Tag Archives: Catholic

Sullivan: “The Hierarchy Versus The Future”

by D Gregory Smith

In one of the most concise analyses I’ve read on the issues created and faced by the Roman Catholic Church, Andrew Sullivan offers some articulate insight:

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

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Here in America, we see a Catholic hierarchy all but joining forces with the Republican party to insist on their right to control what is offered as healthcare to their employees in religiously-affiliated schools and hospitals and public services. In Britain, we see a furious campaign to prevent gay couples from having civil marriage licenses, a reform backed by the Conservative prime minister, and both opposition parties. And for much of the moment, this will be what the Church presents to the world: an attempt to control the medical care for women in its employ and its determination to keep homosexuals out of the word “marriage” and, thereby, “family.”

There is a spiritual and religious cost to this. And I do not mean that the Church should always “keep up with the times.” There are moments when a Church’s role is precisely to abandon the contemporary world in order to uphold what it takes to be eternal truths. But the narrowness of the current crusades – against a pill used by 98 percent of Catholic women, whose consciences are their own, and against people of a different sexual orientation that the Church acknowledges is unchosen – damages Christianity in the culture, and, in my view, misses the forest for the trees.

Christianity is not about the control of others; it is about the liberation Christ brings to each of us, and how we can learn to trust that incarnated love in escaping our daily failures, sins, weakness, cruelties – in order to bring love into being in the world.

Exactly what I’ve been saying (although not as eloquently). The alignment with a particular party is dangerous precisely because politics and religion are partners of convenience, not of allegiance or ideology. Those shift much more often than does dogma.

Andrew further quotes Fr Ceirion Gilbert, a Welsh priest who sums up the situation in The Tablet thus:

As a priest who deals daily with young people, teachers and catechists, I fear that yet again the Catholic Church is aligning herself with the wrong side, portraying herself as the “defender” of a position and an interpretation of society and humanity at odds with that of younger generations and almost incomprehensible to them in its rigidity and – to use an admittedly “loaded” term, bigotry.

Is it possible, also taking into account Bishop Robinson’s public comments last week, that some people are actually getting it?  When will the bishops get it?

The church is going to have a tough row to hoe if it believes it can play offense on sexuality while simultaneously playing defense on clerical sexual misconduct and abuse. That kind of ridiculousness is what is seriously undermining her credibility today.

Read Fr Gilbert’s full essay here. It’s fantastic. 

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Will Minnesota’s Bishop Follow Maine In Marriage Equality?

by D Gregory Smith

From New Ways Ministry Blog:

Catholics in Minnesota are asking the states’ bishops to follow the example of Maine’s Bishop Malone by taking a less activist approach to the state’s upcoming marriage equality referendum.  In the past week, the Maine prelate released a pastoral letter on traditional heterosexual marriage, and announced that the Diocese of Portland would not be funding or staffing the political campaign to make sure that marriage equality for lesbian and gay couples is defeated.

Catholics for Marriage Equality Minnesota has instituted a number of new initiatives to make sure that their state’s proposed constitutional amendment against marriage equality will be defeated, including asking their bishops to take a cue from Bishop Malone.  According to a news report in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

“ ‘We are encouraged by Bishop Malone’s decision to place at the center of the Church’s mission in Maine Jesus’ call to care for the poor and marginalized,’ said Michael Bayly, executive director of Catholics for Marriage Equality Minnesota. ‘We pray that the bishops here in Minnesota will not only follow the example of Maine but will also be open to the love and commitment embodied in the relationships of committed gay and lesbian couples.’ ”

According to Catholics for Marriage Equality Minnesota’s blog site, Sensus Fidelium, the group

” . . . has organized a weekly prayer vigil during the season of Lent. Over 100 people attended last Sunday’s vigil, and organizers anticipate the numbers of attendees to continue to increase. Those who gather bear public witness to the fact that they do not see anything of Jesus’ life or message in Archbishop John Nienstedt’s support of the so-called ‘marriage amendment.’

