I Try To Make Sense Of Vatican Reasoning On Orientation And Gender---And Get A Headache As Opposed To Enlightened

There are days this almost seems just, given the biblical history of boys in religious authority stoning girls and all.

  

Vatican Insider is running a piece on the Vatican's issues with the UN resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity.  The following paragraph has some really fascinating convoluted thinking which seems to say that because heterosexuality is natural, straights are not subject to the same kinds of moral reasoning as LGBT which even though these states may be natural they are not the same kind of natural as straight--or something a long those lines.

The Holy See shares the legitimate scope of avoiding unjustified discrimination and protecting "LGBT" people from violence , but condemns any attempt to force opinions and conscience, by imposing the idea that any kind of relationship (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or transgender) would be equivalent in terms of nature and morality. (The Holy See never defines what might be considered unjustified discrimination. Based on their own behavior I'm not sure there is anything they actually consider unjustified short of violence.)

This, according to the Holy See, violates several fundamental rights since it weakens the freedom of opinion, expression and religion. What is at risk then, is the freedom of the Church and believers. (Which means what is weakened is the freedom of Churches to publicly condemn and castigate a minority who are the way they are through no fault of their own.)

In addition, family and children would no longer be recognized as a natural reality in themselves but as an object of subjective desire because of the existence of the right for gays to marry, to adopt and establish a “family”, as if natural realities did not exist. (Family and children are a subjective desire.  Many people neither want or have children--including Catholic religious-- and the vast majority happen to be straight.)

The Holy See is concerned about the denial of any difference between the reality of relations between heterosexual couples and LGBT people, as well as for the neutralization of sexual morality. The controversy between Rome and Geneva, is based on the opposite evaluation of a premise: whether or not sex is outside the moral sphere. For Catholic morality, human sexuality, like all voluntary activities, has a moral side: it is an activity engaged in by an individual desire, for a purpose; it is not an “identity”. In short, it depends on doing and not being, regardless of the degree of homosexual tendencies that may be rooted in the personality. (Then this is also true for heterosexuals, regardless of the degree of heterosexual tendencies that may be rooted in the personality.  This makes gender identity a doing, not a being.)

To deny the moral dimension of sexuality is to deny a person’s freedom in this area and leads, ultimately, to a breach of their ontological dignity. The Holy See is concerned that the recognition of full legal equality for persons with homosexual orientation can lend itself to the demands for marriage between two men or two women.

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If I've understood this correctly, the Vatican is inventing a different reality for homosexual orientation than the reality experienced by heterosexuals.  Heterosexuality is NATURAL, and transcends in it's ontological nature any doings or desires of any given heterosexual. Heterosexuals 'are' no matter what they 'do'.  Homosexuals 'do' irrespective of how homosexual they are.  Gender is a hard wired aspect of the ontological nature of heterosexuality.  Men are men, women are women, and gays are queer. Ergo to let homosexuals marry is really bad for heterosexuals whether those heterosexuals desire children or not.


Too bad it doesn't work like this in real life.  In real life people experience sexual arousal and both gays and straights can 'do' that arousal responsibly or not.  Same arousal mechanisms;  more or less the same choices; consequences can vary.  There is that children thing for heterosexuals, unless of course they are using birth control, which some ninety per cent of Catholics do in the West.  In fact some heterosexuals maintain that using birth control frees them from enslaved gender roles.  OK mostly that's women, but I know a lot of straight men who are very happy their sexual partner has not made them involuntary daddy's.  Sighhhh.

There are days I despair that these sexually stunted boys masquerading as spiritually evolved adult men will ever grow up. I guess it's going to take some more pressure from the rank and file.  The good news is when they finally do start maturing, and accept their own sexuality, they will experience what real freedom truly feels like, and part of that is making real choices, not guilt infected coerced choices.

The Irish Government Has Had Enough Of Papal Authority

This kind of oath is not going to fly very far in Ireland anymore. The Vatican is beginning to find out the Pope no longer rules by proxy in Ireland

The following article from Dublin's Evening Herald underlines one of  points in the conversation generated by the last post on this blog.  The Irish government is not going to give the Vatican a pass after information in the Cloyne report revealed that the Vatican deliberately undercut the program the Irish Bishops had put in place for the protection of children.  Essentially the Vatican maintained this proposal superseded Canon Law.  Vatican opposition opened the door for bishops to act on their own initiative when it came to clergy abuse.  Hence Bishop Magee felt free to give one story to his diocesan review board about one priest, and an entirely different story to the Vatican.  Oh yea, he gave no story to the Irish police. Since everything in the Cloyne report deals with cases from 1996-2009, the idea the Church can be trusted to clean up it's collective act is pretty well shattered on the Emerald Isle.  Onto the article:
  

Papal visit now looks doomed after Cloyne backlash hits Church

By Michael Lavery and Cormac Murphy - Friday July 15 2011

PROPOSALS for a Papal visit to Ireland next summer are likely to be shelved in the wake of the Cloyne report.

The State and the Catholic Church remained on a collision course after the chairman of Fine Gael called for the Pope's representative in Ireland to be expelled. (This references the Papal Nuncio for Ireland, an office whose cooperation with the Irish government has been non existent if not outright oppositional, no matter who held it.)

It was also suggested that the Government could close our embassy to the Holy See as public anger grows over the failure of Bishop John Magee to publicly apologise for the scandal.


Asked for his reaction to calls for the Papal Nuncio to be expelled, Justice Minister Alan Shatter said the direct interference by another state in preventing the application in Ireland of child protection guidelines is unacceptable. (I would think so....except this isn't just another State like England for example.  This is the Roman Catholic Holy See.  Politics and religion mixed to the max.)


However, he stopped short of saying the Papal Nuncio should be expelled in light of the findings of the Cloyne Report. (Rest assured that if we were talking about England, there would be no stopping short.)

"I very much understand the view expressed by Charlie Flanagan. I think there are a number of people who would have a great deal of sympathy with that view," Mr Shatter told Newstalk.


"I believe the first step is that the Papal Nuncio provides to the Tanaiste the answers that are being sought. My central concern in this is that we truly protect children," he added. (that doesn't appear to be the Vatican's central concern.  Their central concern seems to be protecting the authority of the clerical priesthood.)


The minister said there was a great deal of shock and outrage in Government, and right across all political parties.


