In the News: ACLU and Colleges Discriminating Against LGBT Students; Anti-LGBT Bills in State Legislatures; Pakistan Censors Gay Times Photo; Anglican Leaders Out of Touch; Dancing Priests and Nuns in Italy

Here's an omnium gatherum of stuff — related in my strange head, but perhaps it won't appear that way to you — that has caught my magpie's sharp eye in recent news: 

Irish Vote for LGBT Equality Continues Rippling Out to Other Nations: Chris Morley's Update

Chris Morley left two wonderful reports (and here) in the comments section of this blog today, about the ripple effect (already) of the Irish vote last weekend. To make sure that more readers have a chance to see these reports, I'm lifting them from the combox and posting them as a posting as this work day ends: Chris writes,

After Ireland, Heat On in Many Other Countries to Respect LGBT Equality: Australia, Italy, Germany, Etc.

As I've noted in a number of postings in the past few days, a theme now emerging following the remarkable Irish vote for LGBT human rights has been the example the little island of Ireland now sets for many other places in the world. There's a venerable trope of talk about Ireland as the surprising little place that makes a huge and unanticipated splash in the rest of the world — as when Irish missionaries, monks who had preserved Greek and Roman texts destroyed in the rest of Europe, tramped across Europe in the early Middle Ages to Christianize many places in the continent, a story explored by Thomas Cahill in his popular book How the Irish Saved Civilization. Much of the commentary about the possible effects of the Irish vote on other countries implicitly builds on that trope.

"Suddenly, Last Winter": Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi on the Resurgence of Homophobia in Italy (and the Role of Liberals in the Resurgence)

Steve and I watched Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi’s award-winning documentary “Suddenly, Last Winter” last night, and it depressed us. That’s part of the reason I haven’t yet posted anything on this blog today: as I may have hinted on these pages, we struggle with strong feelings of worthlessness, given our experiences as theologians seeking to be true to God’s plan for our lives, but finding one door after another slammed in our faces by a church (and world) that can’t put God and gay into the same sentence without oppression.

As I’ve thought about it today, I found “Suddenly, Last Winter” depressing for a quite specific reason: the story it tells is so ominously close to one now unfolding in the U.S., vis-à-vis gay rights, that it’s impossible not to be depressed. It’s impossible not to be depressed when you see in a carefully documented film how astonishingly easy it is for a few malicious folks and lots of spineless, morally obtuse ones to stop what seems to be ineluctable movement to grant rights to gay citizens, and so wreak havoc in the lives of gay persons.

Gustav and Luca document what happened in Italy when a center-left coalition came to power in spring 2006 and promised civil unions to gay couples in Italy. As they note, Italy is an exception among western European nations in its refusal to provide legal recognition of gay marriage or gay civil unions. That fact alone seemed, in the spring of 2006, to argue for the inevitable opening, even in Italy, to full recognition of gay rights, including gay unions, when the center-left parties came to power.

This is not what happened, however. The film carefully tracks what did happen instead, when the center-left coalition failed to deliver on its promises about civil unions, played ugly games with the gay community, and then fragmented, paving the way for the return to power of Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right government—a political event in which the Vatican apparently played a key role (see also here and here).

The period in which there was an opening to a different political (and cultural and religious) possibility in Italy, and then the door slammed shut again, is, in the way Gustav and Luca tell their story, eerily like the period through which we are now living in the U.S. As their documentary shows, a number of factors coalesced to stop the movement to civil unions in Italy in its tracks—seemingly for the foreseeable future.

There were, first of all the empty promises (and the moral vacuity) of many center-left leaders who rose to power touting a human rights agenda (including gay rights) that they ignored, and even stalled, when they attained power. Gustav and Luca interview many of these folks. They show us their faces. They highlight their antics in government hearings about civil unions and on Italian talk shows.

