A Letter to Pope Benedict XVI, After World Youth Day

Dear Brother Benedict,

I hope you will not object if I address you as a brother in Christ. That is, after all, what we are, in the final analysis, beyond titles and roles in the body of Christ. And we will both one day stand before the Lord beyond all titles and roles, so that it may do us good to practice now for that day and to prescind from labels that may blind us to the real nature of our relationship in the body of Christ.

I write you as one tiny voice in a church far larger than I can see, full of many voices, all of which deserve your attention. Though I am not of momentous importance to the church, I am choosing to write in this fraternal way, however, because the issues confronting the church today seem so significant, and I am not confident that the pastoral leaders of the church can ever see their full ramifications if many voices do not speak out, to describe the experience of the church from many different social locations.

I write after your appearance at World Youth Day. All that I know of what took place there, I know from newspaper accounts, websites, videos. It encourages me that, as you did when you recently visited the United States, in Australia you chose to apologize for the church’s lack of an authentic pastoral response to survivors of clerical sexual abuse. I am also encouraged that you met face to face with some of these children of God.

But I must tell you frankly, Brother Benedict, I am deeply dismayed by the media accounts that relayed your analysis of the roots of the crisis of clerical sexual abuse of minors. If those accounts are correct, you are now pinning this crisis on the theology of proportionalism, which was taught in moral theology classes in seminaries in the 1970s.

I am not certain whether you are being advised to say this, Brother Benedict, or whether you yourself actually believe that the moral theology which began to be taught in seminaries after Vatican II truly led to the abuse crisis. If the former, I must tell you, Brother Benedict, that in my humble opinion, your advisors are seriously misleading you.

If the latter, Brother Benedict, then I must confess my surprise that your theological training has not led you to a more careful analysis of the roots of the clerical abuse crisis. That crisis predates Vatican II. It has been going on for some decades now. It cannot be attributed to the moral theology of proportionalism, when it was alive and well in the pre-Vatican II period in which priests were formed in a very strict manual theology—the kind of moral theology you are seeking to return to our seminaries.

I must confess, Brother Benedict, that I am often perplexed by your tendency to attack secular currents and theological movements that have long since crested and disappeared. As we enter the period of postmodernity, you write frequently about the threat of modernity. You speak about the relativism of modernity as if that phenomenon has just appeared on the scenes.

As a theologian, you must know that these battles were fought through at the start of the 20th century during the modernist period. The battles about Vatican II and proportionalism that you are now asking us to fight are themselves half a century old.

Meanwhile, the church has moved on, and I must tell you, if you are not receiving word of this in Rome, Brother Benedict: the church is in a fine mess. The young people you saw in Rome are like hand-picked actors on a stage, playing a role designed to make clerics happy. They do not represent the vast majority of Catholic youth in the world.

For most Catholic youth in the world, it is a question of no importance at all whether Cardinal Pell wears a scarlet cappa magna trailing ten yards of moiré silk, or whether the altar is backwards or forwards during the celebration of the Eucharist. In the global North, many Catholic youth could not be less interested in these matters, since they are not in church regularly to see the ten yards of scarlet silk billowing behind the good Cardinal, or the direction the altar is facing.

In the global South, many Catholic youth are preoccupied with whether there will be rain for crops, potable water to drink, enough grain to go around the table. Red silk cappa magnas are not in the forefront of the consciousness of these Catholic youth.

Brother Benedict, I wonder: can you hear what I am saying? The church is dying, and you have just helped stage a play that represents it as alive and well. The church is dying, and your cardinals are trailing red silk and expecting us to be awed by their sartorial splendor. The church is not reaching millions of people hungry for the bread of life, and you yourself, if I may be so bold, are preaching against consumerism while wearing red Prada loafers and Gucci sunglasses.

And about proportionalism and its shortcomings. What has caused the crisis of clerical sexual abuse, Brother Benedict, is not that theological movement. It is the deep-seated belief of one group in the church—ordained males—that they represent a class apart from (and superior to) all other groups in the church, that is at the root of the crisis of clerical sexual abuse of minors.

The clerical system that now controls the church, and to which the future of the church is being sacrificed, is not immutable. It does not come from the Lord. It developed in the church over time. Just as it developed in the past, it can change—and even be eradicated—now.

The vision of the reign of God that is at the heart of the church does not make one group of brothers and sisters in Christ superior to and set apart from others. Jesus preached about a world in which the normal ways of doing business—where some dominate others, where some control others, where some use others as objects, where some have privilege simply because of gender, skin color, economic privilege, etc.—are turned on their head.

The last are first in the reign of God. Those called to lead are called to serve. The shepherd is called to give his or her life for the flock. Not to batten and feed on the flock.