Government plans to jail priests for up to five years if they fail to report information on child sex abuse, even if it was obtained in the confession box, put it in direct conflict with the traditional teachings of the Church. A Catholic Bishops spokesman said the seal of confession "places an onerous responsibility on the confessor/priest, and a breach of it would be a serious offence to the rights of penitents".  (Now things are really getting sticky with the idea of the separation of Church and State.  I hope Archbishop Dolan reads this, since he's one of the exalted tasked with resurrecting Irish Catholicism.

Separately, Fr PJ Madden of the Association of Catholic Priests, said the seal was "above and beyond all else" and could not be broken, even if a penitent confessed to a crime. (Therapists have to deal with this all the time. Besides, I thought restitution was part of reconciliation.)


Taoiseach Enda Kenny backed the tough new laws to compel priests to report paedophiles to gardai.
"The law of the land should not be stopped by a crozier or a collar," Mr Kenny said. He was replying to a question from journalists as to whether the traditional Catholic seal of the confessional would be exempted from the law.  (The fact this is even being discussed is indicative of the anger level and lack of trust in the Irish clerical caste.  My gut level feeling is there is some old history behind this angst.)

He described as "absolutely disgraceful" the attitude of the Vatican to complaints of child sex abuse in the Cloyne diocese.


Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald will publish new guidance on child protection rules today, along with a HSE plan to implement the rules consistently across the State.


Papal Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza was yesterday summoned to the Department of Foreign Affairs and told to get answers from the Vatican on damning revelations in the report that it allowed priests to ignore the law.


Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore said he warned the Archbishop about the new law of five years jail for anyone who does not alert authorities about crimes against a child.


"I told him I believed that a response was required and I look forward to receiving it."
The hardline Government stance followed revelations in the Cloyne report that Bishop John Magee and the Vatican encouraged the concealment of child abuse allegations.


Pressure continued to mount today for Bishop Magee to come out of hiding and answer questions publicly about the Cloyne report. Some sources suggested he was visiting the southern states of the US. (Really?!?  The Southern states?  I'm not sure that's all that much better than hiding out in Rome.)

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Holy cow, the speculation on Magee's whereabouts is getting as fun as playing "Where's Waldo?"  Apparently he's not in Rome, Italy, he's in Rome, Georgia.  Who'd a thunk?  In any event, no matter what Rome Magee is in, the real Vatican in the Italian Rome is going to have very rocky sailing in Ireland.  Somehow I don't think Archbishop Dolan's fondness for cigars and Jameson whiskey is going to be much help.  Slight personal aside:  I don't agree with Archbishop Dolan about too much, but Jameson's is one such point.  It is very good whiskey.  Best I've ever tasted.


This business with legally mandating violation of the confessional is probably not going to go forward.  A good priest can usually convince a penitent it's in their own best spiritual interests to confess in places other than the confessional, and said priest could in fact withhold absolution until such a thing is done and proven. I can see where threatening the Church with this proposal would send a message to which  the Church would hopefully listen.  Especially since they don't seem to have really listened to any other message sent by any other laity or lay group.  Those pesky elected political authorities sure can be a pain the butt for those unelected Church authorities.  I find it fascinating how power seeks it's own balance no matter what the power brokers may think.


There was one other article in the Herald I actually found kind of sad.   This one is an editorial by Andrew Lynch about Ireland's chief prelate, Cardinal Brady.  Here's the sad parts:


Last year, Brady was accused of playing a small but crucial role in covering up crimes committed by the most notorious priest rapist in Irish history. (Brendan Smyth was a real piece of work. A Hannibal Lector kind of predator is the best way to describe him.)
 
A victim of the late Brendan Smyth alleged that in 1975, Brady used his position as a canon lawyer to persuade a 14-year-old girl and an altar boy to sign an oath of silence.


By his own admission, he believed that the children were telling the truth -- but he still did absolutely nothing to inform the Gardai.  (Which resulted in dozens more victims, including victims in Connecticut and North Dakota, plus the collapse of the Irish government in 1995.  Smyth's story is chilling. A simple Google search will yield more information and help illuminate why the Irish might be more than a little touchy about this subject.)

When this became public, Brady asked to be given time to reflect on his position.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, he announced a couple of months later that he would not to quit.
With the support of Pope Benedict, he was given a second chance -- but God himself would struggle to explain why he should be given a third.

Everybody who knows Sean Brady describes him as a kind and decent man.
In some ways, that makes his sins even worse.
 
If such an obviously holy priest could become corrupted by the culture of secrecy and fear within the Church, it's hardly surprising that so many perverts took advantage of it as well.
Martin McGuinness once described Brady as "the most humble priest ever to become a cardinal".

One of the most important lessons I have learned on my travels in other dimensional realities is that cultures create their own energy.  A corrupt culture will most certainly corrupt the pure and the innocent if they are not prepared to believe the corruption exists.  Cardinal Brady is exhibit number one.  The Vatican cannot play authority games in Ireland anymore than Cardinal Schonborn can play those games in Austria.  The energy is changing.  The good thing for Catholics, and I know it's hard to trust, is that the new energy will not tolerate the corruption of the old energy.  Let me repeat that, the new energy will not tolerate the corruption of the old energy.  We are beginning to witness the first signs of the incoming new energy.  It will continue,  and with the added prayers, hopes, and diligence of the faithful,  it will grow. 

Is Vatican City Becoming A Version Of The Hole In The Wall Gang?

Back in the good ole days, Bishop Magee played "Sundance" to JPII"s Butch Cassidy.

  

According to the Dublin Herald, the missing Bishop in the midst of the Cloyne Diocese sexual abuse report is hiding out in---ready for this---Rome.  How familiar does this sound?  The Vatican sure does seem quite willing to protect it's pedophile enabling bishops while at the same time it throwing it's pastorally concerned bishops out to pasture.  I will concede, that in the case of Bishop Magee, the Vatican has managed to do both.

Vatican shelters Magee as abuse report fury grows

By Michael Lavery - Dublin Herald - 7/14/2011
THE Vatican is today protecting disgraced Bishop John Magee.

Magee is now believed to be hiding out in Rome following the latest scandal to hit the Church.
Insiders believe he is being protected by the Vatican and Pope Benedict (right) amid the furore of the damning Cloyne Report.

