The Francis Trajectory.

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

The recent dust-up over the meeting between Pope Francis and culture warrior Kim Davis has caused the Pontiff’s stock to fall somewhat among liberals. Many of us felt let down by the pope’s opposition to marriage equality after his uplifting talk and formal declarations about confronting the causes of both global warming and economic inequality.

But with that said, it is for wiser to look at the Pope’s actions as opposed to individual statements. And for that reason he has put the Catholic Church on the trajectory for positive change.

As a liberal Catholic I can fully understand this disappointment many progressives felt when they learned that the pope and met with Kentucky marriage license clerk Kim Davis. On issues such as birth control, choice, and embryonic stem cell research I am in disagreement with the current pontiff. Those differences of theological opinion also extend to marriage equality.

Yet, I am not about to call it quits on this pope. His leadership on economics and the environment are historic and possibly world changing (That is certainly his goal).  That is why I reject the recent claim of MSNBC host, Christopher Hayes that, “The Pope does not have your politics.”

And as a liberal and a cradle Catholic, I have learned to how to listen to the sometime esoteric meanings in discussions by Catholic clergy including those in the hierarchy as well as the many private conversations I have had with priests and nuns. And I combine that experience with the concept of trajectory: in politics or religion very few persons remain static; their ideas are almost always subject to change. What is indeed actually extremely difficult is effecting change within a 2000-year-old institution that tends to move very slowly, even glacially.

Pope Francis, at least officially, toes the Catholic Church’s teachings against marriage equality. Critics often point to his vehement exchanges while serving as a Cardinal with Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner over his opposition to gay marriage. But I suspect that he may be evolving, (albeit on a distinctly Catholic trajectory) just as politicians from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton have evolved.

Consider for example, where Abraham Lincoln stood on African-American citizenship before the Civil War and the very different place he stood at the time of his death. Think about where Lyndon Johnson stood on civil rights when he was a U.S. senator from the state of Texas and what he did as president of the United States. In Lincoln’s case he was on a progressive trajectory from seeing African-Americans as people to be liberated from slavery and then colonized overseas to the point where he understood their right to American citizenship. In Johnson’s case we see a man who went from being a supporter of segregation to being perhaps the single most effective president on civil rights. As a life-long Catholic I sense that something similar is happening with Pope Francis.

Many of us grew who grew up Catholic during the late 1960s and 1970s remember the priest who would not talk harshly about birth control or the divorced Catholics who received communion. The same sort of priest would often give, at best, only lip service to the Church position on choice. And when you would talk privately to such a priest he would advise you to simply “follow your conscience.” I detect the same qualities in Francis.

What separates Francis from his two immediate predecessors is that he is calling for discussion and debate on certain hot-button issues (at least those for Church conservatives) such as streamlining annulments and being more gracious to gay and lesbian Catholics. And to this certain gestures such as Francis’s recently memorialized meeting with a former student of his and his homosexual partner. All this leads me to conclude that Francis is internally wrestling with the issue of greater inclusion much in the same way Lincoln wrestled with the issue of ending slavery in the middle of the Civil War. I sense that even though he won’t (or seemingly cannot at the risk of schism) openly admit to this possibility he is trying to find a way to reconcile Church teaching to what he may believe in his soul is truly just.

The current pope is in charge of the Catholic Church that has been wandering in the wilderness the last 50 years. After the brief but enlightening papacy of Pope John XXIII, which ended in 1963, we experienced the sometimes progressive but often indecisive Pope Paul VI. It was under Paul where reactionaries could claim their first major victory in 10 years with the anti-birth control encyclical, Humanae Vitae — this despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of clergy, theologians, and medical experts brought in by the Vatican to consult on the issue concluded that birth-control was not in conflict with principles of natural law. Then, after the all too brief reign of Pope John Paul I came the rule of more than 35 years of two conservative popes — John Paul II and Benedict XVI.    

As a heterosexual Catholic I understand that I cannot fully appreciate the frustration that my fellow gay and lesbian co-religionists experience at this point. It is far too easy for me to plead patience when I am not rejected as much as they are rejected. But with that said, I do see reason for hope.