Something is very, very wrong today, at the very heart of the church, Brother Benedict. And that something begins with the assumption that clerics deserve power and privilege from which others are excluded. From there to the assumption that the laity are simply objects to be used as the cleric wishes, is but a short step.

Your attempt to lay the crisis of clerical sexual abuse of children at the feet of moral theologians is not merely ignoble, Brother Benedict. It is deceptive. It absolves you and your brother clerics—above all, your brother bishops—of responsibility for the crisis through which we are still living. It is every bit as immoral as the attempt you have also tried—again, I do not know if you are badly advised, or if you truly believe this—to place blame for the crisis of clerical sexual abuse on gay seminarians and gay priests.

Until you and your brother clerics and brother bishops examine the system of clericalism in light of Jesus’s proclamation of the reign of God, and begin to dismantle that outmoded and now evil ecclesial polity, the crisis through which we are now living will grow ever deeper. We may stage many large parties. We may adopt outmoded lacy or ermine-trimmed liturgical garments. We may develop ever more intellectually barren question-and-answer catechisms and manuals of moral theology. We may extend the red silk until it billows the size of football fields.

But none of this will change anything at all. The abuse crisis will end only when the abuse itself ends. It is abusive for one group of believers to lord it over others. It is abusive to exclude from full membership in the body of Christ—from all positions of power and privilege in the body of Christ—a whole group of people on the basis of gender. It is abusive to demean one group of Christians because of an innate trait such as sexual orientation.

We all stand, at the end of our lives, Brother Benedict, before the same Lord, stripped of all titles, power, and pelf. The church should be a preparation for that event. We should begin living now as we expect to live in the reign of God—cherishing each other beyond all artificial boundaries that divide us from each other; loving authentically and refraining from sham, distortions, deceptions that protect the unwarranted power and privilege some of us have, from which others are automatically excluded.

Please listen. I am surely not the only Christian thinking these thoughts today. And I am surely not the only member of the body of Christ who is deeply wounded by the pretense, sham, deceptions, and abuse that continue to go on, and which actually seem to be increasing under your pontificate.

Continued Threats Against Citizen Journalist Bloggers

I can't let today pass without noting an interesting article in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor. This is Huma Yusuf's "Rise in Lawsuits Against Bloggers" (http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/07/16/rise-in-lawsuits-against-bloggers).

Yusuf reports that, according to data gathered by the Media Law Resource Center "[t]he blogging community increasingly is subject to lawsuits and threats of legal action running the gamut from subpoenas to cease-and-desist notices." Since blogging began to provide a powerful tool for citizen journalists to pursue stories the mainstream media refuses to touch--since 2004--there have been 159 civil and criminal court actions involving bloggers in the U.S.

Though, as Yusuf notes, many legal threats made against bloggers never see court action, the bullying tactics of individuals and institutions employing cease-and-desist notices and other legal threats have a chilling effect on citizen journalism. Yusuf observes, "The result? A stifling of free speech in a medium providing more comprehensive and diverse opportunities for commentary than ever before, digital-rights activists, media lawyers, and bloggers say."

Yusuf notes that even when citizen journalists keeping blogs know that they have not violated laws or legal covenants, the end result of many empty legal threats is that bloggers remove controversial material from blogs when threatened, rather than incur the expense of litigation.

As readers of this blog know, I am strongly interested in citizen journalism through blogging. In my view, this is a movement that deserves as much support as it can get from those of us who want to build a viable participatory democracy.

And as a theologian, I am also--it goes without saying--concerned to safeguard and enhance the right of citizens to speak freely and critically about religion and religious institutions. As I noted in a previous posting about this issue (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/06/faith-based-institutions-ceasing-and.html), it would be unthinkable to imagine that churches and the institutions they sponsor would try to intimidate bloggers through the use of empty threats, empty cease-and-desist tactics, and other bullying techniques designed to cow those trying to open space for free discussion of religious issues.

But of course I wrote that observation with my tongue in my cheek, knowing full well that churches and church-sponsored institutions do routinely count on their deep pockets and privileged access to legal systems to protect them, when they bully private citizens of modest means. I spent too much of my life working in church-sponsored colleges to be unaware that this kind of thing goes on.

One of the most significant lessons we Catholics have learned during the clerical abuse crisis of recent years is that the Catholic church, its leaders, and its institutions have long used financial clout and legal bullying tactics to silence victims of clerical sexual abuse and other whistle-blowers. And when they have done this, Catholic leaders and Catholic institutions have often counted on--and received--the support of the legal system, of law enforcement officials, and of the media.

The development of citizen journalism via blogging is an extremely promising development, for those who care about the integrity of churches and church-sponsored institutions. This development allows those calling churches and their institutions to accountability a forum in which to do so, when the mainstream media will often not permit such a forum.