“The group has also started an online petition asking Archbishop Nienstedt to re-focus the energy and resources of the Church away from divisive and unnecessary constitutional amendments back towards the core Catholic teachings of compassion and care for others. The petition can be found at FocusOnSocialJustice.Com“

You can learn more about Catholics for Marriage Equality Minnesota at their website,c4me.org.

For more information about the Maine bishop’s action, you can read yesterday’sBondings 2.0 blog post.

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

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A Catholic Case For Same-Sex Marriage

by D Gregory Smith

Marriage Equality USA logo

Friends Jeannine Gramick and Frank DeBernardo from New Ways Ministry had an excellent Valentine’s Day Op-Ed in The Washington Post. In one of the most well prepared (both theologically and sociologically) essays I’ve read, they make the case for marriage equality:

This month in Maryland and the state of Washington, an extraordinary dynamic is playing itself out:  Two Catholic governors are prodding legislators to pass bills legalizing same-gender marriage. Like Govs. Andrew Cuomo in New York and Pat Quinn in Illinois — whose states recently legalized same-sex civil unions — Govs. Martin O’Malley and Christine Gregoire are acting against the strongly expressed opposition of their church’s bishops.As Catholics who are involved in lesbian and gay ministry and outreach, we are aware that many people, some of them Catholics, believe that Catholics cannot faithfully disobey the public policies of the church’s hierarchy. But this is not the case.The Catholic Church is not a democracy, but neither is it a dictatorship. Ideally, our bishops should strive to proclaim the sensus fidelium , the faith as it is understood by the whole church. At the moment, however, thebishops and the majority of the church are at odds. A survey published in September by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 52 percent of Catholics support marriage equality and 69 percent support civil unions.Those numbers shouldn’t surprise people who are familiar with the Catholic theological tradition. For example, Catholic thinking dictates that we should use the evidence we find in the natural world to help us reach our conclusions. Many Catholics have reflected on the scientific evidence that homosexuality is a natural variant in human sexuality, and understand that lesbian and gay love is as natural as heterosexual love.

In forming our consciences, Catholics also consult scripture and our theological tradition. Here, again, there is little firm reason to oppose marriage equality. The Bible presents us with a marital landscape that includes polygamy, concubinage, temple prostitution and Levirate marriages (in which a man is bound to marry his brother’s widow.) Jesus disputed the Mosaic law on divorce, saying that what God has joined man must not separate, but this dictum was modified in the letters of St. Paul.

When we see the manifold changes that marriage has undergone throughout history, many Catholics wonder why our bishops believe that heterosexual marriage in its current 21stcentury state is a matter of divine revelation.

Those who delve into the theology of marriage will encounter the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo, who articulated what Christians have come to call “the goods of marriage.” These are enumerated in contemporary terms as partnership, permanence, fidelity and fruitfulness. Same-sex couples demonstrate all of these attributes just as opposite-sex couples do, unless one defines “fruitfulness” narrowly as the ability to procreate. But many heterosexual couples cannot or choose not to procreate, and the church marries them anyway.

English: St. Augustine of Hippo

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The deeper one looks into the church’s core teachings, the more one realizes that the bishops are not representing the breadth of the Catholic tradition in their campaign against marriage equality. Nowhere is that more true than in the area of Catholic social justice teaching.Catholic social teaching requires that all people be treated with dignity, regardless of their state in life or their beliefs. It upholds the importance of access to health-care benefits, the protection of children, dignity in end of life choices, and, most importantly, the promotion of stable family units. Marriage equality legislation would be an obvious boon to same-sex couples and their children in each of these areas, yet the bishops are spending millions of dollars opposing it.

Brilliant. If you’re a pray-er, these two deserve all you can give them.

Full story here

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NYT/CBS Poll: Catholic Religious Leaders Out Of Touch

by D Gregory Smith

Today’s poll on President Obama and the economy also gauged voter’s take on two key religious “hot buttons”- and it turns out they’re not so hot:

Mosaic cross ~Lobby of New West Catholic gym

Mosaic cross ~Lobby of New West Catholic gym (Photo credit: laudu)

Despite the deep divide between some religious leaders and government officials over contraceptives, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll found most voters support the new federal directive that health insurance plans provide coverage for birth control.

