A mid-week news update: articles that have either caught my attention because they seem to me to deserve careful reading, or because they update stories about which I’ve blogged previously here . . . .
Mary Hunt’s recent Religion Dispatch article about Marquette University’s rescinding of an offer of a position to lesbian scholar Jodi O’Brien fits both categories: it makes for fine reading, as with everything Mary Hunt writes; and it provides new information to update the story I told about this situation earlier in the week.
Mary Hunt’s recent Religion Dispatch article about Marquette University’s rescinding of an offer of a position to lesbian scholar Jodi O’Brien fits both categories: it makes for fine reading, as with everything Mary Hunt writes; and it provides new information to update the story I told about this situation earlier in the week.
As Hunt notes (and as Colleen Kochivar-Baker pointed out in a comment re: my Marquette posting two days ago), Marquette’s action in the case of Professor O’Brien raises serious, and worrisome, questions about the future of Catholic education in the U.S. Up to now, attempts to control what scholars in Catholic universities think, write, and teach have been largely confined to departments of theology.
But O’Brien is a sociologist. If the increasingly reactionary pastoral leaders appointed by the last two popes are now going to begin pressing Catholic universities to adhere to narrow doctrinal norms in the teaching of disciplines outside theology, how will Catholic institutions of higher learning credibly claim to uphold academic freedom? And how can they hope to enjoy the respect of bona fide institutions of higher learning that cherish academic freedom?
But O’Brien is a sociologist. If the increasingly reactionary pastoral leaders appointed by the last two popes are now going to begin pressing Catholic universities to adhere to narrow doctrinal norms in the teaching of disciplines outside theology, how will Catholic institutions of higher learning credibly claim to uphold academic freedom? And how can they hope to enjoy the respect of bona fide institutions of higher learning that cherish academic freedom?
Hunt writes,
This whole sordid affair casts serious doubt on Marquette’s claim to excellence and, by extension, on the credibility of Catholic universities. Academic freedom is a thing of the past at Marquette if a lesbian sociologist cannot acknowledge the obvious limits of current family constellations and the reality of same-sex marriage without being considered beyond the pale of Catholic identity. How is she to understand the subjects she explores without generating data? What is she to do with the data that drive her research? Women’s, gender, and queer studies are now accepted disciplines in the academy. For Marquette or any other Catholic institution to circumscribe them with ecclesial litmus tests bodes badly for accreditation and ranking, not to mention reputation.
And a brief update re: the Boston story about which I blogged yesterday, in which a Catholic school has barred entrance to the child of a lesbian couple, while the archdiocese notes that it values the right of every parent who wishes to send their child to a Catholic school to pursue that dream. As my posting yesterday notes, Fr. Jim Martin at America finds the claim of the Boston archdiocese that it “doesn’t have any power to influence the parish, or the pastor” who made the decision to bar the child odd.
As the Associated Press is now reporting (the article to which I’ve just linked is Clerical Whispers’ copy of the AP text), the Vatican has just filed a motion responding to a lawsuit in Kentucky that seeks to make the Vatican responsible for abusive priests: the Vatican seeks to argue that bishops are not Vatican employees and Rome is therefore not responsible for their decisions and actions. The hesitancy of the archdiocese of Boston to claim ownership for a decision made by one of its parish priests may reflect this legal strategy of the Vatican to distance church authorities from decisions made down the hierarchical chain of command, as lawsuits try to make the Vatican responsible for cases of clerical sexual abuse in which bishops covered up the abuse.
The rejoinder of Barbara Dorris of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to the Vatican’s tactic?
It's just disingenuous for the Pope to claim he's not in charge of the bishops he selects, appoints, transfers and supervises. The church isn't some loosely-knit hippie commune with diffuse authority. It's an ancient, rigid, crystal-clear hierarchy in which bishops ordain, transfer and supervise priests and in which the Pope selects, transfers and supervises bishops
And that rejoinder links to one of the must-read articles I want to recommend today. This is Fr. Donald Cozzens’ recent National Catholic Reporter essay, “Don’t Expect Accountability from the Last Feudal System in the West.” Cozzens’ conclusion:
Even armchair psychologists can imagine how insular the life of royalty inevitably becomes -- and how dangerous the royal power can be even in the best of men. A sobering insight follows: It remains exceedingly difficult for anyone in power to feel the pain of others, even the pain of young victims abused by their pastors. It's the exceptional bishop who maintains real contact with members of his flock, who listens to the laity as one disciple to another, who lets the pain of the abused rend his heart. Sadly, it appears that it's the exceptional bishop who puts the good of the children ahead of the good of the institutional church.
More than a half century ago, the Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich wrote that any religion that took upon itself the right to judge the values and mores of the world must be ready to subject itself to the same standards of judgment by which it judged the secular sphere. If a religion failed to do so, he warned, it rightly stood subject to the judgment of the world.
Then, Tillich added, this is the particular danger of the Catholic church.
A conclusion that Garry Wills echoes in another must-read article to which I want to draw reader attention today—a New Republic essay in which Wills explains why he remains Catholic, despite all we’re now learning about the actions of our pastoral leaders. Wills’ conclusion:
All those who honor the name of Jesus are engaged in a joint search for the Jesus who will not be found in marble halls or wearing imperial costumes. He is forever on the run. He is the one who said, “Whatever you did to any of my brothers, even the lowliest [elackistoi], you did to me” (Matthew 25:41). That means that the priests abusing the vulnerable young were doing that to Jesus, raping Jesus. Any clerical functionary who shows more sympathy for the predator priests than for their victims instantly disqualifies himself as a follower of Jesus. The cardinals said they must care for their own, going to jail if necessary to protect a priest. We say the same thing, but the “our own” we care for are the victimized, the poor, the violated. They are Jesus.
Finally, I’ve noted repeatedly on this blog that, despite the increasingly fierce negative stance Catholic leaders are taking about homosexuality and same-sex marriage, Catholic nations remain at the forefront of those now enacting legislation to permit gay marriage. The latest to join the list is heavily Catholic Portugal—where Benedict just issued his declaration that same-sex marriage is one of the incomparable threats to civilization at present.
Benedict speaks. Benedict attacks gay marriage. Benedict leaves. Portugal immediately permits gay marriage.
The hierarchy are seriously out of step with most lay Catholics in the developed nations of the world, when it comes to this and other issues of sexual morality.
But as we note these progressive steps in nations of the West, we must not forget that in many other parts of the world, hostility towards gay human beings—including outright violence and legislation considering the death penalty for those who are gay—is on the rise. It is painful to report that Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a gay couple in Malawi, have just been found guilty of “unnatural acts” because they are gay and have engaged in sexual acts with each other. The law under which Monjeza and Chimbalanga are being prosecuted dates from the British colonial period.
The two young men will be sentenced tomorrow.
Benedict speaks. Benedict attacks gay marriage. Benedict leaves. Portugal immediately permits gay marriage.
The hierarchy are seriously out of step with most lay Catholics in the developed nations of the world, when it comes to this and other issues of sexual morality.
But as we note these progressive steps in nations of the West, we must not forget that in many other parts of the world, hostility towards gay human beings—including outright violence and legislation considering the death penalty for those who are gay—is on the rise. It is painful to report that Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a gay couple in Malawi, have just been found guilty of “unnatural acts” because they are gay and have engaged in sexual acts with each other. The law under which Monjeza and Chimbalanga are being prosecuted dates from the British colonial period.
The two young men will be sentenced tomorrow.
The graphic for this posting is (borrowed shamelessly) from the Clerical Whispers article to which I link above, about the Vatican's strategy of denying responsibility for the actions of bishops who report to the pope.