But it would be naive to imagine that churches and church institutions will suddenly stop resorting to legal bullying tactics to try to silence critics, as long as they are able to get away with such shoddy behavior. The report in today's Christian Science Monitor provides those of us interested in citizen journalism via blogging yet another reason to keep defending free speech and supporting all venues in which free speech is protected--even when some women and men of God do all they can to try to shut down such venues and to shut critics up.

Flying Saints and Anglicans Crossing the Tiber

Wow. The saints are really getting around these days. First the Vatican up and flies Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati from Italy to Sydney for World Youth Day. Party on down, Bl. PG!

Now, there’s talk of exhuming John Henry Newman and moving him to a more veneration-friendly site inside the city of Birmingham. Newman is now buried at Rednal Hill outside Birmingham, at his oratory’s country house. Sharing the burial site with him is his lifelong friend Ambrose St. John, regarding whose death Newman wrote, "I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or a wife's, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one's sorrow greater, than mine."

In the year after St. John’s death, Newman made a written statement of his own express wishes for burial. The statement declares, “I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Fr Ambrose St John’s grave—and I give this as my last, my imperative will.”

St. John was buried in a coffin draped with a pall bearing Newman’s cardinal’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur. The lifelong friends share a tombstone with the inscription Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.

It will be interesting to see whether Newman’s express wishes to be buried with St. John will be honored when Newman’s body is moved for wider veneration. Somehow, I doubt that St. John will be making this particular trek into Birmingham with Newman.

All this against the backdrop of the current deliberations in Lambeth. I have refrained from blogging much about what is going on with the Anglican communion, (hough it fascinates me) for two reasons. One is that I flatly do not trust all the publicity being generated by the media about Lambeth. The other is that there are so many facets to the story of what is happening in the Anglican communion today (in my view), that one can easily miss the real treasure for the bright bits of tinfoil over which the media wish us to twitter.

The untrustworthiness of media accounts: I blogged extensively about this issue during the recent United Methodist General Conference. Simply put, the mainstream media are in the pocket of well-heeled special interest groups like the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). This and other groups deliberately working tensions within the worldwide Anglican communion to try to stop forward movement on ordination of women bishops and gay clergy have been adroitly successful at planting media soundbites about the dissolution of the Anglican communion.

As Lambeth begins, some blogs are reporting that IRD is jetting hold-the-line Anglicans to Lambeth from dioceses around the world. At the last gathering of the worldwide Anglican communion, a bishop in attendance told me, IRD and its allies set up a state-of-the-art media center in the conference grounds. From that center, instant messages could be beamed out around the world, to elicit instant pressure from the interest groups among the faithful seeking to hold the line on women and gays. The center also connected to delegates on the scene, to assure that they were bombarded with constant instructions about how to vote on various issues.

Or so I was told, and I do not doubt the word of the bishop telling me about these activities. Very similar reports arose at the latest United Methodist General Conference. The right wing of these churches is well-funded, and is intent on manipulating the consciousness of the public (and of church members) regarding issues such as women bishops and ordination of openly gay clergy and bishops.

And because IRD and its allies have abundant money and strong ties to important neoconservative political leaders in many places, the media listen,when IRD issues statements. Much of the fanfare about schism in the Anglican communion is a media frenzy emanating directly from IRD—which wants to divide the Anglican and Methodist (and Presbyterian) churches, insofar as it cannot force these churches to toe the neoconservative political line.

This is not to say that there are not strong divisions in worldwide Anglicanism. It is not to say that some kind of fraying will not occur in coming months. What I do want to underscore, however, is that anyone following the story of what is happening in the Anglican communion would be well advised to go beyond media soundbites, in trying to understand all the ramifications of this story.

In my view, when saints start jetting around the world and when their bodies are exhumed for easier veneration, something momentous is happening. The wish to move Newman is clearly linked to the Anglican story. This move is, in some respects, an in-your-face declaration on the part of the Roman Catholic church to the Anglican communion: see, we have the saint (and the sanctity); is it any wonder that those concerned to maintain fidelity to the ancient ways are now crossing the Tiber back to Rome?

When saints fly and jump from grave to grave, one can be assured that Christianity is, well, in a state of flux. The problem is to understand the precise nature of this flux.

There are dimensions to the story of the proposed move of some Anglican/Episcopalian bishops and whole parishes to Rome that are as baffling as the choice to make Blessed Pier Giorgio fly to Sydney or to dig up Newman’s body. Not a few of these bishops and parishes represent precisely the kind of macho-homophobic Christianity that tormented Newman throughout his life.