The Vatican has so far refused to comment on the report which accuses Magee of lying to the state about the protection of children.

Pressure is now growing on the Church to call the Bishop to account.

Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore has demanded a meeting as soon as possible with the Papal Nunico.
A spokesman at the Department of Foreign Affairs said Mr Gilmore would be bringing the Cloyne Report to the attention of the Vatican authorities.

The report shows that the Catholic Church was ignoring its own guidelines of child protection as recently as 2009. (And according to the Philadelphia Grand Jury Report and the Diocese of Kansas City-St Joseph, the same thing is happening at this very time in the US.)

It also says that Bishop Magee kissed and touched a teenage boy in a manner described by investigators as "inappropriate behaviour".

Happy
 
Bishop Magee's exact whereabouts remained a mystery today as pressure was growing on the Catholic Church to call the bishop to account. (This is also true for upwards of two dozen clerical abusers who are rumored to be hiding out in Vatican City.)

He has not commented on the report or made himself available to answer questions from the media.
A visibly shaken Archbishop Dermot Clifford said he would have been "very happy" if Bishop Magee was in front of the press responding to questions about the Cloyne report instead of him.
"I'd be very happy if he was sitting here in this seat and it's a pity that he isn't," he told a press conference in Cork after the publication of the report.

The diocese's caretaker bishop, who is also the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, described himself as "having distanced himself from John Magee" in recent years and had not any contact with him recently.
He said he believed that the former Bishop of Cloyne was out of the country.

Bishop Magee has been accused of lying to the State over child protection procedures in the Cloyne Diocese where he and a senior assistant failed a succession of victims of clerical sex abuse......

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Bishop Magee is also accused of inappropriate contact with a seventeen year old pre seminarian but said contact was not judged to be criminal in either a canonical or criminal sense. Magee was instead sent to counseling to learn appropriate boundaries. I'm kind of wondering where Magee learned his inappropriate boundaries, or if he thought his position elevated him beyond the notions of appropriate boundaries. In any case, he is apparently hiding out in clerical Rome where notions of appropriate boundaries do not include national boundaries and especially boundary things like extradition.

Sighhhh. How long Oh Lord, must it take before we Catholics finally admit too many of our upper clergy do not serve anyone other than themselves. When will we the people clean our Temple of our ordained money changers? Will it actually take a Second Coming? Or will will it be a second Reformation? Personally I think a second reformation would be the much more mature solution rather than waiting like scared children for Jesus to come and save us from ourselves. It's pretty obvious by now that the Vatican has no intention of forcing bishops to clean up their own act, other than to lay down the law on anything they might say which impacts Benedict's notions of the priesthood and that priesthood will be male, celibate, closeted, and delusional about it's ontological superiority.

Unfortunately for Catholicism, none of these clerical attributes reflect the social, cultural, and consciousness evolutions of the last hundred or so years, but worse yet, they just lay the seeds for the next round of clerical abuse and episcopal cover up. There will be more Bishop Magees until enough laity and clergy of integrity say we've had enough--and mean it.

A Very Serious Call To Action In Austria

Depending on the next month or two, Cardinal Schonborn may get another up close and personal meeting with you know who.

Just when I am too angry and frustrated and saddened to even want to attempt to write a coherent sentence, God gives me another reason to keep on keepin' on.  This article from The National Catholic Reporter about the call to reform in Austria from 300 priests came as a breath of serious fresh air.

300 Austrian clerics call for women priests, reform

Cindy Wooden - Catholic News Service - 7/12/2011

VATICAN CITY -- Austrian bishops have criticized an effort by a group of priests calling for reforms in church practice, including opening the priesthood to women and married men, but the bishops have not taken or threatened disciplinary action.

Michael Pruller, spokesman for Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, said the cardinal plans to meet in late August or September with the Viennese priests who are among the leaders of the "Initiative of Parish Priests," which launched a "Call to Disobedience" in June.

The initiative, which says it has just more than 300 members, suggested saying a public prayer at every Mass for church reform; giving Communion to everyone who approaches the altar in good faith, including divorced Catholics who have remarried without an annulment; allowing women to preach at Mass; and supporting the ordination of women and married men.

In a telephone interview from Vienna July 11, Pruller said that as far as he knew, the Austrian bishops have not discussed a common response to the priests.

"No bishop has threatened disciplinary actions, but at the end of the day if a priest leads his parish away from what the church teaches, action would have to be taken," Pruller said.

The "Call to Disobedience" said the priests felt forced to follow their consciences for the good of the church in Austria because the bishops have refused to act.

Cardinal Schonborn issued a statement June 22 and said he waited three days to respond because he did not want to react "out of the anger and sorrow" the priests' initiative caused him.

"The open call to disobedience shocked me," he said.
The cardinal said none of the priests was ordained by force and all of them vowed obedience as they strive to do God's will. (Operative words here are 'strive to do God's will'.)

Cardinal Schonborn said righteous human beings must follow their conscience, and if the priests really believe they have such an extreme conflict of conscience with the church, they probably should consider whether they still belong in the church.

"I believe and hope, however, that this extreme case does not occur here," he wrote. But ultimately, "we all decide whether we want to walk the path with the pope, the bishops and the universal church or not." (Our first choice is to decide whether we want to walk the Way of Christ and that path is not always the same as the one walked by the pope and the bishops in a given era of time.  In fact, the universal church is a large road atlas of paths.)

Bishop Egon Kapellari of Graz, vice president of the Austrian bishops' conference, issued a statement June 28 saying the priests' proposals "seriously threaten the identity and unity of the Catholic Church." (Yes it does.)

While pastors are right to be concerned about providing more and better pastoral care to Catholics in the country, the situation in Austria is not so drastic that it would require priests to act outside communion with the universal church, he said. (Depends on what one is referencing as drastic.  Mass attendance in Austria could easily be considered a drastic situation.)

It is one thing to call public attention to the needs of the church, Bishop Kapellari said, and it is another to encourage people to disobey church teaching and practice. (The situation with Bishop Morris would seem to say that calling public attention to the needs of the church is determined to be disobedient by the Vatican.)

Bishop Kapellari said that while personal conscience is a "highly respected value" in the church, it is wrong to imply that the pope and bishops are not acting out of their own good conscience when promoting the unity and tradition of the church. 

