After I posted yesterday about the story of St. Paul’s Catholic school in Hingham, Massachusetts, which recently announced that the son of a same-sex couple had been barred from the school, Fr. Jim Martin posted commentary about the same story at America’s “In All Things” blog.
As my posting did, Fr. Martin praises the Boston archdiocese for handling the question of children of same-sex couples in Catholic schools differently than the Denver archdiocese chose to handle it some months back, when a similar story developed there. He does note “one oddity” in the Boston response, however.
As my posting did, Fr. Martin praises the Boston archdiocese for handling the question of children of same-sex couples in Catholic schools differently than the Denver archdiocese chose to handle it some months back, when a similar story developed there. He does note “one oddity” in the Boston response, however.
As Fr. Martin points out, “the archdiocese [of Boston] seems to be saying that it doesn’t have any power to influence the parish, or the pastor, in Hingham.” This is curious, since in any other situation one can imagine, bishops always claim direct, immediate authority over priests who report to them, and the right to affect, alter, or reverse the decisions made by those priests.
With the claim that the Boston archdiocese cannot ask Fr. Rafferty of St. Paul’s parish in Hingham to reverse his decision, we’re encountering a unique new situation in American Catholicism, in which a bishop’s right to overrule a decision of a priest reporting to him seems curiously limited. As Fr. Martin notes, had this been almost any other kind of decision on the part of a parish priest—say, the decision to make unauthorized innovations in the liturgy—we could expect swift, decisive action on the part of the local bishop.
What really attracts my attention in Jim Martin’s posting, however, is his conclusion. Fr. Martin notes that we hear “increasingly heated language coming from church leaders on the topic of same-sex marriage.” He points to the recent comment of Pope Benedict in Portugal that same-sex marriage is among “today’s most insidious and dangerous threats.”
And he notes that in his comments in Portugal, Benedict equated gay marriage with abortion as an incomparable threat to the common good. Fr. Martin finds that equation “bizarre.” He reports that a friend of his who happens to be gay has just resigned from his position at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, noting “that ‘abortionsamesexmarriage’ had become one polysyllabic word among some of his bosses.”
And so Fr. Martin asks,
With the claim that the Boston archdiocese cannot ask Fr. Rafferty of St. Paul’s parish in Hingham to reverse his decision, we’re encountering a unique new situation in American Catholicism, in which a bishop’s right to overrule a decision of a priest reporting to him seems curiously limited. As Fr. Martin notes, had this been almost any other kind of decision on the part of a parish priest—say, the decision to make unauthorized innovations in the liturgy—we could expect swift, decisive action on the part of the local bishop.
What really attracts my attention in Jim Martin’s posting, however, is his conclusion. Fr. Martin notes that we hear “increasingly heated language coming from church leaders on the topic of same-sex marriage.” He points to the recent comment of Pope Benedict in Portugal that same-sex marriage is among “today’s most insidious and dangerous threats.”
And he notes that in his comments in Portugal, Benedict equated gay marriage with abortion as an incomparable threat to the common good. Fr. Martin finds that equation “bizarre.” He reports that a friend of his who happens to be gay has just resigned from his position at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, noting “that ‘abortionsamesexmarriage’ had become one polysyllabic word among some of his bosses.”
And so Fr. Martin asks,
Why has same-sex marriage been equated with abortion? Are they really equivalent “threats” to life? If you’re looking for a life issue with stakes as high as abortion, why not something that actually threatens life? Like war? Or the death penalty? Or the kind of poverty and destitution that lead to death? Why aren't “abortion and war” the most “insidious and dangerous” threats to the common good? Or “war and the death penalty”? Or “war and poverty?” The great danger is that this increasingly popular equation will seem to many as having less to do with moral equivalency and more to do with a simple dislike, or even a hatred, of gays and lesbians.
In my view, the answer to these questions—or at least part of the answer—lies in John McNeill’s reflections about the damage that patriarchy has done to the Christian tradition and Christian churches, and the gift that gay persons offer to churches who recognize the wounds patriarchy inflicts and who want to heal those wounds. I blogged about this yesterday, linking to a recent posting of John McNeill’s at his Spiritual Transformation blog.
As John McNeill has long maintained, those who are gay and lesbian offer communities of faith and the culture in general the gift of balance between male and female principles. In a culture and in faith communities in which that balance has long been seriously out of kilter, due to the insistence of men on their right to dominate women, gay and lesbian persons offer the benefit of life experiences that call on us to balance male and female principles inside ourselves and in our relationships.
As I’ve long maintained on this blog, I suspect that at least part of what feeds the fierce resistance to abortion in some Catholic circles—and to any open, sane, and thoughtful discussion of that issue and its moral ramifications—is the patriarchal mindset itself. For many of those who claim to promote “pro-life” values, what is really first and foremost in the anti-abortion crusade is keeping women in their subordinate places.
And so resistance to abortionsamesexmarriage runs together as one cause, which is, at its roots, more about resistance to the claims of women (and gay men who are equated with women) to be treated with full human dignity, than it is about promotion of the values of life. I do not see a conspicuous concern for the values of life in many areas outside the realm of abortion on the part of many of those who now make abortionsamesexmarriage the moral end-all and be-all of Catholic life.
And when I look at who immediately logs onto Fr. Martin’s posting to slam it and him, and the tenor of their arguments, I find nothing that prompts me to revise that conclusion.