Newman was nelly. The muscular evangelical Anglicans of his day—the Greg Venables—made no bones about it. In their view, the whole Oxford contingent, with its love of ecclesiastical lace and its infatuation with the smell of incense, had more than a little lightness in its loafers. In Newman’s period, the muscular Christians, for whom God made male and female and thus it ever shall be, would have as lief gone over to lace and incense as they’d have condemned the rapacious capitalism of captains of industry during the Victorian period.

And yet, today, it’s supposedly going to be these very folks—the saviors of Christianity from decadent, limp-wristed, lisping clergy—who are going to swim the Tiber. It’s supposedly going to be these folks who now kiss the ruby slippers of Benedict XVI and who flock to Birmingham to pray at Newman’s tomb—at the tomb of the saint their forefathers repudiated in his lifetime.

There are, of course, other Anglican contingents purportedly ready to go over to Rome. Those opposing the ordination of women bishops not uncommonly include many Anglo-Catholics who have always felt strong sympathy for Newman. If defections occur—if both Anglo-Catholics and muscular macho-homophobic Anglican evangelicals head to Rome—it will be very interesting to see how the tensions between the two play out once they are united in a new Roman Catholic configuration.

And how those tensions affect the Roman church itself. After all, one of the effects of taking in these refugees fleeing women bishops and (openly) gay clergy will be the implementation of more and more Anglican rites within the Roman communion. Which is to say, people will be praying differently than other Roman Catholics do—at a time when the Vatican is stressing the need for liturgical conformity and the return to older rites.

And the Anglicans will bring with them the pesky question of married clergy—to be specific, the pesky question of why Rome eagerly accepts married Anglican clergy defecting from Canterbury, while absolutely slamming the door against married clergy in the Roman rite.

A prediction: not a significant number of Anglicans will defect. But the exodus will be painted in media accounts as highly significant, as the splitting up of the Anglican communion. And another prediction: some of those who cross the Tiber will regret having done so, when they see how things work in the imperial system they are willingly reimposing on themselves. As Newman himself said after his conversion, those who want to ride serenely in the barque of Peter had best not look too closely what goes on in the engine room. If the worldwide clerical abuse crisis should have taught us anything, it is that imperial systems of governance, even in churches (or especially in churches?) all too often act imperious: they blithely ignore the will of those they govern; they willingly dupe when the imperial system is at stake—they willingly lie and dissimulate—and collude with worldly powers whose hands are not always immaculate.

Catholicism is, unfortunately, not the high-minded, morally upright business Newman dreamed it was, when he turned to Rome. And for that reason, one wonders about the unforeseen consequences of the choice to move his body. This choice is, of course, part and parcel of the same media-circus mentality that led the Vatican to jet Pier Giorgio Frassati to Sydney. It’s part and parcel of a strategy of image management that reduces the Christian message to easily appropriated soundbites—the kind of crude, instant, reduced and packaged-for-consumption information the clergy imagine the laity need in order to stay faithful.

But in the case of Newman, wider veneration may open up some unanticipated interest in the theology of a man who has not been canonized, in part, up to now precisely because his theology is simply so inconvenient for Rome. It was Newman, after all, who pointed out that in the Arian crisis, the sensus fidelium preserved orthodox understandings of the divine-human nature of Christ, when the clergy by and large had abdicated orthodoxy.

It was Newman who wrote that doctrines are not true if they are not received by the faithful. It was Newman who insisted that when the sensus fidelium differs significantly from a position handed down by the magisterium, the proper approach of the magisterium is not to enforce conformity, but to ask why the Spirit is speaking in such a different way among the people of God.

And it was Newman who once raised his glass at a banquet and proposed the following toast: to the Pope, yes. But to conscience first! These are hardly theological sentiments now governing the polity Rome wants to push on the faithful. What moldy, inconvenient theological ideas might we now cause to tumble forth, when we open Newman’s grave?

And, once again, what to do with St. John? Newman explicitly asked to be buried with his lifelong friend. It is no secret that another reason the Vatican has not moved forward quickly with Newman’s canonization cause is that he was thought to be, as a graduate-school classmate of mine once said, a bit of a homosexual.

What strange new energies might the Vatican be releasing now, in exhuming Newman and making him a saint, just as it receives converts from Albion’s shores fleeing the gaying up of the Anglo churches? What will it mean to the gay community to have, at last, one of us—one who wrote about the sorrow of losing a companion as deeper than the sorrow of losing a spouse—canonized at this strange, interesting moment in Christian history?

Ironically, Newman is just the nightmare so many of those muscular Christians now fording the Tiber are trying to escape . . . . Even as Rome opens it arms to the muscular Anglicans, it shoves the icon of a gay saint into the hands of those now arriving on Tiber's eastern shores. Perchance this will give gay-fleeing Anglicans a chance to pause and reflect more carefully about what it means to live within an imperial structure that brooks no opposition and conducts no polls to ascertain how its teachings are being received by the faithful.