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Cardinal Schonborn has a problem which could get out of hand very quickly if he isn't careful.  300 priests is about twenty per cent of the priests in Austria.  That is not an insignificant number.  In contrast, SSPX's Archbishop LeFebvre started his 'call to disobedience' with far far fewer numbers.  Even today SSPX has only slightly more than 500 priests and yet they have proven to be a major head ache to the Vatican.  It's not hard to imagine how 300 priests in Austria could snowball very quickly into thousands world wide in this day and age of internet access and utter frustration with the Vatican.  Yes indeed, Cardinal Schonborn has a problem.

I doubt any of this actually shocks Cardinal Schonborn, except maybe the actual numbers and he probably knows there are a bunch more priests behind those who did sign.  The signing or not signing may have a lot to do with which diocese a given priest works in.  Schonborn's first problem will undoubtedly be trying to keep his bishops reacting from the same playbook.  Good luck there.  I seriously wonder how many Austrian bishops would have signed this initiative is they only had the courage.  The 'Bishop Morris solution' has to have been very fresh in their minds.


This weekend, after reading the CNA article on Archbishop Thomasi's views on the UN Declaration for Human Rights, and then sitting stupefied reading Archbishop Gomez's response to a California bill to include the achievements of GLBT people in California's school curriculum, I had pretty much concluded all things Catholic were beyond my stomach.  They say though that the night gets coldest just before the breaking of dawn.  Maybe there's more truth to this than just the ambient air temperature.

Stop Engines: Full Speed Astern

This engine room telegraph is exactly like the one on the Titanic.  In that case, after striking the iceberg,  the Captain asked for full speed astern only on the port engines.  That would be the left side engines.  Hmmmm.

We all knew this would have to happen, and I couldn't wait to see how Cardinal Policarpo of Portugal was going to wiggle out of his admission there was no theological reason women could not be ordained.  After all he did sort of forget JPII said something totally different.  I admit JPII's reasoning wasn't based in real theology but in personal belief babble, but he was pope,  when he said the Church did not have the authority to ordain women he meant just that.
Taken from Vatican Insider, what follows is the Cardinal's response.

The reverse trend of Cardinal Policarpo: "the ordination of women is impossible"

vatican insider staff Rome He had talked recently about women and the priesthood. Now Cardinal José Policarpo, Patriarch of Lisbon, goes back on his statements to the Portuguese magazine "Ordem dos Advogados" and explains his position.  In a letter re-launched by Zenit news agency, the spiritual guide of Lisbon clarifies with regards to the ordination of women priests he is "in communion with the Pope."
 
During the interview, when consulted on the issue, the cardinal said that in his opinion “there is no fundamental theological obstacle” to the ordination of women, even though he stressed that “no Pope has powers in this regard. This would lead to tensions, and it will happen only if God wills it to happen and if it is in His plans”. (Which means what?  God has to appear in person and ordain the pope to ordain women?)
 
In his explanation, Cardinal Policarpo acknowledges that he had never "consistently treated the question: “The reactions to this interview have forced me to consider the issue more carefully, and I found that, especially for not having taken into due consideration the latest declarations of the Magisterium on this subject, I gave rise to these reactions”. For this reason, Policarpo felt compelled to clarify his position with the faithful:  “It would be painful for me that my words could cause confusion in our adherence to the Church and the words of the Holy Father. I believe I have shown that communion with the Holy Father is absolute in the exercise of my ministry ”. (So where does your communion with Jesus fit in?)
 
The Patriarch also stressed the "complementarity of men and women in the history of salvation," that "reaches its fullness in the revelation of Christ and Mary”. Rooted in the New Testament, the Christian priesthood, from the beginning, was bestowed only to men.
 
“The fact that there are no women among these cooperators and successors does not mean a minimization of women, but the search for the complementarity between males and females, fully realized in the relationship of Christ with Mary”. (Is he saying the real complementarity between males and females is not between man and wife, but son and mother?)
 
In the early days of the Church, the cardinal stated, "it is known that there was harmony between the apostolic priesthood granted to men, and the importance and dignity of women in the Church”.
For the Cardinal one of the causes for women’s claim to ordination is “the loss of awareness by all members of the Church of the dignity of the priesthood, thereby reducing the priestly expression to ordained priesthood”. (This is a situation fully endorsed by the Holy See who is terrified of the diminishing of ordained priesthood at the hands of educated laity.)
 
Another cause is “understanding the ministerial priesthood as a right and power, without perceiving that no man or woman can claim this right, by accepting the Church's call to this service, which includes the gift of one’s life”.
 
At first, when this issue came to light, "it was not excluded that it was an open question, or the attention that must be paid to the actions of the Holy Spirit, in the search for the mystery of the Church in the new reality”.
 
However, the most recent Papal Magisterium interprets this uninterrupted tradition of ordaining only men “not only as a practical way to proceed, which can change the rhythm of the Holy Spirit, but as an expression of the mystery of the Church, which we must accept in faith ”. (I guess the Holy Spirit will get thrown out of kilter if forced to work with women--or maybe I just don't get what the Cardinal is trying to say as this is a confusing translation.)
 
“We are therefore asked to observe the teachings of the Holy Father, in the humility of our faith, to continue to deepen the relationship of the ministerial priesthood with the priestly quality of all the People of God and discover a female way of building the church, in the critical mission of our sisters, the women”, Policarpo concluded. (The traditional 'allowed' female way of building up the Church is to pop out babies by the dozen, which by the by, is something Mary never did---or so we're told.)


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The Vatican must be in quite the mood, because not only has Cardinal Policarpo reversed course, but in the upcoming Vatican synod on clergy abuse, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is conspicuous by his not having been  invited.  Also according to Vatican Insider: 

"Too radical in the methods used to combat sexual abuse of clergy. The Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, Diarmuid Martin was not invited to the meeting on pedophile priests that is due to take place in February at the Vatican. Monsignor Martin is a bishop who is not loved by all departments of the Roman Curia due to his intransigency and excessive public visibility in sex scandals."

What I found interesting in the article on Martin is that while Martin is a favorite of the Pope for taking a hard line on clergy abuse, Martin is not liked at all by the Vatican Curia.  As the article points out, this should not be too surprising since the Curia contains the likes of Cardinals Bernard Law and Angelo Sodano, two men who were coddled not by Benedict, but by his predecessor JPII.  It seems Pope Benedict's Curia is not always on the same page with Pope Benedict.  Snubbing Martin is pretty egregious considering he's one of the few in Catholic leadership anyone trusts on the abuse crisis.


