Blocking the Schoolhouse Door

Recent days have brought the sorry news of a Catholic elementary school's refusal to allow two young students to continue once the present year's studies are completed. The grounds? Their parents are two lesbian women. The Archdiocese of Denver has held that allowing the students to continue would be unfair to them, as their religious education classes would necessarily entail the Church's teachings on the sinfulness of homosexual relationships, and the sacredness of exclusively male/female marriage - which might embarrass and hurt the children. In other words, the Archdiocese claims to be protecting these children.

The parents, however, have stated they are confident their children would not be disturbed by the Church's teachings. After all, as good parents, they always have and will continue to provide loving, solid, Christian formation for the children, including their own cherished family values of tolerance and of openness to God's varied gifts of human sexuality. Believing that God created them as lesbians, they see no reason to deny their sexuality, nor to hide it from their children, who seem utterly comfortable with their two mommies.

Why the school took this unbelievably harsh and punitive action against the children and their parents - when in fact, the family's makeup had not been hidden, and was well known, has mystified some. But there should be no mystery. Archbishop Charles Chaput has quite understandably upheld Roman Catholic teaching. He clearly believes he is morally obligated to demand the school's action. And here is the challenge for those of us who are committed to an absolutely inclusive standard for our Church. We may find it incomprehensible that the Roman Catholic Church (from which most of us hail) can continue to take such a stand against gay women and men. But perhaps we are forgetting - though Christian love requires us to remember - that the Roman Catholic stand is intellectually, and theologically, rational and reasonable. It is justly defended by application of one interpretation of rigorous Natural Law reasoning. The Archbishop is being steadfast and honest. He is acting with utter integrity and acting in accord with his conscience - as all human beings must do. For anyone to expect him to look the other way in the face of what he must see as the public notoriety of gay parents seemingly flouting Church law is wholly unrealistic.

But of course there is another view, to which most of us in the Ecumenical Catholic Communion are every bit as committed as the Archbishop is to his own perspective. We prize the wonder and grandeur of human sexuality in all its manifest diversity. We are very bit as able as Archbishop Chaput to defend our welcoming and celebration of gay sisters and brothers alongside and among our "straight" sisters and brothers within the family of faith. We too enjoy the gift of reason, and much as Roman Catholic Tradition wishes to deny it, we can employ the Natural Law to uphold our celebration of the fullness and diversity of human sexuality.

The simplistic and reductionistic physicalism of the Roman interpretation of our Tradition (holding that the physical complementarity of male and female, and the very nature of human reproduction, requires that only heterosexuality can be in accord with God's design) is no longer viable given what the world has learned about human development, sexuality, psychology, and spirituality. An increasing number of Catholic theologians, priests, and (privately) even bishops have come to this conclusion. The happy reality is that very few among us are without gay friends whom we recognize as profoundly spiritual, well-adjusted, and altogether as suited for life at every level as any of us are - including married life. And this is one aspect of our profound contribution to the Tradition, which one day, we fervently believe, will have evolved to embrace all God's children in all God's ways and means of life lived fully. Human flourishing - the very heart of the Natural Law - insists upon this recognition and acceptance. We can do no less, and that is our own reasonable, rational justification.

What is particularly saddening about this imbroglio at Sacred Heart Parish in Boulder is the facile, unconvincing rationale provided by the Roman Catholic Church. The claim to be protecting the very children it is harshly excluding is transparently disingenuous. The children need no such protection, in the view of their parents, and who better to decide such a sensitive matter?

Indeed, the loving parents - these two committed lesbian mothers - have been interviewed by the National Catholic Reporter, and the story is available here.

So it is that I say the Roman Catholic Church has every right to take this action, and in the same breath I say, shame, shame on the Roman Catholic Church for the manner in which it has acted. And I say further: the day will come, when all the children of God will have learned to accept one another with unconditional love, and they will have stopped inflicting their prejudices on one another. Not to believe this is to confess our lack of hope and trust in God.

The Third Sunday of Lent

While we were yet a long way off

By Fr. David Kenney

While I was busy
interrupting God’s plan
for all Creation,
including God’s plan for me myself,

me being busy with
unsurpassed self will
and inexhaustible self interest
and being a sort of
self-guided missile careening
through this life,
don’t you know,
even though I had a
nearly-constant glimpse of
God, sort of quietly hovering there,
in the shades of my mind,
always there,

well . . .
God saw me,
a long way off.
And smiled.

While you were busy –
too busy to care –
winging your way through this life,
with a sort of blind eye to
what you were leaving in your
everyday trail,
 
God winced at the pollution
of Creation that you
left in your wake,
and the lack of concern
in your head and heart,
but God still saw you,
when you were still a long way off,

and God knew that
there was an idea within you
to care for the world,
not to spoil it,
and God smiled.

While I plotted my revenge on
the latest offenders,
who had jolted me
or jilted me
or joked about me
or jammed me up
something terrible,
and while I devoted hours
of consciousness to
ruminating about
their ruin,
God noticed that my
conscience was tweaked,
and my heart was not
entirely
given over to this resentment,

and God smiled.


