Commentary: On Youth Synod Opening Door to LGBTQ Community (?!); On Latest McCarrick Revelations; On "Signs of the Times"

Some meandering thoughts and mini-rants this morning:

Liz Dodd on the Damage That Youth Synod's Game-Playing with LGBTQ Lives Does to Those Lives and to the Church Itself

Liz Dodd on the damage that the youth synod's game-playing with LGBTQ lives does to those lives and to the church itself, in "Synod's decision to drop 'LGBT' from its final document is a missed opportunity for the Church":

Bishop Gene Robinson to Matt Shepard: "Welcome Home"; Catholic Youth Synod to LGBTQ People: "You Will Not Be Named in Our Heterosexual Church" — Questions for Synod Participants and Voters

In his sermon at the interment of Matt Shepard, Bishop Gene Robinson says the following (these excerpts are from about 1:13:48 and 1:19:32 in the video above):

We / They: How Refusal to Include Queer Voices in Synodal Conversations Undercuts Claims of Church about Itself as Sacramental Sign of Redemption

“Christ made God manifest by making invisible people visible—the poor, women, all those deprived of their rights.”

~ Dorothee Sölle, "Beyond Mere Obedience: Reflections on a Christian Ethic for the Future," trans. Lawrence W. Denef (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1970), p. 163. https://t.co/0tXvupAKEc

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) October 26, 2018

In response to a question from Deborah Rose-Milavec of Future Church about how the Youth Synod is dealing with women's and LGBTQ issues, delegate Yadira Vieyra states,

Commentary: Political Fall-Out as Catholic Bishops Face Reckoning for Covering Abuse Crimes; German Catholic Discussion of Bible and Homosexuality

More commentary today that catches my attention, and is especially interesting when read side by side: 

Patricia Miller, "Is This Finally the Reckoning for the Catholic Church on Sexual Abuse?":

Commentary: McCarrick and Supposed "Gay Clique" in Hierarchy; Homosexuality Not Cause of Catholic Abuse Crisis; When Welcome Doesn't Really Mean Welcome

Things I've read in the last day or so that I'd like to pass along to you — with themes that, in my view, fit together, so that it's helpful to read this commentary side by side:

Where Do We Go from Here, as the Future Looks More and More Bleak for LGBTQ People in the U.S.?

So where do we go from here? I ask because I quite sincerely don't know the answer to that question.

My sense is that for queer people — especially in the U.S. — and for those who care about us and stand with us, things are going to get much worse, and more quickly than many of us realize.

What do we do with that probability? Or am I wrong to sense this, do you think? (See Brynn Tannehill's sobering predictions.)

Rolando, what can those of us gathered here in this particular dialogue community do to assist you in concrete ways? Please tell us, if there's something we can be doing in addition to offering you our support and sympathy.

Viganò Attacks Again: Even More Obsessively Focused on Homosexuality, as U.S. Catholic Church Continues Branding Itself as Homophobic Hate Machine

Pope accuser strikes back, blames "scourge of homosexuality" for abuse https://t.co/OSsgulPcOT

This — this hateful crusade against a minority community, hate dressed up as God — is how the U.S. Catholic church has chosen to identify itself in the public eye. /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) October 20, 2018

Married Gay Catholic Minister Hounded Out of Ministerial Job with Acts of Hate from Organized Catholic Hate Groups

I wish so much that this story had not flashed across my computer screen on the very same day in which I posted Rolando's testimony about what has been done to him and John. But here this additional story is, staring all of us in the face. Dan Morris-Young writes, 

"I Am Excommunicated from This 'Redemptive Institution' Because 3 Years Ago, John and I Formalized our 49-Years of Living, Loving and Ministering Together by Registering Our Civil Union"

The following is testimony that Rolando shared at Bilgrimage several days ago. This testimony deserves a wider hearing than it will receive if it remains in a combox; I'm posting it as a stand-alone comment for that reason. This story is just so painful — and it's one that is repeating itself over and over in Catholic institutions right now. 

Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer Gay? Diane Reynolds' The Doubled Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the Biographical-Theological Evidence

Diane Reynolds, The Doubled Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Women, Sexuality, and Nazi Germany (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016)

When I reported to you (and here) a month ago regarding Charles Marsh's biography of theological Dietrich Bonhoeffer entitled Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (NY: Knopf, 2014), I mentioned to you that, as Marsh does, another recent biographer, Diane Reynolds, sees Bonhoeffer as a gay man in love with his colleague Eberhard Bethge. Reynolds' biography of Bonhoeffer, The Doubled Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Women, Sexuality, and Nazi Germany (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), proposes that as a man aware that his erotic inclinations moved in a forbidden direction in the savagely homophobic culture of Nazi Germany, Bonhoeffer lived a double life, often pretending to be who and what he was not (p. 4) — while he began to develop, especially in the latter part of his tragically truncated life, a "nascent queer theology":

Not Blogging Lately Because I Don't Think That I Have Much to Say That Will Make Much of a Difference

I'm not blogging much lately because I don't think, honestly, that I have much to say that will make much of a difference to any of the conversations going on around me. I appreciate readers who have contacted me to ask how I'm doing, and who have shared your similar sense that we're being overtaken by a huge cultural wave at a global level that is moving the global community to some very dark fascist places — and we have all too little power to change the direction of that wave right now.

Me, Talking Back to National Catholic Reporter and Michael Sean Winters re: Resignation of Donald Wuerl

Wuerl hounded from office for becoming face of abuse crisis https://t.co/N2pHeSpgcP via @ncronline

"He has been for 30 years a force of nature in the Catholic Church in this country, a workhorse for the conference and for the Vatican and for the dioceses he served." /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) October 12, 2018

"Only the Good Has Depth That Can Be Radical": Hannah Arendt on Banality of Evil — Critically Important Role of Thought and Imagination as Fascist Tide Rises

A key point of Hannah Arendt's analysis of the banality of evil is that evil is essentially stupid, as it manifests itself in the social arena. Evil lacks imagination. It does the same (misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, elitist, fascist) thing over and over, expecting always the same results — since doing the same  (misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, elitist, fascist) thing last time worked. So surely it will work again….

U.S. Catholic Church in Snapshots from Twitter, as Georgetown Prep Grad Kavanaugh Is Seated as a Supreme

.@newtgingrich and I congratulate our new Supreme Court Justice. pic.twitter.com/LDlDsUhL4k

— Callista Gingrich (@CallyGingrich) October 6, 2018

Mark Shea on What Viganò, Burke, and Bannon's Anti-Francis Gay-Bashing Is About: "This is About the Rich Seizing Control of the Church, not About the Protection of Victims"

Kavanaugh Has Exposed the Savage Amorality of America's Ruling Class https://t.co/PgdtZykKrw

— Mary Aktay (@maryaktay) October 6, 2018

Mark Shea, "1 Percenters attempt to buy control of the Church," hits the nail right on the head:

Commentary: How Kavanaugh's Confirmation Shows What We've Refused to Learn from Catholic Abuse Chronicle, Etc.

The Rep majority of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Com. @senjudiciary . Don't they look representative of America's people? If you're female, don't you want them having control of our S.C. & women's reproductive health decisions? @JeffFlake @SenSasse @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin pic.twitter.com/F9QhLMsDn8

— Diane Smith (@TheDiane0905) October 5, 2018

Marci Hamilton, "The Response to the Kavanaugh Allegations Exposes the Lessons We Failed to Learn from the Catholic Clergy's Abuse":

The Sole — Crucial — Lesson the GOP Takes from Orwell: Boot Stamping on a Human Face — Forever

The sole — crucial — lesson the GOP takes from Orwell:

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."

For Orwell, this was a cautionary tale about fascist abuse of power. For the GOP, it's a blueprint for the party's triumph.

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) October 5, 2018

My new pinned tweet on Twitter….