School Bullying Revisited: Jonathan Turley's Analysis

As readers of this blog know, as an educator and a theologian, I have a strong concern to address school bullying. Weeks back, I blogged repeatedly about the case of Billy Wolfe in Fayetteville, Arkansas. As a New York Times article published on 24 March reported, following repeated multi-year incidents of bullying of their son, the parents of a Fayetteville sophomore, Billy Wolfe, filed suit in March against the Fayetteville School System (see www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/us/24land.html). My blog discussions of the Billy Wolfe case are at http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/04/citizen-journalists-methodist-canaries.html, http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/04/internet-and-school-bullying-billy.html, http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/04/of-storms-and-bullies-pictures.html, and http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/04/school-bullying-we-have-met-bully-he-is.html.

Given my interest in this case (about which there has been little news since April), I was happy to notice in yesterday’s USA Today a strong op-ed piece by Jonathan Turley which references the Billy Wolfe story (http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/bullyings-day-i.html). Turley is Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. His USA Today piece is entitled “Bullying’s Day in Court.”

Shapiro notes, as my postings on school bullying have stressed, the wider reach of school bullies today through the Internet. The same issue of USA Today that carries Turley’s op-ed piece also has an article by Janet Kornblum discussing the extension of school bullying through websites (see www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2008-07-14-cyberbullying_N.htm).

Turley notes that too many citizens have apparently considered bullying part of the growing-up experience, and have tolerated school bullying for that reason. In his view, this attitude is dangerous, as school bullying proliferates today, and as it becomes ever more serious: standing up to bullies can cause a young person to be killed in schools today.

Turley encourages parents to follow the example of the Wolfe’s and resort to the legal system to put pressure on schools to eradicate bullying. As he notes, “Bullies are not adverse object lessons for an educational system; they are the very antithesis of education. They are no more a natural part of learning than is parental abuse a natural part of growing up.”

I second Turley’s call for proactive approaches on the part of parents whose children are bullied in our school systems. Schools have a strong responsibility to educate against bullying: to educate for tolerance and against any sort of violence premised on prejudice.

When schools fail to fulfill this responsibility, when there are repeated instances of bullying in a school system (as there have been in Fayetteville, Arkansas, schools), and when there are suggestions that a community not merely tolerates bullying but also protects those doing the bullying, legal action is imperative. It may be the only way a young person’s life is saved.

Hate Crime in Daytona Beach: The Continuing Pertinence of Mary McLeod Bethune

News of a horrible hate crime in Daytona Beach. According to Mark I. Johnson and Seth Robbins, “Driver Charged with Hate Crime after Bicyclist Run Down,” yesterday Thomas Darryl Cosby was charged with a hate crime after he deliberately ran down an African-American woman the day before (www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD02EAST071608.htm). Simply because she is black.

The allegation is that, Monday evening, Cosby ran his sedan off the street in Daytona Beach, careening into Mekeda Cato, who suffered a badly broken leg and internal injuries. His car then crashed, at which point, Cosby emerged from it, inciting bystanders to racial violence and shouting that African Americans should be returned to Africa.

This story catches my attention for a number of reasons. First, it’s a story illustrating the violence to which minority communities are still all too frequently subjected. And when such events occur, news coverage is often spotty and localized. We all, as part of the body politic, need to listen more carefully to the stories told by members of various minority communities about violence to which they are subjected, simply because they belong to a marginalized group.

Second, Steve and I lived for over a year in Port Orange, which happens to be where Mr. Cosby also lives. In fact, we own a house there, one we have been unable to sell, since we acquired it as a result of promises made to us that were revoked after we made the crucial decision to put ourselves in debt by purchasing the house.

So I feel a certain personal connection with this story. We often biked along the sidewalks of this city and neighboring ones, including Daytona Beach.

Third, as readers of this blog know, I have a very strong interest in the life and work of that important 20th-century African-American educator, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune. Dr. Bethune founded a college in Daytona Beach, now known as Bethune-Cookman University.

As various postings on this blog have noted, Dr. Bethune developed a powerful pedagogical theory underscoring the links between education and participatory democracy. As did Bayard Rustin, the African-American Quaker thinker-activist whose work I have also cited frequently, Dr. Bethune considered American democracy unfinished business.

Both of these prophetic black leaders noted that democracy is an ideal that has not yet been fully realized. Both maintained that democracy will be realized—will be extended, will move from ideal to real—as the body politic recognizes that some groups within our society are disenfranchised and must be brought to the table.

Both Dr. Bethune and Bayard Rustin stressed the need for safe spaces in which marginal communities can come together with the mainstream community for dialogue, interaction, and development of a vision of the common good that will serve the needs of all. Dr. Bethune built such town-gown meetings into the educational philosophy and practice of the college she founded.