If I am indeed correct about Francis’s inner intentions, then he is going to need a lot of help. It will require the kind of external pressure that only groups such as DignityUSA can organize and bring to bear. But to bring about fuller inclusiveness a lot of the rest of us rank and file will have to play our part. We will have to voice our support for LGBT Catholics.  This will help and encourage those in the hierarchy similarly wrestling with this issue will have the strength and support to speak their conscience with less fear of retribution.

In those 35-plus years many regressive things occurred. We saw the rise of Opus Dei within the church. American Catholic neoconservatives wielded too much power and influence in Rome. Hardliners such as Cardinal Raymond Burke, Archbishop Charles Chaput and others were elevated to positions of power. The American hierarchy in particular became saturated with Neo-conservatives and cultural warriors. Not surprisingly, many prominent members of the hierarchy serve as the Catholic auxiliary of the Republican Party. It will take time to refresh the Church with a distinctly Catholic identity again.

Francis has many enemies, both within and without the Catholic Church.  He elicits edginess, defiance and sometimes rage from Church traditionalists and über-conservatives. But most of all he elicits fear from them. Why is that so? Simply because they understand the concept of trajectory.

As I have written before, Pope Francis is a Jesuit. Unlike many of the more reactionary forces within the Catholic Church the Jesuits thrive on open discussion. This terrifies many on the Catholic Right. From their own experience they know full well that ideas once considered radical can become mainstream. In our own American experience consider the trajectory of support for gay marriage. Only a generation ago many Americans rejected the idea. Now that it has been openly broached and discussed, marriage equality has progressed quickly from widespread acceptance to being held as a right by the highest court in the land.

The Catholic Right and their allies clearly recognize that Francis is not the culture warrior that his two immediate predecessors were. They fear that Francis will bring back the moderates and liberals who left the Church. They can see the more tolerant, more open-minded clergy that he is elevating into the hierarchy; clergy such as Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich who has called for more out reach to LGBT and divorced Catholics. This is their worst nightmare. As I have written here before it is their goal to make the church smaller and for more reactionary. Movement conservatives such as Opus Dei priest C. John McCloskey openly dream of a Catholic church where moderate and liberals are replaced by conservative evangelical members. The papacy of Pope Francis threatens this dystopian goal.

Advertisement

Thoughts on Popular Revolutions: in Egypt, in South Africa – in the Church

Events in Egypt are dominating the headlines all around the world. It is always dangerous for outsiders to comment too definitively on the internal politics of foreign countries, but inevitably many of us will have thoughts of our own, and will consider the implications for their own countries.  Bill Lindsay’s reflections on this theme at Bilgrimage led to an exchange in the comments between myself and another reader, which I would like to share (and expand on) here. After some specific response to Bill’s post, I reflected on the implications for the Catholic Church:

My own reflections lie in analogy and implications for another autocratic and corrupt empire of an entirely different kind – the Holy Roman one, based in the Vatican, but with global reach and influence. Just like the Egyptian (and Tunisian) people this year, and the East Europeans, South Africans, Ukrainians and Filipinos before them, Catholics will not continue indefinitely to blithely accept control from the top, with no possibility of meaningful input from below.

Vatican control and influence in the lives of Catholics takes a fundamentally different form to the political control in Arab states, and the Catholic revolution will look different. But the principle is the same, and the revolution is most certainly coming – if it has not already begun.

A Congregation in Exile: St Mary’s Brisbane Update

This is the face of the future church, unless the Vatican and the episcopal hegemony between them start to take seriously the need to be a listening Church, and find some way to include all Catholics in pastoral decisions -not just the men at the top in their scarlet robes and comfortable palaces: services with (almost) no congregation.

This report, from Brisbane Times, tells of St Mary’s Brisbane – but it could just as well be about other flourishing congregations around the world (St Stephen’s in Minneapolis, or St Joseph’s, Boston, the congregations with womenpriests, and many others) that are doing perfectly well without the help of professional, celibate male priests, officially approved  by the Vatican.

Faith stays strong at Brisbane’s ‘church in exile’

The pictures tell the story of attendance at the two St Mary’s Catholic churches at South Brisbane with the rebel congregation substantially outnumbering the traditionalists last week.

Fairfax Media’s Sun-Herald dropped in unannounced at the 9am services on a recent Sunday to check on parishioner numbers following last year’s very public split.

The church sanctioned by Brisbane Archdiocese’s Archbishop John Bathersby attracted about 45 people while the rebel St Mary’s-in-Exile had about 240 parishioners.

