bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2002-03-16 02:13 am
bigmacbear) wrote2002-03-16 02:13 am
Entry tags:
Gay Folks, the Catholic Church, and the current scandal
The news has been so full of the latest scandal within the Catholic Church, in which dozens of priests stand accused, accurately or not, of molesting children in their care, that I felt I need to write. As a (more or less practicing) Catholic, and as a gay man, I find the Church's approach to the current scandal to be less than satisfactory: they want to remove any priest who they can determine is homosexual (presumably through some form of psychological testing) in the mistaken belief that pedophile priests are invariably gay and vice versa (an old fallacy which rears its ugly head yet again). Given that several anecdotal sources give a uniform 50 to 60% as the proportion of gay priests , this will effectively mean the end of Catholicism in America as the priest shortage worsens.
Frankly, I think if the hierarchy in Rome is that far out of touch with the situation perhaps they deserve what they get, as nearly blasphemous as that sounds. What will ultimately save the Church is less reliance on static policy, exclusion, blind faith, and the primacy of Rome; and more reliance on dynamic policy, inclusiveness (remember, small-c 'catholic' means 'universal'), well-informed faith, and the primacy of the individual conscience. But those men in dresses in the Vatican won't hear a word of it. Which, when you get right down to it, doesn't seem very Christian to me, much less Catholic.
Frankly, I think if the hierarchy in Rome is that far out of touch with the situation perhaps they deserve what they get, as nearly blasphemous as that sounds. What will ultimately save the Church is less reliance on static policy, exclusion, blind faith, and the primacy of Rome; and more reliance on dynamic policy, inclusiveness (remember, small-c 'catholic' means 'universal'), well-informed faith, and the primacy of the individual conscience. But those men in dresses in the Vatican won't hear a word of it. Which, when you get right down to it, doesn't seem very Christian to me, much less Catholic.
Re: well, it's not just business ...
americans have this unusual idea that the church is democratic ... and, of course, that couldn't be further from the truth. that's a big part of our frustration with the situation: we expect rome to be responsive to us, and that's never going to happen.
Which, I think, is one reason why there has been such a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in the US on several occasions -- and why many of the Protestant churches seem to model their governance off the US political system rather than a strict hierarchy like the RC church. Such strict obedience is in some sense incompatible with democracy, but in most matters that create conflicts of this nature the RC church in the US has been trying to soft-pedal some of the less politically tenable positions adopted by Rome. However, one day I fear Rome will try to force the American church to embrace a position which is politically untenable in a democratic society (which would be an Extremely Bad Move on their part), and we'll end up telling Rome to stuff it and thus cause yet another schism.
When I said I'm a more or less practicing Catholic, I meant that I participate in a church community (Dignity-Integrity) which tries to keep in touch with RC theology and practice (as well as Episcopal) but is largely forbidden from doing so by the Church hierarchy because of our stance on GLBT people in the Church. In the broad political sense, some see this as prophetic, although personally I see it as tilting at windmills. But, ignoring the political issues, I find this community provides me some sense of spirituality that is, however tenuously, connected with the Church of my youth. That connection would be broken if we simply, as an organization, told Rome to stuff it and started our own church -- as much as I'd really like to do so, it's been done better by others.