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| Bishop Sullivan deserves his name in neon for the following op ed piece. This will have to do. |
Bishop Joseph Sullivan, retired Auxilliary Bishop of Brooklyn has written a piece on GLBT inclusion I doubt we will see coming from the USCCB any time in the near future--like at the upcoming June meeting.
Catholics are reaching out to the LGBT community
By Bishop Joseph Sullivan - BuffaloNews.com - 6/2/2011
One need only flip through some of today’s cable news channels to witness how some of our society’s most sensitive public policy matters are overly simplified in black-and-white terms, in which only the most strident voices seem to get heard. Of those many hotly debated issues, the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community continue to make headlines.
What you would probably be surprised to learn is that Catholics are among those who increasingly are reaching out pastorally to the LGBT community. A recent study released by the Public Religion Research Institute found that a majority of Catholics believe that job discrimination against gay and lesbian people should be outlawed. By almost 2 to 1, Catholics believe that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children.
The views of Catholics about the LGBT community have been evolving for years. Catholic teachings compel us to work toward the elimination of unjust structures and to treat people with dignity, regardless of their state in life or their beliefs. My own understanding of this community has also evolved over the course of four decades of ministry.
Given that Catholics represent approximately one-quarter of the U. S. population, the changing attitudes of Catholics toward greater degrees of LGBT equality most likely will be a significant influence in the public square. Across the country there are increasing numbers of parishes that welcome LGBT parishioners and their families to active participation in the church. Catholic colleges and universities are in dialogue with their LGBT students, and Catholic retreat houses provide retreats specifically for LGBT Catholics.
Catholics and other religious people who support LGBT rights do so because of their experience of engagement with members of the LGBT community. They are not rebels in their churches, but people who have taken spiritual messages of inclusiveness and welcoming to heart. They are taking the church’s teaching on social justice and applying it to pastoral practice in engaging the LGBT community.
We see these teachings play out as Catholics across the country engage in prayerful and meaningful dialogues about understanding and embracing the LGBT community. This dialogue is happening amongst faithful families, in student groups on the campuses of Catholic universities, and within church congregations. This dialogue is admittedly difficult, at times, but important.
More than a decade ago, the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a graceful message, “Always Our Children,” which reminded us, “For St. Paul love is the greatest of spiritual gifts. St. John considers love to be the most certain sign of God’s presence.” For most Catholics, there can be no statement that better summarizes an attitude of welcoming of our LGBT brothers and sisters than those of Jesus, “love one another as I have loved you.”
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Although I appreciate these words from Bishop Sullivan, I can't help but notice he is another retired Bishop and wonder if Catholicism has reached a point where only retired bishops are free to act Christ like as opposed to Catholic like. It seems only retired bishops are allowed to see and state truth, while active bishops are stuck with deception and fantasy. Of course retired bishops are free of the need to pander for money and I know that has a great deal to do with their equal freedom to state truth.
Bishop Sullivan is not quoting statistics about Catholics that apply to the hierarchy. The stats he quotes pertain to the laity. The hierarchy is pandering to right wing money and they are teaching exclusion, discrimination, and outright bigotry. They call this defending religious freedom. I call it masking a form of economic slavery. "Pander to Caesar for the things that are Caesar's, and take from God the things that are God's" seems to be the verse of the day when it comes to the official stance on LGBT issues. The laity is no longer buying this message and it seems neither are some of our retired bishops.
"How stupid do they think we are?" is becoming a very frequent comment on blogs from across the Catholic spectrum. Whether the issue is clerical cover ups, financial accountability, LGBT inclusion and other sex/gender issues, or even liturgical changes, laity are not taking these 'teachings' well, or silently, or in obedience. And that's true across the ideological spectrum. The issues might be different but the response is becoming the same. "How stupid do they think we are?" These are not cases of shooting the messenger. These are cases of refusing the message. If the Church really was the military style organization it pretends to be, a lot of our officers would be removed. When the troops stop obeying the officers, the officers need to go---or those officers need to man up and ask for new orders from higher up the chain.
Catholics won't see either strategy enacted. We only have a pseudo military structure. We have a hierarchical structure where the level of accountability is in an inverse ratio to level of authority. Or to put it differently, the closer one gets to "god" the fewer mistakes one is allowed to acknowledge. By the time one reaches the pinnacle, one is infallible and totally unaccountable to mere human beings. Or so we're taught and expected to believe.
I think I mentioned yesterday that I have been reading Acts. I couldn't help but notice that Peter and Paul and company are not running the early Church like some sort of military organization. They run it more like an nascent form of social democracy with a lot of help from spiritual mentors outside our reality, starting with the Holy Spirit. One would have thought if those mentors had seen any advantage in a military hierarchy they would have given a message or two along those lines. They didn't, but Constantine did. Maybe the reason they didn't is because spiritual progress is not amenable to a boot camp approach. It's a lot messier than that.
