Gay Folks, the Catholic Church, and the current scandal

[bigmacbear]

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.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I saw this interview with a pretty cool priest the other day.. he started from the premise that sex/uality was something given by god and so deserved honour and respect and celebration, and the rules for its deployment came after that premise. A step in the right direction, IMO, but then I'm not Catholic :)

I also think reports of the Catholic church's demise are somewhat premature, it is still growing by leaps and bounds in Asia, Africa and Central and South America, enormous "markets" that are quite sufficient to carry it if Europe and North America can't. It's going to mean some important changes though to the way the church does business, and I'm not at all sure I know what those changes might be.

[bigmacbear]

I like your concept of the Church as a business. I suppose the problem boils down to upper management asking too much of its employees, and as a result somehow leaving them unable to keep their hands off the customers. It's tough to find good help nowadays.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

yeah, I don't know if I'd push the metaphor too far .. IMO the spiritual part of religion is not part of that model. But the day-to-day running of the institution, that's pure politico-business.

well, it's not just business ...

[henare.livejournal.com]

it's government too.

if it was too close to business then they wouldn't be doing some of the things they do. on the other hand, the r.c. hierarchy is absolutely government (not only of its own city-state, but in many instances in other states too ... f'rinstance, the r.c. church's influence in the republic of ireland and in most of central and south america is well-understood ... and the people's republic of china is so terrified of it that they essentially prohibit the practice of roman catholicism (although they have an analogous "faith" with similar liturgy which features bishops appointed by the state ... don't want bishops loyal to another government!)

instead, what we get are old men in dresses superstitious beliefs (not grounded in reality at all) with more money than god (!!) and governmental power and influence ... no wonder they're out of touch!

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.

it's especially hard for the church to find good help--they alienate everyone they need to run their enterprise (vocations have been down significantly pretty much since world war ii), the working conditions often suck (especially if you're not a diocesan priest), and you swear off a certain class of human companionship for life while putting yourself in the position of counselling folks who are in situations you've sworn off for life ...

[disclaimer: i once studied for the religious life ... so i have a unique perspective on this stuff.]

Re: well, it's not just business ...

[bigmacbear]

I happened to catch about the last 45 seconds or so of an interview on This Week on ABC, with a priest (and his attorney) who was basically thrown out on the basis of a recent accusation of molestation which allegedly occurred over 30 years ago. The case was referred to a local prosecutor, who essentially told all concerned that he could not file charges in the case since the statute of limitations had run out; however, he had already been removed from the priesthood which meant being evicted from his home. So in essence he's being punished by the Church for something they cannot prove he did or didn't do. That's the flip side of this sort of hysteria: the Church has covered up for so long that they are swinging the other way and going on witch hunts.

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.