the same manner as St. Joseph had done. This apparition also vanished, and I saw Our Lady once more, this time resembling Our Lady of Carmel. [Only Lucia would see the later, presaging her entrance into Carmel some years later.]
I want a chapel built here in my honor. I want you to continue saying the Rosary every day. The war will end soon, and the soldiers will return to their homes.
"Yes. Yes."
"Will you tell me your name?"
I am the Lady of the Rosary.
"I have many petitions from many people. Will you grant them? "
Some I shall grant, and others I must deny. People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend our Lord any more, for He is already too much offended!
"And is that all you have to ask?"
There is nothing more.
As the Lady of the Rosary rises toward the east she turns the palms of her hands toward the dark sky. While the rain had stopped, dark clouds continued to obscure the sun, which suddenly bursts through them and is seen to be a soft spinning disk of silver.
"Look at the sun!"
During the night of 12-13 October it had rained throughout, soaking the ground and the pilgrims who make their way to Fátima from all directions by the thousands. By foot, by cart and even by car they came, entering the bowl of the Cova from the Fátima-Leiria road, which today still passes in front of the large square of the Basilica. From there they made their way down the gently slope to the place where a trestle had been erected over the little holm oak of the apparitions. Today on the site is the modern glass and steel Capelhina (little chapel), enclosing the first chapel built there and the statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima where the holm oak had stood.
As for the children, they made their way to the Cova amid the adulation and skepticism which had followed them since May. When they arrived they found critics who questioned their veracity and the punctuality of the Lady, who had promised to arrive at noon. It was well passed noon by the official time of the country. However, when the sun arrived at its zenith the Lady appeared as she had said she would.
The Ents attack Isengard, trapping Saruman in the tower of Orthanc. Gandalf, Théoden and the others arrive at Isengard to confront Saruman. Saruman refuses to acknowledge the error of his ways, however, and Gandalf strips him of his rank and most of his powers. Merry and Pippin rejoin the others and Pippin looks into a palantír, a seeing-stone that Sauron had used to communicate with Saruman, unknowingly leading Sauron to think that Saruman has captured the Ring-bearer, so Gandalf takes Pippin to Gondor.
This is the crux of the issue. As a recovered catholic of 20 yrs I think it is hypocritical to believe in a religion and disobey its tenets. To expose your children to the contradiction of the church supposedly speaking for god only some of the time is doing them a disservice. "Oh, yeah, they are wrong on 'these' things but ok on 'those' things."
- So long as you are tithing you are supporting the efforts of the hierarchy to discriminate. Disobedience is not revolt. If you truly want to change the way the clergy conducts the affairs of the church do not contribute to its financial health.
Yeah, those people who say they are Christians, then condemn their own family only cheat themselves out of visits with the grandchildren. I know we saw my parents a lot less than we would have if my mother had not been crazy about her faith and our lack thereof.
The sad thing was, in his last week of his life, my dad told me he hadn't believed for awhile, but was afraid to not believe. This broke my heart. I had had decades to get over my fear of breaking away from Christianity and fear of hell and death, but he had only days. I know it sounds hypocritical, but I wished that he still believed that he would be seeing my mother again after death and could have gained some comfort from that. There just wasn't enough time for him to come to grips with his disillusionment.
He hadn't told my sisters, and neither did I. I don't know if they would believe me and didn't see that it would serve any good purpose.
I am sorry your family feels that way. I have had a wonderful older lady in my life who was an excellent grandma to my children and mom to me for over 4 decades, though we are not related. The kids listed her as "grandmother" on their wedding programs. I hope you have someone like that in your life.
I have been very fortunate to have many people in my life as mentors and chosen family. My sister is a wonderful person and we take strength from each other in dealing with the rest of our clan. His family is great and has always accepted me as wife/mother w/o any ceremony. (LOL except MIL; those are tough reagardless. :) )
I wish you well.
Incest for example is viewed as a sin in scripture. You are a pastor. A father and daughter come to you to marry them are you going to do it? Or will you stand by your convictions? Should be be called a bigot against those who want to engage in incest? Or that he hates them?
The fact of the matter is if you think that something is sin you are going to tell the world to prevent them from doing that thing.
Now those who have those nasty signs who presume to speak for God are not real Christians. They claim to be but the Bible does not teach hate. The Bible says to love your neighbor. If you love someone you want to prevent them from doing things the Bible says are sin. Telling someone that _______ is sin does not mean you hate the person. I am not sure how anyone could even begin to think that.
With all that's going on in the world right now, and all Catholicism and Christianity claim to *be,* read the below, or any 'debate' like this.
Do you call this *rational?*
Not to mention a major spike in homophobic violence you may or may not be aware of, likely associated with an election season just *chock full* of homophobic slurs and policies from even people claiming to represent 'the will of the people' in a world that's already made plenty hard enough for gay folks...
And all you can do is 'Defend the faith' about trying to heap more on.
Gods. If it's *not* irrational fear, it's gotta be something worse.
You'd think, however, if this was the case, the Church would encourage procreation by whatever means possible. If *producing babies* is the main objective of the church,would the Church really condemn the use of In Vitro fertilization? Or IUI? Or surrogacy? Especially when millions of couples suffer from infertility? Wouldn't it make more economic sense to promote things like IVF and IUI?
But they don't. And why? Because making babies is not their perogative. Teaching the truth is their perogative. The Church condemns gay unions and methods like IUI/IVF for the same reason: Sex (and procreation, by extension) is only morally licit under certain guidelines -- the marital union of a man and woman. It may not be a popular truth, and it may not be an economic truth, but it is their duty to teach it.
Whether or not you agree with this teaching is a separate issue. But your portrait of Catholic teaching as bigoted and hateful is grossly inaccurate. I would encourage your to educate yourself on what the Church really teaches, instead of attacking what you think it teaches.
Whether they've found occasion to do your 'sins' or not.
Even when your priests abuse kids right and left, you don't even *care* unless it's 'homosexual,' which isn't even true, and ignores the fact that despite that stigma making it easier to molest *boys,* the victims are *still* one third female at *least,* and, well, heh, if it's not sexual, who cares if there's physical and emotional abuse all over, either.
Yes, it's *homophobia.* If it *weren't,* you wouldn't be so obsessed with blaming the gays for all your own 'sins' whether or not anyone's even *done* these things you claim it's about.
I've encountered plenty of homophobic bashers claiming your God's sanction. You know what? They don't bother to even *ask* if you've 'sinned.'
It is certainly morally wrong to persecute others in the name of faith. I hope I haven't done that, but I certainly do not blame anyone for my "own sins," whatever you mean by that.
Trust me, calling you 'homophobes' is one of the *politer* possible terms, cause if you aren't demonstrating a phobia here, you have a lot *more* explaining to do. Not less.
You're just claiming, 'Breeders are superior for being breeders.'
No different from any other bigotry.
If my dear one and I wanted to 'procreate' in an overpopulated world full of unwanted children already, we could call a fertility clinic (On which straights spend *billions a year, for all their claims about procreation,* Or recruit a male friend and one of us could probably manage the feat easy enough.
If we did, it'd be about the *child,* not your sexual issues.
Not thanks.
Principles? Or prejudice...?