Father Ken Howell officiates at the original location, while Peter Kennedy – who does not use the title ‘Father’ – tends his flock down the road at the Trades and Labour Council building.

Archbishop Bathersby sacked Mr Kennedy as administrator of the church in February last year for unapproved practises including giving communion to divorced and gay people, priests not wearing traditional vestments and baptising babies using unorthodox wording. He gave his last sermon there in April last year before taking about 1000 supporters with him.

Mr Kennedy said last week the break-away group attracted about 500 people over three weekend services. “If there’s a special event about 1000 might come but normally there’s around 500 although not all of those would come every week,” he said.

The Dean of Brisbane’s St Stephen’s Cathedral, Fr Ken Howell who has taken over as administrator of St Mary’s said the decisions made last year were not about numbers, but about ensuring Catholic worship and teachings were restored.

“I am pleased to say that this has occurred and whilst we may be a small community, I am encouraged by the weekly growth of this community and the enthusiastic commitment of the people who have made St Mary’s their Parish,’’ he said.

But advertisements for St Mary’s Masses have appeared in the local paper, presumably in the hope of boosting numbers.

Mr Kennedy said the church had been used for many community events when he and fellow priest, Terry Fitzpatrick celebrated Mass there, including events run by the social justice group, Micah Projects and indigenous Australians.

Partly on the strength of those events, the Brisbane City Council in 2008 – when it was trying to have its controversial $370 million Go Between Bridge approved – agreed to give St Mary’s $1.5 m for noise mitigation because of the predicted extra traffic.

“Now the church can only be used by Catholics for worship so it’s become a very expensive exercise when so few attend,” Mr Kennedy said.

“They (the Catholic archdiocese) are only keeping it open to save face and no other church would be kept going with so few.”

He said the rebel church was part of the Progressive Spirituality Network, a group that has gained popularity with many denominations in the last 10 years.

It updates Christian beliefs and practices in line with the modern world and the latest findings in science, psychology, and sociology.

Mr Kennedy said the group ‘‘reinterprets as metaphor or even denies’’, the supernatural and miraculous elements of Christianity, including core beliefs like the virgin birth of Jesus and the resurrection.

Fr Howell did not comment on general church attendance numbers but said the Brisbane archdiocese would take part in a national church census next year that would supply updated figures.

Archbishop Bathersby said he was delighted with ‘‘standing only crowds’’ at the cathedral at Easter time, especially the number of young people.

It’s good to have confirmation that they are still doing well, but what else would you expect, when their very essence is based on responding to the real need of the people, and not to supporting the remote potentates of the Holy Roman Empire?

Also see:

Do It Yourself Catholicism

Gays in Catholic Universities: A Stained-Glass Ceiling? Questions about Marquette and Seton Hall University

Earlier today at my blog Bilgrimage, I wrote about a situation in the archdiocese of Boston in which the Catholic church’s longstanding practice of discriminating against gay and lesbian persons is being put to the test.  And in which there seems to be a discernible shift underway in how some lay Catholics, at least, react to decisions by Catholic leaders to continue anti-gay discrimination.

I’d like to address another situation that provides further evidence of the shift about which I blogged in the Bilgrimage posting to which I have just linked.  This has to do with a case at Jesuit-owned Marquette University in Milwaukee.  Tracy Rusch did a summary of this story at National Catholic Reporter last Friday.

The Spiritual Gifts of Gay Sexuality

Spiritual direction is one of the best -kept secrets of the Catholic Church.  This is unfortunate- the process needs to be better known and used.  This is how Jesuit theologian James L’Empereur describes it:

the process in which a Christian accompanies others for an extended period of time for the process of clarifying the psychological and religious issues in the directee so that they may move toward deeper union with God and contribute to ministry within the Christian community.

I have unexpectedly been able to borrow L’Empereur’s “Spiritual Direction and the Gay Person”, which I would now like to prescribe to all my readers as required reading, with a 3 hour examination at the end of the course.  I began reading last evening, and have been devouring it with enthusiasm.  I am now about half way through, and not yet ready to offer a full and balanced assessment.  (That will come later).  Still, every page has important insights that I want to share or explore further.  As an appetizer before the main course to follow, I offer some snippets today:

Here are the opening sentences:

Homosexuality is one of God’s most significant gifts to humanity.  To be gay or lesbian is to have received  a special blessing from God. to be gay or lesbian is to have received a special blessing from God.  All humans receive their own special graces from their creator, but god has chosen some to be gay and lesbian as a way of revealing something about Godself that heterosexuals do not.