But back to Cardinal Policarpo, the line that set me into gales of laughter was the line about Jesus and Mary representing the ideal of Catholic notions of gender complementarity.  What ever happened to JPII's notion of gender complementarity being expressed by husband and wife in a sacramental marriage?  I hate to think of myself as gender deficient because I never had a son, because according the Cardinal having had a daughter just won't do.  Realistically, since the whole male gender thing with the ordained priesthood is taken literally, how am I not supposed to take this little gem literally.  Please, somebody help me, is it sacramental marriage between a man and a woman, or is it the parental relationship between a mother a son, which fully expresses my womanhood?  Oh well, never mind, I strike out no matter which way.  I guess I'll just have to live with the fact God wanted me deficient as fully female. Or what ever.


Is it just me or is this Catholic craziness getting all too predictable?  I might have to stop reading Vatican Insider because I might not be crazy enough to really be a Vatican insider.  That's OK, because I'm in some good company.  Archbishop Martin isn't crazy enough either.

Forget Theological/Liturgical Wars, Catholics Need To Battle Internal Narcissism

It sure seems that sometimes only a desert is big enough to tame some egos, and some of those egos will take more than forty days.

I'm finding the John Corapi story fascinating to follow for any number of reasons.  The first reason is that this story is playing out in real time with the instantaneous communication technology of the twenty first century. If SOLT thought they had found their very own Maciel who was going to lead them to the promised land, they were fifty years too late.  There are no more deep and timeless closets in which Catholicism can hide the truth of their narcissistic charismatic money makers.   

Second, I have sadly watched what I knew would happen,  that Corapi's followers would engage in a serious feeding frenzy on each other.  I saw the same thing happen with the Legion of Christ, just as it's happened with numerous conservative televangelists.  Eddie Long comes to mind.  Third, I was curious to see how Corapi would dance around the accusations leveled at him by SOLT.  Since the man is convinced of his own brilliance, SOLT's response to him was like throwing a bone to a pack of blacksheepdogs.  I figured Corapi would be unable to restrain himself.  I was right.  It is a wonderful example of disingenuous self justifying babble.  Here it is in it's entirety:


I am going to answer in a simple, straight forward way what seem to me the main elements of the action taken against me by the Diocese of Corpus Christi and the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. (Corapi starts out telling his readers he will answer only those things which seem to him to be the main elements. We should not be surprised he omits answering half the allegations in SOLT's letter.)

Regarding my personal financial situation—From the earliest days (more than twenty years ago) the Founder of the Society of Our Lady, Fr. James Flanagan, encouraged me to support myself and the Church as well. He said they could not afford to support my ministry and me personally because of the unique nature of the mission. At every step of the way, through the entire past twenty years, the Society of Our Lady’s leadership knew of my financial independence.  As Fr. Flanagan encouraged, I have supported SOLT and myself from ‘day-one.‘  I have never relied on the Society for shelter, clothing, transportation, medical care, or legal counsel and instead, using my history of success in business, set up my mission as any savvy business man would, meanwhile continuing to support the Society and many other Catholic Charities.
(SOLT has a great deal to answer for in their giving Corapi this much freedom. They are as responsible for Corapi's abuse of his priesthood as Corapi is. Corapi is quite correct in pointing this out, even if it is for totally self justifying reasons.)


Regarding the charge of sexual impropriety—This song of greed has been sung many times before.  I have never had any promiscuous or even inappropriate relations with her.  Never. (Except the SOLT response alleges far more than just one person.  Additionally, I would have to know how Corapi is defining promiscuous or inappropriate.  There is a canonical definition, a legal definition, and a contractual definition of what might or might not be appropriate.  In almost all of his dealings Corapi has taken the legal and/or contractual approach.  In this approach, paying a sex worker for sexual services could be considered appropriate---even if, ahemm, she might have been 'greedy'.)

Regarding the investigation—As standard practice, my legal counsel advised me not to cooperate with the investigation until I was able to determine that the Commission’s process was fair and I had adequate rights to defend myself.  Questions that certainly qualify the validity of any legal case have never been answered by the so called “fact finding team.”  They refuse to reveal, and therefore utilize, any of the so-called evidence perhaps because if ‘the bad guy’ were truly revealed it may be revealed that he is really not that bad.  Clearly, as my legal counsel has portrayed, the evidence supplied by the accused (of which my counsel is not permitted access to) must not have any substance. (Here Corapi admits he will not credence the canonical process and instead chooses the legal/contractual process. Apparently he's only a priest at his own convenience and in his own mind 'he is really not that bad.'  Neither was Maciel in his own mind.)

Regarding ‘hush money’—I never paid anybody off to remain silent. On two occasions there were standard severance agreements executed with former employees and independent contractors. These agreements contained very common non-disclosure provisions. Any attorney who would not include such provisions in such agreements would rightly be guilty of negligent and actionable conduct. (Except Corapi more or less did pay people to sign them, and according to his law suit against his accuser, these non disclosure agreements went far beyond intellectual property rights.

Regarding my resignation—I resigned because the process used by the Church is grossly unjust, and, hence, immoral. I resigned because I had no chance from the beginning of a fair and just hearing.  As I have indicated from the beginning of all this, I am not extinguished!  If I were to commit to the suggestion of the Society, then I would essentially crawl under a rock and wait to die.  However, I can not deny this desire to share aspects of Truth and Hope with all those willing to hear.  This is what I shall continue to fight for!  Many are not going to appreciate this decision, and I respect that.  For those who can accept it, onward!
("I am not extinguished.", I will not "essentially crawl under a rock and wait to die" , "I can not deny this desire" ---to share my wonderful self with all who will are willing to worship my wonderfullness. These are all statements indicative of a certain personality, but it is not a definition of a humble one.)

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Off hand I can't remember which blog I read this on, but one commenter suggested that Catholicism would be far better off dropping it's war against secular relativism and engaging in a war against narcissism.  The Church could actually fight that war by making it's very first battle one to wipe out narcissism in it's clerical ranks.  If a religious figure willingly runs to the spotlight, that's a pretty good sign they should be sent immediately to the desert where they can bask in the wonderful light of their own perfect company without destroying the faith of others.  Nuff said.