In these meetings, Dr. Bethune modeled the kind of inclusivity that she challenged American democracy to develop. Dr. Bethune’s town-gown meetings gave no privileged place to any group. In a time and place in which whites were expected to occupy seats of honor and blacks to sit at the back of the room, Dr. Bethune opened her doors to everyone, with the provision that people sit where they could find seating.

By eradicating preferential seating—a radical act in the time and place in which she lived—Mary McLeod Bethune demonstrated to her community what participatory democracy is all about: it’s about bringing everyone to the table, providing an equal place for everyone, and listening respectfully to everyone across lines that divide us. Dr. Bethune’s town-gown meetings abolished the lines that divide, at least for the space of the meeting itself.

In the leadership team she developed for her college, Dr. Bethune also sought to model such inclusivity and such abolition of racial lines. Dr. Bethune’s leadership team deliberately brought together people from across racial lines. She stressed the need for her students to be taught by people from all racial backgrounds, from all walks of life, since they would be functioning in a pluralistic society.

As the story from Daytona Beach that begins this posting illustrates, Florida still struggles, along with the rest of the nation, to build participatory democracy. Racial divisions remain strong in Daytona Beach, and in many parts of Florida.

As I have noted before, Bishop Timothy Whitaker, bishop of the Florida United Methodist Conference which sponsors Bethune-Cookman University, has a premier chance today to develop a model that would put into practice the recent UMC General Conference’s challenge to Methodists to educate themselves and others about discrimination. The university founded by Mary McLeod Bethune, which is under Bishop Whitaker’s pastoral jurisdiction, offers a rich opportunity for Bishop Whitaker and Florida Methodists to develop workshops and educational programs that explore marginalization and its effects in Florida communities.

With the heritage bequeathed by its founder, Bethune-Cookman University can continue to play a significant role in modeling participatory democracy and in educating for participatory democracy both locally and internationally. The recent decision of the United Methodist Church to place the current president of Bethune-Cookman University, Dr. Trudie Kibbe Reed, on its University Senate is another opportunity for Dr. Bethune's university to demonstrate to the church at large what Dr. Bethune’s legacy means in practice. Dr. Trudie Kibbe Reed is a distinguished African-American educator and a Methodist leader. Her placement on this important Methodist university body holds much promise to bring the legacy of Dr. Bethune into a wider community.

As the story of Mr. Cosby’s horrific assault on Ms. Cato indicates, we have much work to do—and Florida has much work to do—to overcome violence against minorities in our communities. What better way to begin the process than by following the path set before us by Mary McLeod Bethune—by developing safe spaces to bring various communities together for dialogue; by developing inclusive structures of educational leadership that model the kind of inclusivity we seek to teach students; and by moving our churches’ rhetoric about social healing beyond the rhetorical level to actual practice?

And, it goes without saying, such new models of educational leadership in church-sponsored colleges and universities absolutely have to deal with questions of marginalization due to sexual orientation. I’m reminded of this crucial need in Florida by a recent email I received from Chuck Wolfe, president of Victory Fund, a Florida political organization committed to pursuing rights for the LGBT community in Florida.

The email I received begins by stating,

Not every state with a big LGBT community is friendly to LGBT rights. Take Florida – where it’s still legal to fire employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity alone. Gays and lesbians also can’t adopt, and committed same-sex couples have zero partnership rights.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence then that Florida is the largest state to have never elected an openly LGBT state legislator.

There’s work to do in Florida. I’m pleased that the school founded by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune is on the scene, continuing to embody the ideals of Dr. Bethune. I encourage Bishop Whitaker and Dr. Trudie Kibbe Reed to continue developing Dr. Bethune’s educational model for a local community in which the need is obviously so acute. With the historic first represented by Mr. Obama's bid for the presidency, we have a chance today for a renewed dialogue about race (and other forms of marginalization) in American democracy. Institutions like Bethune-Cookman University, with the rich legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune, have a singular opportunity to contribute to this dialogue.

From Paul VI to Gene Robinson: Judging Sexual Morality

The Clerical Whispers blog today posts a reminder of the upcoming anniversary of the encyclical Humanae vitae (http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2008/07/debate-over-1968-encyclical-rages-on.html). It’s hard to believe, but 25 July will mark the 40th anniversary of this encyclical of Paul VI reiterating the Catholic prohibition against the use of artificial contraception.

One line in the Clerical Whispers summary of the debate about this controversial encyclical leaps out: this is Paul VI’s insistence that, to be moral, "each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life." On the basis of that unambiguous norm, Paul VI judged the use of artificial contraception as “intrinsically disordered”—the same term the present pope, Benedict XVI, has sought repeatedly to use to characterize gay persons.