In addition, most voters said they favored some type of legal recognition for same-sex couples, at a time when the New Jersey Legislature is set to vote on gay marriage and after a federal appellate court ruled that Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage in California was unconstitutional.

A majority of Catholic voters in the poll were at odds with the church’s official stance, agreeing with most other voters that religiously affiliated employers should offer health insurance that provides contraception. Jennifer Davison, 38, a Catholic from Lomita, Calif., agrees with the federal requirement. “My opinion is that it is a personal issue rather than a religious issue,” she said in a follow-up interview.

Unlike Catholics, white evangelical Christian voters were more divided, with half objecting to requiring the health insurance plans of religious employers to cover contraceptives; 43 percent supported it. “It is a religious issue with me,” said Jessica Isner, 22, an evangelical Christian from Elkins, W. Va. “I believe that providing birth control is O.K. if the hospital is not religiously affiliated.”

Gay marriage is another debate in which the Catholic laity disagrees with church doctrine. More than two-thirds of Catholic voters supported some sort of legal recognition of gay couples’ relationships: 44 percent favored marriage, and 25 percent preferred civil unions. Twenty-four percent said gay couples should receive no legal recognition.

Click here for graphic of full poll results

TWO THIRDS. This is bearing out that the sensus fidelium (the sense of the faithful) is much more “common” (read ‘in touch’) than that of the magisterium. And the gap of common sense just seems to be getting wider….

 Read the complete NYT story here

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Guest Post: All Across The Land, Religious support For Marriage Equality Continues To Grow

by D Gregory Smith

(From Bondings 2.0)
By Francis DiBernardo, Director, New Ways Ministry

As if the legislative victory on marriage equality in Washington State were not evidence enough of a major shift in the landscape of public opinion on this issue, Robert Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute has highlighted important data about religious (including Catholic) support for these initiatives.  In a HuffingtonPost.comcolumn he writes:

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” . . . a new exploration of 2011 polling by Public Religion Research Institute offers decisive evidence that the old assumptions about battle lines between secular proponents and religious foes no longer hold. Majorities of five major religious groups and the religiously unaffiliated favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, compared to three major religious groups who oppose same-sex marriage. On the side supporting same-sex marriage, the religiously unaffiliated (72 percent) are joined by majorities of Jews (76 percent), Americans affiliated with a non-Judeo-Christian religion (63 percent), white Catholics (56 percent), Hispanic Catholics (53 percent) and white mainline Protestants (52 percent). Together, these religious groups make up approximately 45 percent of the general population.”

Even more importantly, Jones notes that even where opposition to marriage equality does exist among religious groups, evidence is strong that the younger generation is much more supportive than their elders, signaling that future change is imminent:

“. . . [A] generational gap signals that with the passage of time, this intense resistance may ebb. Even among white evangelical Protestants — the group most opposed to same-sex marriage — nearly 4-in-10 (39 percent) white evangelical Protestant Millennials favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally, a rate that is more than 20 points higher than that of white evangelicals ages 30 and older (18 percent). The same is true of Catholics: 66 percent of Catholic Millennials favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, 15 points higher than Catholics ages 30 and above (51 percent).”

Jones is not the only voice proclaiming this new evidence.  On February 7th, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life issued a report that went deeper into the statistics on Catholics:

“Among Catholics as a whole, supporters of same-sex marriage now outnumber opponents (52% vs. 37%). In 2010, Catholics were more evenly divided on the issue, with 46% favoring same-sex marriage and 42% expressing opposition. A majority of white Catholics (57%) now express support for same-sex marriage, while Hispanic Catholics continue to be closely divided (42% favor same-sex marriage, 42% are opposed).”

On the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog, Ross Murray of GLAAD, also notes the important shift in how the media covers the religious angle of the marriage equality debate:

“In 2008, the ‘gays versus religion’ frame was strongly entrenched in the mentality of the American public. Much of the driving force behind Prop 8, in terms of both organization and money, came from the leadership of the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches. People of faith who were personally supportive of marriage equality didn’t speak out, or felt that their support of LGBT people would be seen as being at odds with their faith.