The Two Tobins Should Not Be Confused

How can this message have any credibility when our infantile Bishops maintain God will wipe us out over gay marriage?

 

 

I read the civil union views of Rhode Island's Bishop Tobin over the weekend.  I was sorely tempted to post on it, but thought I would wait for Bill Lyndsey's thoughts.  Good thing I did.  Bill can be very much on target with out my tendency to go all sarcastic:

"Responding to Rhode Island's new law permitting civil unions for same-sex couples, Bishop Thomas Tobin forbids Catholics to support or participate in any way in these unions.  "To do so is a very grave violation of the moral law and, thus, seriously sinful," Tobin maintains.

Not only that: Tobin brings out the big religious-right rhetorical guns and says that civil unions for same-sex couples will bring God's wrath down on Rhode Island: 

Can there be any doubt that Almighty God will, in his own time and way, pass judgment upon our state, its leaders and citizens, for abandoning his commands and embracing public immorality? 

So think about it for a moment: Catholics (and Catholic bishops) have long since tacitly accepted the reality of divorce for Western societies in general, and even for Catholics themselves.  The bishops do not try to shame and frighten their flocks with threats of divine wrath if Catholics love, support, assist someone who divorces.

Nor do they spend lavish sums trying to outlaw either divorce or artificial contraception as they do with gay marriage or gay unions, though a far larger percentage of lay Catholics practice contraception than the percentage of Catholics we can expect to contract same-sex civil unions.  But nary peep about God blasting the earth with fire due to Catholic collusion with contraception.

This kind of ugly rhetoric is reserved solely and exclusively for the gays. And it shows to what a shameful extent the U.S. Catholic bishops have sold their souls to the puppet-masters of the religious and political right.  This is the kind of mean, uneducated, spiteful, bible-thumping rhetoric we expect to fall out of the mouth of a Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or Fred Phelps. (OK, maybe Bill got a little sarcastic at the end of this paragraph.)

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Bishop Thomas Tobin should not be confused with Archbishop Joseph Tobin who is the secretary for the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Archbishop Tobin would never be quoted  as advocating for a God who punishes an entire State because he's irritated with it's legislature.  But then Archbishop Tobin is fully aware that he is not dealing with a pack of naive pouting twelve year old children reacting to some 'ick' factor.  He is dealing with well educated and dedicated religious congregations who are well beyond the magical thinking and emotional 'ick' factor of pre pubescent children.  Someone should tell the other Tobin that Rhode Island citizens do not share his same emotional and spiritual maturity level.  Neither do most Catholics.


The sad thing for me about American bishops in the mold of Rhode Islands' Tobin is they undercut the arguments of other Catholic leaders who are addressing other far more serious moral questions.  This would include  Archbishop Francis Assisi Chullikatt, Apostolic Nuncio to the United Nations who made a speech in the Kansas City-St Joseph Diocese intelligently asking for a phase out of all nuclear weapons.  Chullikatt was not talking about God wiping us out because God was going to act like a cosmic bully.  He was talking about an immature human capacity to act like bullies and doing such a thing to ourselves.  

That this speech took place in the Diocese of Robert Finn, did not go unnoticed by me.  Finn, for all his other questionable stances, has been consistent about the immorality of the upgraded nuclear weapons facility in his diocese.  Unfortunately for him, some of his other infantile decisions have not done much to further this particular moral cause.  Finn comes across as not having enough 'gravitas' to be taken seriously in some quarters, and as too much of a hypocrite in other quarters, a situation pretty much true for the entire USCCB.
Which brings me back to the other Tobin--the Rhode Island one.

I'm sorry, but it is beyond me to think for a nano second that gay marriage represents a bigger threat to civilization than the nuclear weapons plant in Kansas City.  The only way they become equivalent 'grave moral dangers' is if I concede that blowing up millions of people is the same as my gay friends getting married and living their lives exactly as they always have which hasn't effected me one little bit.  In my professional endeavors we would see that type of belief structure as indicative of an immature if not down right delusional, pattern of thinking.  Adult thinking does not equate personal sexual choices with the capacity to wipe out life on the planet.  Operative words in the preceding sentence is 'adult thinking'. 

The Rhode Island Tobin is not the kind of religious leader whose thinking encourages the development of healthy adult believers.  It does foster the kind of thinking engaged in by psychologically unhealthy people.  These are the kind who catastrophize the small event in to a grand scale event.  This is the kind of mental universe that needs a cosmic bully kind of God equally capable of the same kind of over reaction.  Obviously this kind of thing does not describe the God of Love as Jesus taught in the gospels.  That God lets the sun shine and the rain fall on the just and unjust, not because God didn't care, but because God respected free will and gave everyone equal dignity as His sons and daughters.  The Cosmic Bully God has no sons and daughters, just victims and victims of victims----which come to think of it, kind of describes the operative philosophy of too many American bishops.










 

Independent Catholic Thoughts On Independence Day

Fireworks on the Detroit River were part of a two nation celebration in my family.

Happy Canada Day and Fourth of July to all my Canadian and American readers.  Growing up in the Detroit area with Windsor just across the bridge, both Canada Day and the Fourth of July seemed to be become one big long fun weekend. My family often spent the weekend boating on Lake St Claire on the Canadian side of the bridge so in some respects the Canadian celebration was more immediate than the American celebration.  That is until we all crowded in the boat and puttered down to the Detroit river to watch the fireworks display for the American part of the weekend.  That was pretty cool too---even the year Dad almost capsized the boat by mindlessly drifting too close to a freighter wake.  Come to think of it, that might have been the last year we did that trip down to the Detroit river thing.  

On to the independent thoughts.  Jayden Cameron has a series of reflections over on his blog about his recent trip to Medugorje coupled with his reading of Mathew Fox's book "The Pope's War".  Jayden's lastest post is about trying to reconcile these apparent disparate views of the Church--Fox's view of the manipulative corrupt hierarchy vs the pious Marian view of things.  On the surface, this does seem to be a difficult, if not insurmountable task.  Over at Catholica Au, there is a discussion about how one reconciles the somewhat competing views of the 'intellectual' church and who actually qualifies as a member of the 'intellectual' church.  This discussion dovetails nicely with Bill Lyndsey's take on the professional centrists of the American intellectual church.  It all makes one wonder how many different churches we are all talking about and if any of our collective thoughts will coalesce into any kind of meaningfully Christian institution.


