Top Catholic Chaplain and DADT: Jesus and the Club of Manly Men

A few weeks ago, I blogged about a proposal by the vice-chancellor and vocations director of the  Catholic diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to save the priesthood by ridding it of the vice of effeminacy.  As I noted in that posting, this analysis, with its suggestion that the priesthood is now a gay club, and that the priesthood  must be saved by re-populating seminaries with manly men, runs through important sectors of American Catholicism right now.  Spend any time at all reading blogs of the Catholic right or watching the influential Catholic television network EWTN, and you'll encounter this gender-biased (and homophobic) analysis of the ills of the contemporary priesthood, and its concomitant proposal to save the priesthood by bringing back the manly-men priests we imagine of yore. 

Alan Jones on Learning to Tell Stories That Include Everyone: Advent Meditation

Another excerpt from one of my journals of the past—a passage I copied in November 1995 from Alan Jones's book The Soul’s Journey: Exploring the Spiritual Life with Dante as Guide (San Francisco: Harper, 1995).  This strikes me as a valuable meditation piece for Advent, with its uncomfortable questions about whom we're willing to make room for in the inns of our lives and hearts.  

Gay Theology and Critique of the Straight: Another Excerpt from My Journals

Another excerpt from journals I kept in the past.  This entry is dated 12 Feb. 1997:

A Lenten reflection: as I pray this morning (though I've forgotten that today is Ash Wednesday), I think of Isaiah crying out, "Make a straight path for our God" (40:2).  I open the bible to find that verse, and instead, my eyes happen to fall on the following line: "Consider the work of God; who can set straight what he has made crooked?" (Ecclesiastes 7:13).

Women, Children, Fulfillment: Notes on An Ongoing Conversation

Thinking this morning about an interesting conversation that has come to me two different ways this week--first, through email correspondence with an insightful e-friend, and then on a Facebook thread through a friend there.  This is a conversation about what lies behind the ability of some mothers to savage their children (or so it appears to those of us on the receiving end of maternal treatment at times).  

Another Blast from the Past: More Reflections on the Legacy of John Paul II, Superstar

A continuation of my reflections about John Paul II following his death on 2 April 2005.  I wrote this piece in my journal on 17th April that year:

The Catholic Abuse Crisis and the Call to Be a Listening Church: Another Blast from the Past

And, as a counterpoint to what I just posted a bit ago, on the callous response of Vatican officials to the abuse situation in the Irish Catholic church, here's another excerpt from one of my journals of the past.  I wrote this on 8 Jan. 2004, after the national audit that followed the shocking revelations about clerical abuse of minors by American priests in 2002:

Top Catholic Chaplain Opposes End of Discrimination Against Gay Service Members

 

 

You know that line in the Catholic catechism that deplores discrimination against gay and lesbian folks?  Well, it appears not all Catholic pastoral officials really believe the catechism, when it comes to this issue.  As Eugene McMullen notes at Religion Dispatches today, the Catholic Archbishop for the Military Services Timothy Broglio opposes ending the ban on openly gay soldiers in the American armed forces.