“That is no longer the case. We are in a new reality.”

Murray’s blog post continues with example after example of religious groups speaking out for marriage equality in the media, including the Catholic coalition, Equally Blessed, of which New Ways Ministry is a member, along with Call To Action, DignityUSA, and Fortunate Families.

Murray notes that the religious voice in political debates is not only good for the outcome of the debate, but good for religious LGBT people themselves:

“It is indeed a new reality. In less than four years, our country has come from being one that pitted LGBT people against people of faith. Those of us who hold both of identities of LGBT and faithful no longer have that same struggle. We are not being called to deny our God or the way that God made us. This affirmation from the courts, the increasing public acceptance, and the leadership of people of faith in the call for LGBT inclusion affirms us in our faith, our identity, and our place in this country.”

(The prolific Murray also has a HuffingtonPost column on the same topic, but from a slightly different perspective.  It is definitely worth a read, too.)

And by the way, in the Washington State initiative, which began this post, the only thing left for it to become law is the signature of Governor Christine Gregoire, a Catholic, who has pledged to do so.  Reports say that signature can come as early as next week.

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The Catholic Factor Of Proposition 8

by D Gregory Smith

From New Ways Ministry comes this interesting observation:

The reaction of the Catholic hierarchy to the news yesterday that a federal court has declared California’s Proposition 8 unconstitutional has been, predictably, negative.  After all, the hierarchy, aided by over a million dollars from the Knights of Columbus, worked so furiously to get Proposition 8′s constitutional ban against marriage equality passed into law.

Bishop Gerald E. Wilkerson, president of the California Catholic Conference, and auxiliary bishop from Los Angeles, issued a response yesterday which included the following:

“We are disappointed by the ruling today by a panel of the Ninth Circuit that would invalidate the action taken by the people of California affirming that marriage unites a woman and a man and any children from their union. However, given the issues involved and the nature of the legal process, it’s always been clear that this case would very likely be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Marriage between one man and one woman has been—and always will be—the most basic building block of the family and of our society.”

But a reaction from an usher at Our Lady of Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles may indicate better where Catholics in the pew stand on this issue–even those who initially voted for Proposition 8.  Ruben Garcia is quoted on the public radio website, spcr.org:

” As a parishioner and a Catholic and a married man, I do believe in the sanctity of marriage,’ Garcia said, ‘and I do believe that it should be between a man and a woman, but I’m torn because I also believe in the separation of church and state. “

That may be the crux of the argument. Catholics are twisted by the legal/moral argument of the hierarchy- if it’s immoral, it must be/become illegal. The problem in a deomocratic society is this: morals cannot be legislated effectively as representative of the entire population- because they are not representative of the entire population. Despite what bishops want to believe, the reality is that morals are not universal- there is no clear agreement on any number of moral issues.
And ignoring reality by trying to persuade by legislation will only make the remaining few points of agreement much less accessible.
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Catholic Progressives: Speak Up!

by D Gregory Smith

From my friends over at New Ways Ministry:

From a Kensington.Patch.com article on marriage equality in Maryland entitled “O’Malley’s same-sex marriage bill to provide more religious protections” comes this quote which serves as a reminder that  Catholic progressives need to speak up to their civil and church leaders:

” ‘I’m getting some people that are calling me to say they don’t support it, and they’re coming from churches, mainly the Catholic Church,’ said Delegate James W. Hubbard (D-Prince George’s County), a bill supporter and member of the Health and Government Operations Committee and chair of the Public Health and Long-Term Care subcommittee.

” ‘I listen to everybody, and I’ve been here 20 years. Those who really get wound up on these things are the ones who call. The people who support these things don’t call,’ he said.”

Point taken. As ridiculously hard as it is sometimes, it’s heartening to remember that the Roman Catholic Church is not the official far right- it’s got a progressive side, too. And plenty of people who go to mass regularly identify as “liberal”. Not to mention the rich history of dissent that has, arguably, saved the church’s bacon on more than one occasion (see: Catherine of Siena).