There are links, in other words, between the Catholic church’s condemnation of artificial contraception and of homosexuality. And I’m not sure how many people who look to the Catholic church as a bulwark against gay rights understand this. Many evangelicals have made common cause with the Catholic church when it stands against gay human beings and our rights. But I suspect that not a few of the Christian right allies of Catholicism when it comes to gay rights have not a clue about what the Catholic church teaches re: artificial contraception, and why it teaches what it does. And I also suspect that they’d be appalled if they did encounter this teaching in its unvarnished state, the state in which Catholics are expected meekly to receive it.

I could say a lot about Humanae vitae and why it was a colossal mistake on the part of Paul VI to issue this encyclical. As critics have noted, the theological commission the pope put together to advise him advised him not to issue a condemnation of artificial contraception. The mind of the church, in other words, what Cardinal Newman called the sensus fidelium, rejects the stance against artificial contraception. And nothing the church has said or done in the intervening period has convinced Catholics to change their minds. Polls indicate that something over 90% of married Catholics in the global North practice artificial contraception. And with a good conscience.

As the Clerical Whispers article notes, one of the primary reasons Paul VI decided to reject the advice of his theological commission (and thus, of the sensus fidelium) about this issue was that he feared he’d bring disrepute to the church by appearing to acknowledge that church teachings can change—that they can be wrong, and can need to revise in light of historical developments. And yet, ironically (again, the Clerical Whispers post notes this), perhaps no other event in the history of Catholic church after Vatican II (except, I’d argue, the clerical sexual abuse crisis) has so undermined public confidence in the Catholic church’s teaching, than “Humanae vitae.”

Which brings me back to the norm Paul VI uses to determine the morality of sexual acts. It’s so logical. It’s so lucid. It’s so plain wrong.

Think about it: "each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life." The word “act” leaps out immediately. A whole sexual morality built on measuring acts, on determining if they are “intrinsically disordered.”

The Catholic approach to sexual morality conjures up visions of someone—a priest; the Pope; the couple having intercourse—in the bedroom of a couple, measuring acts . . . . As if the morality of sex, a drive that unites two people at deep levels of their beings, can be summed up by measuring an act!

The whole approach to sexual morality in Catholicism—and I’m saying nothing thousands of other theologians haven’t said for years now—is simply wrong-headed. It’s off on the wrong track, from the get-go.

Insofar as it tries to hinge the judgment of the morality of human sexuality on acts, and insofar as it premises its judgment about said acts on whether they conform to some purported biological purpose of sexuality, it is simply not looking at what really deserves attention in sexual morality. This is quality of relationships, not acts, and, particularly, acts judged by biological yardsticks.

To illustrate: in Catholic sexual morality, a rape in which the male succeeds in ejaculating inside the female is far less immoral than a rape in which the coitus is interruptus. Which is to say, rape receives much less attention in Catholic sexual morality—the quality of the relationship between two people having sex receives much less attention—than the kind of act done, and what happens to that act when it is consummated. Is the penis inside or outside? Did at least some semen reach the vagina? Did the man intentionally or unintentionally ejaculate prematurely? If non-penis-in-vagina foreplay occurred, and the male climaxed prior to consummating the sexual act, did he (or she, wanton temptress) intend for this to happen?

Insane. Who “does” sex this way? Who thinks about sex this way? Who wants to think about sex this way? Why are ostensibly celibate male clerics, who have no experience at all the bedroom, entering the bedroom via the confessional to measure, photograph, judge, question? (Priests do ask the kinds of questions I asked above, in the confessional. They’re expected to do so. This is why many Catholics no longer go to confession. And can you blame us?)

And so from artificial contraception to homosexuality. Most people get it, when it comes to artificial contraception. Most people get that this way of thinking about human sexuality is just plain foolish. It does not reflect what people mean when they live their lives as erotic beings, when we express ourselves erotically. It is moral analysis imposed on human experience, and therefore extrinsic to human experience.

Why, then, I wonder, do people who reject the absurd teachings about artificial contraception not feel equally indignant about the equally crazy Catholic teaching that gay human beings are intrinsically disordered? Why do evangelicals who decidedly do not buy into the biologistic natural-law theology that frames all Catholic teachings about sexual morality, and who do not buy into the prohibition against artificial contraception, accept and promote Catholic teaching against gay human beings?

I could advance all kinds of reasons for this disconnect in the popular mind. I may well do so in future postings. Here, though, I’d like to think this problem through by thinking about a video clip that has been circulating on the internet these past few days. A link to it is, in fact, on the same Clerical Whispers webpage I cited above for the link to the commemoration of “Humanae vitae.” It’s at http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2008/07/heckle-that-symbolises-church-split.html.