The following excerpt is a paragraph from the Catholica.Au link.  It's from a letter to the editor written by Australian Paul Collins.  For those who don't know who Collins is, he like Mathew Fox, is a priest/theologian who ran afoul of Ratzinger's CDF and is now an ex priest:


"..... Personally I think that the real 'Catholic intellectual' engages in the kind of dialogue recommended by Paul VI which is about mutual respect and an openness to other points of view, an essential prerequisite in a pluralist society like Australia. I also think Craven (Greg Craven is the president of the Oz equivalent of Catholic University) defines Catholicism far too narrowly when he refers to defending 'Catholic values and teaching'. Catholicism is much, much more than 'values and teaching'. Catholicism has, as Henri de Lubac argues in his great book Catholicism, a unitive power, a capacity to transcend, to bring opposites together and to reach out and reconcile. To be genuinely 'Catholic' is to fulfil this kind of challenge rather than to go into battle with enemies and defeat them – preferably totally! It is this kind of 'bigger' Catholicism that we need in Australia today and it is this that the 'Catholic intellectual' is called on to defend rather than just 'values and teaching'."

It seems to me that it is the mystical end of the Church which has the 'capacity to transcend, to bring opposites together and to reach out and reconcile'---not the professional intellectual side of which Benedict is a card carrying member.  Interestingly enough, that is the core message of the seers of Medugorje.  It has also been the core message of my own mystical travels of the last thirty years.  This is not a message about right ritual or right moral rules or right definitions of God.  It is a message about living life in empathy with others, about the power of love to change lives, about the necessity for a radical personal conversion.  This conversion is not about converting to a 'true' faith, but about converting one's entire orientation about what is important in real scheme of things.  Ultimately those really important things are about our relationships to ourselves, others, and God's creation. It's about understanding all things are connected.  We are all intimately connected to each other, and we all do have impact on how others are able to live their lives and on the most fundamental and intimate level all things are part of a much greater whole. 

It's hard to maintain judgmental righteous stances against 'others' when you begin to fathom the truth of all things beings intimately connected in relationship to each other.  There's a reason mystics from all the world's spiritual traditions come to this same fundamental understanding, and it doesn't matter if those mystics are from Medugorje or Dharamshala or Machu Picchu or even Los Alamos.  In the final analysis we are all one, and we are all one with God, no matter how we might have been encultured to define that God.  The task is to find the language which makes that truth real for more people.  I think because this is primarily a language of the heart, the most effective expression is through one's acts. But then, I'm pretty sure all of this is nothing more than what Jesus Himself said and taught. 

Unfortunately, it's still much easier to think about and discuss these teachings than it is to convert to them and act on them.  In a video that Jayden has up on his latest Medugorge blog, one of the visionaries talks about Mary's instructions about the difference between preaching to someone and being an example for them.  It's the difference between talking about love and being that love in another's life.  When you get that, you also receive an incredible amount of peace in your own life.  I think that's the kind of peace Jesus said He came to bring.  

So on a day when it sounds like WWII outside my windows, and the three cats are totally freaked, I will be meditating on peace.

 

A Bad Metaphor Stretched Too Far Leaves Me Wordless

My ghast has been flabbered too, but not over anything quite this cute.

I am still trying to get my head around the implications in the following excerpt from Eugene Kennedy's latest post in the National Catholic Reporter.  These recorded thoughts of a new JPII priest seem to be taking the marriage metaphor between Jesus and the Church a step too far.  I'm not convinced this is the appropriate kind of imagery for the reception of communion.  In fact, I'm convinced it's not at all appropriate.  The excerpt takes up in the middle of Kennedy's post:

....I made notes as a quintessential set-decorator rambled through a Corpus Christi sermon, haranguing the parishioners about something they knew to be untrue: "You do not fulfill your Sunday obligation if you arrive after the Gospel or leave before the priest gives his last blessing. Remember what happened to the one who left the Last Supper early."


He then launched an attack as amazing as it was revealing, "We've been through an era where anything is good enough for Jesus so I want to remind you of some things. In the Eucharist Jesus is the bridegroom and you are members of the bride so that receiving the Eucharist is that moment at which the bridegroom and the bride complete their union. As members of the bride, how do you prepare? How do you dress? Do you arrive on time? Do you keep the fast? Do you chew gum? Do you take mints? Avoid these as penance for your sins." (Uhmmm, I can't say I've ever ever thought about the Eucharist as a sexual act. I was like, he couldn't have said this--could he?)

"Reverence over Preference every time ..."
"I want to remind you," he continued, "that it is a moral evil for non-Catholics to receive Communion. Don't violate their consciences by inviting them. Who can go to Communion? Baptized Catholics who have made their First Communion and who are in a state of grace. And the preferred way to receive Communion is on the tongue. Studies show that this is not only theologically correct but the most efficient way to receive. Receiving Communion in the hand is permitted only by a papal indult that the Holy Father could change at any time.


"You should bow when the person ahead of you bows. That is the fastest, most efficient way to do it. Bowing at the right time and receiving Communion on the tongue follows the principle of 'Reverence over Preference every time.'" He added more remarkable Mass etiquette, "You should only give the kiss of peace to the person next to you, not to anybody else and no moving around the church to give it to others."

He returned breathily to his extraordinary metaphor of the marital bed for receiving the Eucharist, "Communion defines who you are as spouses. The bridegroom has given himself to the bride. The priest receives first as the bridegroom in fulfillment of the wedding promises. So the bridegroom is within you. The priest then blesses the bride in the name of the Holy Trinity." 

Parishioners gazed around uneasily, does he really mean that, does he know what he's saying? Yes to the first, No to the second, but he had already shifted subjects. "You should not hold hands," he commanded, "during the Our Father because the priest has his hands separated at the time and because the Our Father isn't about us." He gazed down dismissively, "You can hold hands any time outside church."


The parishioners handled all this as healthy experienced Catholics always do, letting the rant run its course and, when the moment arrived, passing the kiss of peace to everybody within reach.......

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In the interests of keeping my occasionally snarky self from getting out of control, I will refrain from any comment on the mind blowing images that are racing through my mind.  All I will say is this is definitely taking the bride/bridegroom image to heights it was hopefully never meant to go. 