Reminder: don’t let the right-wing hijack your churches. When any institution moves too far to one side, it not only becomes unbalanced, it begins to convince itself that it’s supposed to be leaning that way.

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Catholics Defend The President

by D Gregory Smith
St. Peter's Basilica at Early Morning

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It seems as if the Obama Administration’s rule change requiring that contraception (to those who want it) be insurance-paid commodities was seen to be a nuclear missile aimed directly at St. Peter’s in Rome.

But mostly just by the bishops…. The fuss! The hierarchy’s view of sexuality is- and has always been, about 160 years behind science- and popular understanding, not to mention practice. Humanae Vitae was the most dismal failure, in my opinion, to come out of the era of the Second Vatican Council. The chain attached to a wall in a room that no longer existed. (see below)

And some people realize that. In The Boston Globe today, Joan Vennochi says that the hierarchy is manufacturing a war against the president:

Last Sunday, the Catholic Church declared war on President Obama. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida quickly took up the cause, signaling the outlines of a serious religious rumble to come in 2012.

The president should be ready for the fight, knowing that on this one he is right.

At Sunday Mass, Catholic parishioners across the country were read letters denouncing the Obama administration’s recent decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges, and charities to offer health insurance coverage to employees for contraception and the “morning-after pill.’’ On Monday, Rubio, a Republican star who is often mentioned as a VP candidate, introduced a bill that would override the Obama policy by allowing religious institutions that morally oppose contraception to refuse to cover it.

But not all employees of Catholic institutions are Catholics. Why should their employers impose their religious beliefs on them and deny coverage for birth control and other medical care? As long as those Catholic institutions are getting taxpayer money, they should follow secular rules. That’s the Obama administration’s argument, and it makes sense.

But if truth is a casualty of war, reason is an even more specific casualty of culture war. Obama can’t let the other side frame the argument, which it is already doing in typically ferocious fashion.

…Obama isn’t trying to undermine Catholicism. He’s telling Catholic leaders they can’t regulate the beliefs of those of other faiths.

Keith Soko in The National Catholic Reporter agrees that a war is brewing but it may be one-sided:

But which Catholics would really be against providing access to contraceptives in health care coverage for women? Is it the 90-some percent of Catholic married couples of child-bearing age who use contraceptives? Is it the 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women who use contraceptives? No, it is not.

So who would it be? It must be a small minority.

One, of course, is the U.S. bishops and the rest of the Catholic hierarchy, including the Vatican. They are all men. In 1968, Pope Paul VI published the “birth control encyclical” called Humanae Vitae (“Of Human Life”), which affirmed the Catholic church’s opposition to contraception. This was in spite of the pope’s own commission, which voted 75 out of 90 in favor of changing the church’s teaching and allowing contraception for married couples. Immediately, Catholic theologians issued a statement arguing against the document’s methods and conclusions. Years later, the long pontificate of Pope John Paul II began, with him reaffirming the “official” Catholic teaching against contraception, despite the fact that most Catholic theologians disagreed and most Catholics rejected the teaching.

So, the bishops are taking moral “high ground”- which is designed to… well, what, exactly?  Soko gives us some insight:

If the U.S. bishops and the conservative Catholic and Christian media are going to appeal to “conscience,” then they better allow for the well-informed consciences of Catholics and non-Catholics who work at Catholic institutions to make their own decisions.

No one is forcing Catholics to use contraception. It is merely stating that they should have access to contraception. Many Catholic theologians have argued that it is a fair and just decision that respects the ability of Catholic and other women to follow their own consciences and make decisions as responsible adults about their own health care and that of their families.

And they also must respect the well-informed consciences of professors at academic universities whose job is the pursuit of knowledge and truth, and for some, the pursuit of justice as well. This includes Catholic theologians who are trying to give advice on improving the church. Since the bishops and others have introduced this into the public arena, they need to respect the consciences and expertise of those voices without the threat of job loss or excommunication.