This is a startling, unexpected beginning, but of course he goes on to explain and fully substantiate it, in a chapter that had me engrossed, and anxious to explore also all his references and sources (a task, I fear, which may be well beyond me.) Elsewhere, he makes another startling claim:  he calls the gay state a “charism”, exactly comparable to the charism of celibacy embraced by Catholic clergy. Both are charisms granted to just a few, from which the wider church can learn.  Here I was reminded of an observation in one of our Soho Mass homilies, that if “homosexuality” is an environmental threat because it cannot lead to procreation, so is celibacy.)  The key manner in which we who are gay or lesbian can teach the wider Church is in the manner of our sexuality, which is not exclusively about genital contact (in complete contradiction to the popular stereotypes), nor is it based in patriarchal patterns of domination and submission.

I should stress here that L’Empereur very carefully does not either endorse or condemn any specific form of sexual expression, whether in committed, faithful relationships, in recreational sex, or in voluntary celibacy: those decisions are to be reached by the person being directed, through the process, and not decided a priori.   However, he does argue strongly that for all people, gay or otherwise, the historic dichotomy between sex and spirituality has been destructive.  Instead of thinking of spirituality OR sexuality, we should be looking for spirituality THROUGH sexuality , possibly (but not necessarily) including genital sexuality.  Gay people, he says, may find this easier than heterosexuals, who are often startled during counselling before , when he asks whether they expect to use their sexual union as a form of prayer.

In this book L’Empereur presents with great clarity and authority a number of the themes I have been grasping at on these pages. Another is the view that authentic Catholic teaching fully supports, not condemns, the homosexual and his/her struggle. Surprised? You shouldn’t be.  We know from painful experience of course, that approached from the perspective of sexual ethics, standard Catholic teaching is deeply hostile.  L’Empereur reminds us that Catholic teaching is far broader than just sexual ethics.  Approached from social justice, which is at least as important to the totality of teaching, a completely different picture emerges, one which demands compassion and support for the marginalised and oppressed, and requires that we work towards justice.  This latter perspective has been profoundly influential in my own faith as it was formed under South African apartheid, and why I found Cardinal O’Connors instruction to the Soho Masses to present Catholic teaching on sexuality “in full, and without ambiguity”.  This is impossible:  “in full” implies from a range of approaches, which are self-contradictory.  When we think of the structure of Catholic teaching on homosexuality, far too often we see only the dominating monolith of the official Vatican teaching on sexual ethics, and especially the scaled down, reduced travesty that we find in the catechism.  Reading this book, I am reminded that the teaching “in full” more closely resembles a crowded, diverse city, with many strands coming from the Vatican centre – and also important subsidiary nodes, such as those presented by theologians like L’Empereur.  Historically, cities grew around single, strong centres.  During the twentieth century, the development of private transport led to dramatic changes in city morphology, with the major growth occurring on the suburban or exurban fringes and  in suburban business nodes.  In some cities, it has been suggested, the traditional centre has virtually disappeared.

We may be seeing the same thing in theology. Comparable to private transport, the emergence of lay theologians and secular schools of theology have privatised the construction of new ideas.  Instead of the ancient central monolith dominating the skyline, steadfastly preserving and protecting its traditional inheritance, suburban nodes are bubbling away, creating new forms and structures: liberation theology, feminist theology, gay and lesbian theology, queer theology;  theology by discerned experience, theology of spirituality through sexuality – and so many more I have not yet encountered.  With so much vitality at the suburban fringes, the “margins” lose conceptual significance.  Will Vatican City in time become irrelevant, as some physical central cities have done?

Jayden Cameron thinks so, at the Gay Mystic.  Read “Life Finds a Way“.

(I will have more on this important book later – probably repeatedly.)

See also:

The Intimate Dance of Sexuality and Spirituality

Finding God in Gay Lovemaking

Homoerotic Sexuality

Holy Stories and Marginalized Communities: Shift to New Readings of Scripture in the Churches Today

Our Lady of Guadalupe

In its liturgical calendar for December, the Catholic church celebrates each year a devotion to the Virgin Mary that has deep roots in and strong resonance for Latin American Catholicism.  For those living in places in which there are not large concentrations of people from that part of the world, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe often comes and goes without notice.