The clip shows openly gay (and partnered) Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson preaching at St. Mary’s in Putney (London) this past Sunday. As Bishop Robinson preached, a man in the audience stood up to heckle, calling him a heretic, shouting that he (and the congregation, who clapped and sang to drown out the heckler’s voice) needed to repent.
High drama for an Anglican church. And interesting drama. The question I keep asking myself as I watch this clip is, “What motivates someone to do something like this?” What motivates those who feel so urgently compelled to preach to gay human beings that we need to repent?

It’s not as if there aren’t a lot of other heinous sins around that need condemning. Just read the accounts of the round-up of hundreds of illegal Mexican and Central American immigrants in Postville, Iowa, recently, and you’ll likely wonder what kind of human beings can treat other human beings this way.

Why Bishop Robinson’s sin? Why “the” sin of the Anglican communion, insofar as it will not repudiate all gay persons and their supporters? What drives people (usually men) to take such extreme action to prevent gays and our supporters from going to hell?

I can’t help thinking this has far more to do with the desire to control than it has to do with the desire to save. It’s not about love at all. It’s about the need of a social group that feels its power over others may be waning, to find a juicy scapegoat group and to use that group to the maximum to shore up its waning control.

I find it very hard to believe that many of the preachers and hecklers I’ve encountered, who are so earnest about saving gay souls, read much of the bible at all. If they did so, they’d find that the overwhelming weight of the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, when they address the moral life, is about love. And justice. And living in a way that embodies mercy and justice.

Not about sex. And certainly not about sexual acts. And that ravenous need to control? It seems to be what the whole biblical narrative reflects on, from Adam and Eve forward, when it reflects on our human reluctance to place our lives at God’s disposal. Those moved by the Spirit—the Spirit that Christian traditions identify as holy—are far less intent on controlling others than they are on opening their own hearts and minds to the influence of the divine. And in responding to that influence through acts of practical compassion in a world starved for the milk of human kindness.

Leadership: We Must Become the Change

I have to be away for a period of time tomorrow, so it's possible I won't be posting until later in the day--if then.

Meanwhile, since a weekend will have come and gone before I resume posting, I don't want to leave blank pages in this online journal. In case readers are looking for something to read, I'd like to make a brief mention of two interrelated resources.

First, I'm grateful to Bilerico blog for publishing the posting I wrote some days back on Barack Obama and post-homophobic models of African-American leadership. The Bilerico copy is at www.bilerico.com/2008/07/barack_obama_and_posthomophobic_models_o.php. For readers of this blog, the discussion of the text at Bilerico may be of interest.

I admire Bil Browning's Bilerico blog for all kinds of reasons. It aims at an inclusivness that crosses racial lines, as well as the the bizarre line that sometimes causes the gay community to exclude the transgendered or those considered gender-inappropriate. Bilerico is progressive without being dogmatic: it entertains a variety of political perspectives and conversations, and encourages free speech about these. Even when I don't agree with the political position someone is taking on Bilerico, I find the conversation instructive.

I also like the inclusion of younger and less official (and officious) voices than those that often appear on LGBT blogs. As someone drawn to education, I've always felt that each generation needs to make a strong effort to transmit values to the next, to draw the coming generation along, and to have the good sense to let go at some point. It's important for those of us accustomed to droning on and on to stop talking at some point and let younger folks have a go at it. When we do so, we might be surprised at what we learn.

This concern forms the background to some of what I've been posting on leadership--including what I said in my posting on Obama and the need to develop post-homophobic models of leadership in the African-American community. That posting focused on the hopefulness that (in my view) one may see in the gradual shift from generation to generation, towards a more respectful and inclusive attitude to gay citizens.

In my recent posting on Bayard Rustin entitled "Prejudice Is of a Single Bit," I noted Rustin's emphasis on the need for leaders to model leadership: to embody the values they hope to enshrine in the process of social transformation. I'm strongly persuaded that churches and educators and plain old human beings, in the process of transmitting values from one generation to the next, cannot expect to be successful unless the process of transmission is more than verbal. It's imperative that leaders model what it means to lead.

When values are what's being transmitted, it's imperative that leaders model the values they believe it's important to pass on to the next generation. My reflections on Obama (and Rustin) note the need for leaders to model inclusiveness, respect for dialogue, openness to the perspectives of the least among us, the willingness to talk beyond the lines of ghettoization that divide marginal community from marginal community.

These are essential virtues for leaders in any participatory democracy that wants to remain viable. They're traits I'm looking for as I assess the current crop of political candidates. I intend to keep the feet of any leader I help elect to the fire, regarding these virtues.

And, in case anyone is interested in further ruminations of mine on this point, I'll end this posting by pointing to another resource. This is an essay of mine on the them of leadership at www.cookman.edu/documents/leadershipin_academiclife_lindsey072306.doc.