This is not a question of teaching Catholic doctrine in a classroom; this is wrestling with public policy in a democratic and pluralistic society, and that can get messy. And Catholic teaching has in the past acknowledged that public policy and morality are two separate things. Everything that Catholic teaching argues is immoral is not illegal, as that would not always be practical public policy.

Which Catholics are really against providing contraceptive coverage? My guess is not many, but they are vocal. And probably most of them would be men. Men controlling women. History marches backward.

The bishops are always decrying “cafeteria catholicism”- for the way some pick and choose what they’d like to believe and practice. You gotta believe the whole package, they say. But their use of conscience is carefully controlled and shifty- picky and choosy, if you will. But not according to them.

Credibility, boys, credibility. The people will notice.

 “It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy
by a resort to mathematics,
though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry.”
~H.L. Mencken

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Catholics and Gays: Joel Connelly Calls Out The Church

by D Gregory Smith

The Seattle PI’s Joel Connelly has an illustrious history of commentary in Seattle. I’ve enjoyed him for years. But in Monday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he makes one of the best cases for the Catholic Church to give up the paranoid same-sex marriage rhetoric- and his seasoned, well-reasoned thoughts beg to be shared. Excerpt:

English: Schwörstadt: Catholic Church Deutsch:...

The bishops see themselves as shepherds, but American Catholics are not sheep.  They think and act independently.  A recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly three quarters of Catholics favor letting gays and lesbians marry (43 percent) or form civil unions (31 percent).

“Catholics are more supportive of legal recognitions of same-sex relationships than members of any other Christian tradition and Americans overall,” the survey concluded.

The church is also hurting itself:  Its social activism, defense of human dignity and witness to peace should make it a beacon for all who seek justice.  Instead, the church is pilloried as an instrument of reaction.

Its wounds are self inflicted, a classic case of clerical error.  As the National Catholic Reporter put it, editorializing after New York legislators approved marriage equality last spring:

“Even if the bishops had a persuasive case to make and the legislative tools at their disposal, their public conduct in recent years — wholesale excommunications, railing at politicians, denial of honorary degrees and speaking platforms at Catholic institutions, using the Eucharist as a political bludgeon, refusing to entertain any questions or dissenting opinions, and engaging in open warfare with the community’s thinkers as well as those, especially women, who have loyally served the church — has resulted in a kind of episcopal caricature, the common scolds of the religion world, the caustic party of ‘no’.”

Connelly is taking a fair and balanced approach, using the Catholic tradition of social justice and charity to argue for the reality of human experience- in this case the reality of same-sex relationships. The very reality of them flies in the face of the “Natural Law‘ argument:

“Jesus befriended those who were marginalized because He knew it was only in the security of loving, unconditional relationships that hearts and lives are healed,” argues writer Justin Cannon, reflecting the Christian faith as taught to us by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Not only healed, but enriched.  I’ve witnessed a warm, very traditional moment over the years.  A goofy, dreamy smile crosses the face of a friend, who after years of playing the field announces  “Well, I met this woman (or guy)!”  It signals a readiness to settle down.  My natural reaction is to say,   “You lucky dog!” and to be there, in affection and support, when the knot is tied.

Life together is a natural passage in life.  Yet, according to “natural law” the Catholic church frowns on my friends who fall in love with somebody of their own gender.  It violates nature, according to a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops statement, because such “inherently non-procreative” relationships “cannot be given the status of marriage.”

The church’s positions are, as state Sen. Ed Murray put it Friday night, “hurtful” as well as contradictory.

Out of one side of its mouth, the church condemns “all forms of unjust discrimination, harrassment and abuse” against gays and lesbians. At the same time, the Cathechism of the Catholic Church describes “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” as “objectively disordered.”

As my critical thinking professor at Carroll College taught me, the Church’s argument is flawed. It can’t have it both ways. It either acknowledges the reality of same-sex relationships- the reality of the complexity  of human love as a gift from God- or it becomes the ubiquitous symbol of fantasy, its credibility falling off the edge of its own absurdly flattened earth.

Connelly’s brave, full essay is here.

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