I’ve long had a particular interest in the Guadalupe story, however—for personal reasons.  My father died late on the night of the Guadalupe feast.  And I later made a life-altering pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, at a period in which I was searching for my vocational path and needed to pray with others desperate to find meaning in their lives.  In what follows, I’d like to reflect on the significance I’ve come to see in the Guadalupe story as I’ve struggled with it over the years—and, in particular, for what this story of the appearance of an Aztec holy maiden to an Aztec peasant implies about the ownership and interpretation of holy stories, including the biblical narratives.

For Further Reading on the Catholic Right: Frank Cocozzelli’s Commentary

2008 Faith in Public Life Survey, Younger American Catholics

As an appendix to my discussions of the shared political objectives of the Catholic religious and political right—of the Catholic right’s subordination of Catholic ideas and values to neoconservative economic and political ideology—I’d like to recommend an extremely valuable resource to readers seeking more information about this topic.

Frank Cocozzelli, Director of the Institute for Progressive Christianity (and an Open Tabernacle collaborator), has done yeoman’s work for some time now tracking and exposing the Catholic right. His ongoing multi-part series on the Catholic right at the Talk to Action website is must-reading for anyone concerned about the collusion of the Catholic right with right-wing money and power, and about the effects of that collusion on our political process. A chronological listing of all his articles and postings at Talk to Action is on Frank’s profile page for the site.

Edward Schillebeeckx (1914-2009): An Appreciation, Part 2

Edward Schillebeeckx

In the first part of my appreciation of theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, I noted that Schillebeeckx’s work in the areas of Christology and ecclesiology has profoundly influenced the Catholic Church through his role at Vatican II.  Schillebeeckx was one of the primary theological advisors of the Dutch bishops at Vatican II, and his work in the area of ecclesiology in particular has now become canonical for the entire church, as it were, through the documents of Vatican II.

In key respects, Schillebeeckx belongs to a movement strong in French, Belgian, and Dutch Catholicism of the early 20^th century.  This movement was known as a ressourcement movement, a movement seeking to return to the sources—specifically, to the biblical and patristic foundations—of Christian theology.

Edward Schillebeeckx (1914-2009): An Appreciation, Part 1

Edward Schillebeeckx

Shortly before Christmas, the Catholic church lost one its most eminent 20^th-century theologians.  Belgian-born Edward Schillebeeckx, OP, a leading theologian of the Second Vatican Council, died on 23 December.  Schillebeeckx’s long and distinguished career as a theologian resulted in the publication of numerous studies in the fields of Christology and ecclesiology that have already become classics.  These include Christ, the Sacrament of the Encounter with God (1959; English translation, 1963); Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (1974; English translation, 1979); Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (1977; English translation, 1980); The Church with a Human Face (1985); and Church: The Human Story of God (1989; English translation, 1990).

As I’ve been thinking of Schillebeeckx’s influence on me—and I do want to write this brief memoir as a personal appreciation of his work—I keep returning to the latter part of the 1960s, when I made a life-altering decision to leave my childhood Southern Baptist church and become Catholic.  I’ve shared aspects of that journey on my Bilgrimage blog.

John McNeill’s Prophetic Gay Theology: Sex As God Intended, Part 2

One of John McNeill’s most significant contributions to Christian theology in Sex As God Intended (which builds on his previous works, including his classic study The Church and the Homosexual [1976]) is his carefully worked-out insistence that gay and lesbian human beings fit into God’s plan for the world. McNeill not merely asserts this: he demonstrates why it is the case, and he does so using unimpeachably traditional building blocks of Christian theology to make his case.

McNeill situates the lives of gay persons—he situates our existence in the world, an existence willed by the Creator—within the longstanding Christian tradition that through Christ, God has caught the entire cosmos up into a grand drama of divine salvation, in which all that has been created has a role to play in moving the created world to liberation. Echoing the Pauline insistence that the whole universe groans for salvation, and the declaration of patristic thinkers such as Irenaeus that the Spirit moves within all creation to make it (including human beings) fully alive, John McNeill asks what particular gifts gay and lesbian persons bring to the human community, to assist it in its movement to full life.