These are not admirable characters. They say one thing and do another. They bend over backwards to find ways to justify any nonsense that spews out of the mouths of the political and religious right, when that nonsense is about gay and lesbian persons. They talk about the need for pragmatic caution, for coalition-building that will include even the far-right fringe and certainly include the church, though Italy is ostensibly not a theocracy.

They keep telling Gustav and Luca, every time the two ask about movement on the civil unions initiative, that it has neither been shelved nor is a priority. More studies need to be done, more coalition-building undertaken. We haven’t forgotten you or your needs, but please understand that you and your needs are not our priority.

In the final analysis, then, the center-left “supporters” of gay rights are part of the problem, and not part of the solution. They are a huge part of the problem. As the political right and the Catholic church craft a tremendous backlash against the proposed civil unions legislation, the center-left political leaders who had brought the proposal to the table suddenly display a large appetite for appeasement—of the very folks whose power they had trumped when they gained control of the government, but whom they will not challenge openly. Not when it comes to gay rights.

Gustav and Luca document the astonishing way in which some former “supporters” of gay rights suddenly find it possible to spout the same nonsense the right is spouting, in the period of intense homophobic reaction after the civil unions idea is floated, about gay people, gay lives, and gay rights: gays are an infection in healthy societies; openness to gays causes the downfall of society; homosexuality is not natural, and what is unnatural has no rights; gay men assume women’s roles and gay women want to be men; gays corrupt children; children raised in gay homes will grow up warped and perverted; we would be better off if gays simply disappeared.

Watching the capitulation of the liberal political elite to far-right nonsense, even when those capitulating have to know they’re dealing with toxic ideas based on no rational analysis at all, is fascinating. And frightening. One concludes, in the end, that either these people never had any real moral commitment at all to gay and lesbian rights, and so they find it easy to shrug their shoulders and do what serves their own interests (the “pragmatic” thing) when there's a price tag attached to their progressive agenda, or they know very well that they are behaving immorally, but since there is no price to be paid if they cave in and their own ox is not being gored, they do not care that they have talked out of both sides of their mouths, broken promises, and hurt supporters hopeful for substantive change.

The second fascinating way in which the story told by “Suddenly, Last Winter” parallels what is happening in our nation now is the way in which the moral cave-in and the insincere dilly-dallying of leaders of the progressive coalition that had gained power in the country facilitated the rise of a backlash that astonished not only the center-left leaders of the nation, but even those on the right who had thought that the back of their power had been broken when the center-left coalition came to power.

In the period in which the center-left leaders continued promising gay civil unions, while warning that such unions were not a priority, the right re-configured its base and made powerful breakthroughs. Gustav and Luca interview people on the streets as this cultural shift is occurring. What folks tell them is interesting: it’s a mishmash of half-digested religious ideas and bogus science re: gender roles, sexual orientation, family life, and natural law.

The two filmmakers also capture political demonstrations by right-leaning groups who want to capitalize on the homophobic backlash to reassert their power as fascist watchdogs controlling the pace of progressive movement in Italian culture. As Gustav and Luca talk to and film members of some of these groups, the men to whom they speak tap sticks they happen to be carrying on the ground, itching for the return of the kind of social order in which they could bust a fag’s skull (or a Jew’s, or an African’s, or a Muslim’s, or, most of all one suspects, a woman’s) with relative impunity.

And there, in the middle of it all, is the church, feverishly organizing huge, well-funded, high-tech “pro-family” demonstrations in which the faithful recommit themselves to a family-centered society, in which smiling sisters in habit suddenly scowl when asked if the Christian obligation to love one’s neighbor extends to loving one’s gay neighbor and supporting her right to marry. Participants in these carefully staged demonstrations make it plain to the gay reporters interviewing them that being pro-family is about more than strengthening the supposedly threatened family: it’s about being anti-gay, about making it impossible for gay couples or their families to live together as a family with any public recognition, support, or protection.