In any event Bishop Sullivan, who is no longer an active member of our chain of command, is now free to acknowledge the troops aren't stupid and are in fact ahead of the officer corps. In the meantime the active bishops continue to abuse their authority in an attempt to shore up that authority. When it comes to defending religious freedom in opposing LGBT rights, even adoptive children and those that serve them have become acceptable collateral damage. How is this part of the Gospel mandate? Which again makes me pose the question: "how stupid do they think we are?"
What you would probably be surprised to learn is that Catholics are among those who increasingly are reaching out pastorally to the LGBT community. A recent study released by the Public Religion Research Institute found that a majority of Catholics believe that job discrimination against gay and lesbian people should be outlawed. By almost 2 to 1, Catholics believe that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children.
The views of Catholics about the LGBT community have been evolving for years. Catholic teachings compel us to work toward the elimination of unjust structures and to treat people with dignity, regardless of their state in life or their beliefs. My own understanding of this community has also evolved over the course of four decades of ministry.
Given that Catholics represent approximately one-quarter of the U. S. population, the changing attitudes of Catholics toward greater degrees of LGBT equality most likely will be a significant influence in the public square. Across the country there are increasing numbers of parishes that welcome LGBT parishioners and their families to active participation in the church. Catholic colleges and universities are in dialogue with their LGBT students, and Catholic retreat houses provide retreats specifically for LGBT Catholics.
Catholics and other religious people who support LGBT rights do so because of their experience of engagement with members of the LGBT community. They are not rebels in their churches, but people who have taken spiritual messages of inclusiveness and welcoming to heart. They are taking the church’s teaching on social justice and applying it to pastoral practice in engaging the LGBT community.
We see these teachings play out as Catholics across the country engage in prayerful and meaningful dialogues about understanding and embracing the LGBT community. This dialogue is happening amongst faithful families, in student groups on the campuses of Catholic universities, and within church congregations. This dialogue is admittedly difficult, at times, but important.
More than a decade ago, the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a graceful message, “Always Our Children,” which reminded us, “For St. Paul love is the greatest of spiritual gifts. St. John considers love to be the most certain sign of God’s presence.” For most Catholics, there can be no statement that better summarizes an attitude of welcoming of our LGBT brothers and sisters than those of Jesus, “love one another as I have loved you.”
******************************************
Although I appreciate these words from Bishop Sullivan, I can't help but notice he is another retired Bishop and wonder if Catholicism has reached a point where only retired bishops are free to act Christ like as opposed to Catholic like. It seems only retired bishops are allowed to see and state truth, while active bishops are stuck with deception and fantasy. Of course retired bishops are free of the need to pander for money and I know that has a great deal to do with their equal freedom to state truth.
Bishop Sullivan is not quoting statistics about Catholics that apply to the hierarchy. The stats he quotes pertain to the laity. The hierarchy is pandering to right wing money and they are teaching exclusion, discrimination, and outright bigotry. They call this defending religious freedom. I call it masking a form of economic slavery. "Pander to Caesar for the things that are Caesar's, and take from God the things that are God's" seems to be the verse of the day when it comes to the official stance on LGBT issues. The laity is no longer buying this message and it seems neither are some of our retired bishops.
"How stupid do they think we are?" is becoming a very frequent comment on blogs from across the Catholic spectrum. Whether the issue is clerical cover ups, financial accountability, LGBT inclusion and other sex/gender issues, or even liturgical changes, laity are not taking these 'teachings' well, or silently, or in obedience. And that's true across the ideological spectrum. The issues might be different but the response is becoming the same. "How stupid do they think we are?" These are not cases of shooting the messenger. These are cases of refusing the message. If the Church really was the military style organization it pretends to be, a lot of our officers would be removed. When the troops stop obeying the officers, the officers need to go---or those officers need to man up and ask for new orders from higher up the chain.
Catholics won't see either strategy enacted. We only have a pseudo military structure. We have a hierarchical structure where the level of accountability is in an inverse ratio to level of authority. Or to put it differently, the closer one gets to "god" the fewer mistakes one is allowed to acknowledge. By the time one reaches the pinnacle, one is infallible and totally unaccountable to mere human beings. Or so we're taught and expected to believe.
I think I mentioned yesterday that I have been reading Acts. I couldn't help but notice that Peter and Paul and company are not running the early Church like some sort of military organization. They run it more like an nascent form of social democracy with a lot of help from spiritual mentors outside our reality, starting with the Holy Spirit. One would have thought if those mentors had seen any advantage in a military hierarchy they would have given a message or two along those lines. They didn't, but Constantine did. Maybe the reason they didn't is because spiritual progress is not amenable to a boot camp approach. It's a lot messier than that.
In any event Bishop Sullivan, who is no longer an active member of our chain of command, is now free to acknowledge the troops aren't stupid and are in fact ahead of the officer corps. In the meantime the active bishops continue to abuse their authority in an attempt to shore up that authority. When it comes to defending religious freedom in opposing LGBT rights, even adoptive children and those that serve them have become acceptable collateral damage. How is this part of the Gospel mandate? Which again makes me pose the question: "how stupid do they think we are?"
