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.