Perhaps this is a good a place as any to drop the whole subject, but I encourage readers of this blog to check out Kennedy's entire post.  It's well worth the read, and unlike me, Kennedy did not muzzle his snarky side.

Thirty Years Of Silencing Theologians Has Only Fueled Secular Relativism

Funny how attempts to control thoughts have a nasty tendency to create more of what they intend to control.

One of the things I find really fascinating and frustrating about Benedict's crusade against secularism and relativism is his apparent blindness to how much the JPII/Ratzinger Church has been responsible for the upsurge in this trend--especially in the west.  I can remember when the Vatican started in on liberation theology I was utterly confused as to why a theology which gave a preferential option for the poor should be so summarily crushed.  In my mind the only way one could confuse liberation theology with Marxist communism was to do so purposefully, and for some other agenda.  That period of recent Church history certainly fueled my own tendency to look at the Vatican with an eye towards global politics and not Christian spirituality.  In truth, it was the beginning of the end of my mindless thoughtless orthodox obedience.  In many respects I am the kind of spiritual Catholic I am because the JPII/Ratzinger papacy was the reactionary political papacy it was.

The following is a part of a review of Mathew Fox's book "The Pope's War" from Amazon.com.  Although much of it is not actually a review of Fox's book, it does give valuable insight about how the JPII papacy and Ratzinger CDF reign impacted both non Catholics and fueled American corporatism.  The review was written by Theodore Richards, a non Catholic who is the director of the Chicago Wisdom Project--which explains the Fr Pfleger references, and in the interests of full disclosure, he has worked with Fox in California.  I have excerpted the final paragraphs of his review.


.......Ratzinger's influence goes back to the previous Papacy, when he was in charge of tracking down dissident clergy and silencing them. He was able to do so with alarming silence from the mainstream media. Seduced by the flawless public image of John Paul II and American cold war propaganda that equated Liberation Theology with the USSR, the media said little as Liberation Theology in Latin America was crushed. One by one, theologians and priests who had stood by the poor against often-violent oppression--with US complicity--were silenced. Even more than Pfleger, these people were putting themselves at risk by bravely opposing oppressive regimes. Imagine if Dr. King had been similarly "silenced" during the American Civil Rights Movement. The result, years later, has been two-fold: The work the Catholic church had been doing to seek a more just society has been curtailed, leading leftists and intellectuals to abandon religion altogether; second, fundamentalist sects--and it is no coincidence that these have been supported by the same Right Wing North Americans who fought Liberation Theology--have gained a strong foothold in Latin America as people seek more vibrant forms of worship.

Moreover, it has become clear that Ratzinger would rather go after a feminist than a child-rapist. It turns out that Sinead O'Connor had a point when she protested child abuse in the Church back in the early nineties. Then, few defended her. Now that the scope of the abuse, and the degree to which Church leadership ignored it, have come to light, her simple and poignant protest seems mild.

So why should those of us not in the Church care? It is easy to see why a silenced theologian, or the parishioner at St. Sabina in Chicago (Pfleger's Church) would care, but what about non-Catholics? What about the ever-growing group of Catholics who have left the Church? What about Jews, or Protestants, or Hindus?

First, Ratzinger and his ilk promote a total rejection--again, regressing to the pre-Vatican II days--of other faiths. He has rehabilitated open Holocaust deniers and openly criticized Islam. Such an approach makes interfaith dialogue difficult, for one--one would think that a man who lived in Germany during the Holocaust would understand the need for interfaith understanding--but even more importantly, it makes interfaith spirituality impossible. The Catholic tradition--for all its baggage--has much to teach the world. Unfortunately, a pathological emphasis on orthodoxy, a false unity that, as Fox points out, lacks the diversity that authentic unity requires, has resulted in much of its truth being obscured.

Second, Ratzinger's "crusade" is political as well as theological. He has supported groups with open Right Wing agendas. The impact of his policies in the Catholic world is felt by all, Catholic and non-Catholic. Neighborhoods and nations in which priests are silenced have been transformed to adhere to Ratzinger's vision of the world in which the poor, and women, and the Global South, and homosexuals find themselves at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Third, the lack of rigor in our media when it comes to the Pope--even in today's anti-intellectual climate, it is shocking--allows people like John Paul II to become heroes. This is how his ideas can affect not only the Church, but also other institutions run by those who, seduced by the anti-intellectualism of Ratzinger's Church, are lacking a critical consciousness. Fox points to several institutions, for example, dominated by Opus Dei members.

Finally, Ratzinger's theology has left the Catholic Church on the sidelines of the pursuit of what Fox calls a post-modern spirituality, a spirituality than can give birth to a worldview capable of dealing with myriad problems humanity faces. How can a body-denying, Earth-despising, sexually repressed spirituality deal with such issues as climate change? How can a spirituality that won't speak of justice and sentimentalizes the poor deal with global poverty?..............

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The other thing Ratzinger has accomplished in thirty years of silencing other theologians is to pretty much insure his theology is the only theology anyone hears from our pulpits and JPII's notions of global politics the only political strategy we hear.  The culture war issues of abortion and gay marriage are perfect issues to fog up the real agenda of keeping white male European/corporate culture transcendent.  Truth is sex sells and nothing sells like 'perverted' sex, especially when one can be on the righteous side of the perversion equation. But God is a just God, and that same 'selling' point has kept the clerical abuse crisis front and center in the Catholic imagination and Benedict and company are definitely not on the 'righteous' side of that equation.  That has given many of us the intellectual latitude to see it is not in the global world's best interests to maintain white male European/corporate culture as transcendent.  We have to find a better way, a more inclusive way, a more just way.  

In spite of thirty plus years of silencing the voices in the wilderness who attempted to articulate those better ways, those voices are still being heard.  One of the best things about the post modern world is that even though a pope can silence a theologians voice, a pope can not stop the spread of the silenced theologians words. The pen is still mightier than the sword.  True thoughts still more potent than empty power driven edicts.  If that weren't true, Christianity would have died in it's infancy.  It won't die now, in spite of the baggage that has accrued to it over the last two thousand years because in it's core concepts it's still true.  Love is the force that makes the universe go round.  Or as my favorite bumper sticker says, "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."  Only when Catholicism recaptures that spiritual understanding will it be a true force for peace.  Until then it's just another mindless power broker lost in it's own delusions.