The Gay Purge in Catholic Seminaries: Washing the Gay Right Out of Our Hair

Paul Vitello reports today in the New York Times on the implementation of the Vatican directives that call for a gay purge in Catholic seminaries to resolve the abuse crisis in the Catholic church.  Fr. Jim Martin has posted valuable commentary on the article at America magazine’s blog.

Fr. Martin’s commentary notes (citing Mark Jordan of Harvard Divinity School) the irony of the Catholic church’s choice to purge gays from the priesthood, when a significant percentage of Catholic clergy are gay, as are a significant percentage of seminary professors and seminary directors, and of members of the hierarchy itself.  Grand irony, indeed—irony that moves beyond the merely ironic to the absurd (and the obscene).

Retreat, Day One: In Which James Taylor and Carole King Sing, and I Say Yes

The bell has rung for grand silence.

But I’ve spent the whole day in silence, and the bell only loosens my tongue, makes me want to begin recording impressions of the day.  Impressions: touches in silence; silent touches; the pressing of (im-pressio) other spirit on mine.

On Retreat: Grateful for Readers' Advice and Support

Thank you all, profoundly so, for your replies and encouragement after my last posting.

I'm going through a soul-searching, life-assessment process right now.  I think it wouldn't be a stretch to call it a retreat--a time to think, read, pray.  And just be.

I feel the need for such a process because I'm aware of feeling frayed around the edges these days, and that feeling leaves me thinking that anything I post right now is bound to be off.  Out of kilter.  As unbalanced as are the churches whose lack of balance I'm decrying in some of my postings.

Catholic Officials Continue Attacks on Women, and Yours Truly Has Had It

I haven’t commented yet on two recent stories that, in my view, have a shared theme.  That theme links, in ways clear to me, but perhaps not immediately apparent to others, to the story of the ladies of Llangollen about which I’ve just written.  One of the two stories has to do with the recent announcement by the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas J. Olmsted, that Mercy Sister Margaret McBride has been excommunicated. 

Sister Margaret’s sin?  As a member of the ethics committee of St. Joseph’s hospital in Phoenix, she participated in a decision to abort the 11-week old fetus of a woman who, expert medical consensus had determined, could not carry her child to term without risking her own death, and therefore the death of the child.  The mother was suffering from pulmonary hypertension that, left untreated, would almost certainly have resulted in her death and that of the fetus.  Pregnancy aggravates this serious condition.

The Ladies of Llangollen: On the Continued Need to Reclaim Gay History and Celebrate Gay Lives

A reader whose insights I value very much wrote me several days ago to ask about Elizabeth Mavor’s book The Ladies of Llangollen (London: Joseph, 1971), which I mentioned in response to a comment about a posting here recently.  Because at least one reader has expressed an interest in knowing more about the book, I thought I’d share a few reflections, now that I’ve finished it.

First, a disclaimer: I read this book, in part, because of an eccentric interest of mine that few readers would share.  And that means that I read parts of it sketchily, since my focus was on finding references that provide information about my particular interest.  That interest has to do with the family of one of the two ladies of Llangollen, the Ponsonbys.

Bill Halter Runs Even with Blanche Lincoln: A Report from the Ground

One final news update--this one from the ground: as most readers will know from the international media, in the first round of primary voting yesterday in my home state of Arkansas, incumbent Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln ran dead-even against her challenger Lieutenant-Governor Bill Halter.  Ms. Lincoln had the backing of former President Bill Clinton and current President Barack Obama.  The campaign was nasty on both sides, with lurid ads that went beyond stretching the truth to outright lying--though I fault the Lincoln campaign more in that regard than the Halter campaign.

I'm interested in Jane Hamsher's take on the election at Firedoglake today.  Hamsher thinks that many Arkansas Democrats are repudiating Lincoln because of her refusal to support the public option during the health-care reform process.  I also suspect that many of us are tired of her capitulation to wealthy interest groups, and her attempt to convince the people she represents (we're poor, uneducated, and many of us are African Americans) that those groups have our own best interest at heart.  When their real objective is to exploit us.

I think that there's, in general, a diffuse sense of rage in the air in this part of the country right now, which has several roots.  One of those roots is, sad to say, the deep, historic racism of many white citizens.  For whom having a black man in the White House is unthinkable.

Another root is, as I've noted, that we're generally an impoverished state with low levels of education.  That makes us sitting ducks for those who want to use us in battles we don't quite understand, because we lack the critical information necessary to help us understand.

Because we were perceived as a "swing" state in the health-care debate, with a number of blue dog Democratic political leaders opposed to health-care reform, we were inundated throughout the health-care deliberations with constant phone calls, letters, and television ads from both sides.  We were inundated with disinformation and lies that many of us do not have the critical tools to see as disinformation and lies: Obamacare will put Granny to death; Obamacare will take your good health insurance and give it to illegal immigrants and lazy (read: black) people who don't work; Obamacare is socialism, etc.

Being inundated constantly with toxic lies when you do not have the skills to identify the information you're being given as lies, when you are economically deprived and economically vulnerable, elicits rage.  And that rage is dangerous.  It is dangerous for the particular area in which the unfocused, inarticulate, destructive rage of people who have a right to be angry but whose anger is misdirected has been stirred up.

And it is dangerous for the nation as a whole.  Those bombarding the American people with a steady diet of toxic lies at present (read: most Republicans) are doing a tremendous disservice to the nation.  They are undermining its future.

And the consequences of what they're doing will become tragically apparent, I suspect, in the fall elections.  

(On a joyful note, a person I very much admire and am happy to call my friend, Judge Wendell Griffen, won a circuit judge seat last night.  A note of hearty congratulations to him.)

Mid-Week News Update: Stories from Marquette, Boston, Vatican, Portugal, and Malawi

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.