While you were busy deciding
that the whole idea of God
was a bit much to accept,
and after all,
it seemed God
wasn’t answering your prayers,
and anyway all your friends
were more or less unbelievers,

and the church didn’t serve you, really,
and you were confused by
everything from Gregorian Chant
to the meaning of Eucharist –

all the while,
God was busy answering
your prayers.
Smiling all the way.

How unlike me and you
God is.

How curious,
that God should be so eager
to welcome us home,
we the profligate,
straying,
self-fulfilled ones.

Yet God does.


How odd that God
should have arms outstretched for us
before even the notion has fully taken hold
within us,
that our way has led nowhere
and that we so badly needed
to come home.

We’ve been lost without always knowing it,
at least without admitting it,
and God doesn’t seem to mind,
so long as we come home.

What kind of God is this?
Amazing God.

Amazing grace.

We’ve been adrift in the fields of self-will so long,
we cannot imagine playing in the fields of the Lord,
yet there they are,
the fields of wonder and excitement,
of the thrill of knowing God loves us!

The Garden of Eden,
just maybe,
was made of the awareness
of the Father’s absolute,
truly unconditional love –
not just pretty words,
but the very thing itself.


Such a God,
such a Christ
such a Spirit.

We’re still far off,
and already they’ve
set a place at the table for us,
so we can share
a feast beyond our imagination.

Such a deal.

Such an amazing God.
Such amazing grace.

Amen.

The Scandals Continue

No doubt you've read (at least the headlines) of the unfolding scandals of sexual abuse by priests in Ireland and Germany, as well as new allegations in the United States. What lessons do we take from the seemingly unending revelations of the frail and flawed humanity which embodies the pastorate of the churches?

For many years, I and countless others more qualified than I - including bishops, priests, theologians and innumerable scholars - have held that the institution of priestly celibacy lies at the very heart of this sexually-dysfunctional clerical (clergy) infamy. Catholics everywhere marvel at the apparent blindness of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the face of what seems irrefutable evidence of at least two striking phenomena: first, that there is a direct correlation between preexisting sexual maladjustment of varying types and the inclination to enter the clerical life. Second, that the overwhelming burden of loneliness and the desire for intimate companionship quite naturally - and quite often - subverts the moral integrity, sexual maturity, and emotional equilibrium of very many priests, who, but for the lack of such companionship, might well thrive in their vocation.

It requires little reflection to conceive that the first instance will be inevitable and will submit only to the most vigorous screening of candidates for seminary studies, much less for advancement to priesthood. But the second instance will remain a needlessly damaging disgrace, both for the individuals involved and for the Church. And the tragic imposition of mandatory celibacy will generate untold grief - and victims - so long as it remains in place.

We must recognize that in our contemporary setting the pejorative label, "scandal," unfortunately conjures pedophilia. But only a tiny minority of priests (or of clergy of any denomination) seem afflicted by pedophilia - perhaps less than 1% of all priests, a number consonant with the incidence among the general population. This statistic nonetheless blurs the pronounced incidence of other occasions of perceived scandal, as when manditorily celibate priests engage in sexual affairs, whether hetero- or homosexual, or become involved with pornography, or find themselves sexually, even deviantly, obsessed even while refraining from overtly acting on this compulsion. And even that distinction leaves unremarked that countless number who, having sought out a religious vocation, are yet terribly maladjusted and fraught with sexual immaturity, scrupulous self-doubt, or unrelenting temptations to act out. What percentage of clerical celebates are thus affected? No one knows. But there is the haunting suspicion that they are legion.

As a priest, I know all too many individuals who chose this life as a sort of safe harbor - perhaps unconsciously or unreflectively, but all the same the Church seemed a refuge for them with their unspoken troubles. In my seminary, speculation was common as to who might one day land in scandal. Remarkably, we were just as often surprised to learn that unsuspected individuals had come aground with admissions of the worst sexual transgressions. This story is shared by nearly every priest I know, from every seminary.

And mind you, I hope we would never again include among the "unspoken troubles" those who have discovered their gay sexual identity, except possibly in the sense that, given the Church's culture, they might feel compelled to go underground, to be furtive or to deny their sexuality, which after all is gift of God. No, the "scandal" must never be equated with homosexual activity per se, but rather with patently immoral activity, such as affairs with married persons, or infidelity, or, worst of all, with minors.

This blog is not the place to provide the sort of scholarly treatment the subject deserves, but perhaps I can set the table for your own reflection (and research!). I would ask: Is it not reasonable to sugggest that, given natural human sexual desire, gay or straight, coupled with the natural desire for companionship, that when denied any healthy outlet for fulfillment of these natural inclinations, many individuals will often end up on the shoals of sexual misadventure?

In the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, we naturally insist upon the freedom of our clergy to be married, or to engage in significant, intimate, monogamous and healthy relationships. Most of our priests are married. Some are gay and though sadly they are prohibited by most State laws from marriage, nonetheless they are deeply committed in lasting, loving relationships - or they remain open to these. For us, in the ECC, this is morally and intellectually self-evident - it is the intended flourishing previewed in Genesis, in the creation of human partners. "God looked at everything God had made, and found it very good."

Every church of every denomination should allow its clergy to follow parallel paths of priestly vocation and of intimate relationship. Christ accompanies the walk on both, toward faithful pastoring and faithful partnering. To deny either pathway to any person authentically called to it is unnatural, and calamitous, and it is the ultimate scandal.