The role the church plays in this period of backlash is shameful. While helping return to power a man who divorced his sacramentally married wife after having had children by another woman, and then having several more with the second before marrying her, the church defiantly proclaims its commitment to family values and its opposition to recognition of any rights for gays, since that recognition will inevitably undermine real families. And though some church officials now claim that the Catholic church has never opposed civil unions for gays—only marriage—the film clearly documents the intent of the Vatican and the Italian bishops to oppose not only civil unions but any legal recognition of or protection for the rights of gay persons.

And how is this like what is happening in our country today? I think the parallel on the religious front is obvious. Rev. Mike Huckabee has just reminded us that we are a nation specially blessed by God—an exceptional case among all nations in the world. Italy is an exception, as well. Like the U.S., it is an exception among the developed nations of the West in its religion-fueled resistance to gay rights. And like the U.S., it allows communities of faith wide latitude in determining secular policy, even when both countries claim to value separation of church and state.

But another parallel is even more important to me: this is the parallel between the behavior of the center-left party when it came to power in Italy in the spring of 2006 and our current administration, vis-à-vis gay rights. In key respects, our leaders are behaving today precisely the way the progressive leaders in Italy behaved in the 2006-2008 period—ignoring the promises they have made to gay citizens and their progressive supporters, seeking to assure us that gay rights are on their agenda but are not a priority, and bending over backwards to find ways to include (read: appease) a small but loud and potentially dangerous (as an impediment to progress) right-leaning faction allied to many churches.

In assessing the behavior of many of our political leaders today, when it comes to gay rights, I have no choice but to conclude, sadly, that these leaders have never recognized the moral claims of gay persons on their lives, even when they espouse gay-friendly rhetoric. Or they are people of conscience who, unfortunately, choose to dull the voice of their conscience when it comes to the moral claims of gay persons, because they can do so, with relative impunity.

If Gustav and Luca are correct, the lack of moral courage of the center-left coalition in Italy in its dealings with the gay community led to the fragmentation and then demise of that coalition. More importantly, it led to a resurgence of right-wing homophobia that surprised even those on the right, who had thought the movement of history was clearly not towards such a resurgence. A resurgence that is in some ways fueling the rise to power of the right all over Europe now . . . .

History may point clearly in one direction, but human beings often choose to move in another direction altogether, even when it is clear that the direction to which the movement of history points constitutes a moral arc, one we have no choice except to follow if we expect to live together productively and peaceably as a human community. History is the story of occasional breakthroughs to more humane social arrangements, and constant reversions to barbarism. It is the story of rare, surprising moral courage, and predictable, deadly, widespread moral obduracy.

I am convinced that the arc of the future—the moral arc—points to recognition of the human rights of gay and lesbian persons. I am not convinced, however, that the many liberals who refuse to stand in solidarity with gay and lesbian persons or to recognize the moral priority of gay rights at this point in history will move us along that arc, even when they have the power to do so.

And I am convinced that when liberals appease the right and cave in to its demands, allowing it to continue its gate-keeping status even when its power has been decisively checked, liberals create the conditions for a resurgence of the power of the right—even when that resurgence will effect the downfall of the same liberals who have risen to power when a popular majority repudiates the power of the right. A majority who expect progressive moral leadership once they have placed progressive leaders with claims to moral awareness in power . . . .

The Limits of Crozier Shaking

My attempt to engage members of my own religious communion in dialogue about LGBT issues continues on the blog threads of National Catholic Reporter.

And I must admit, I’m growing weary.

I’m growing weary of hearing the churches talk about homosexual sin, rather than gay people.

Sin, not people.

No church that claims to be motivated by pastoral concern talks about sin before people. No church that professes pastoral intent reduces a group of human beings to some nifty, disposable stereotype—like notorious sinner (one of the labels used by a blogger at the NCR threads), or intrinsically disordered human beings, or the homosexuals with their sinful lifestyle.

In reducing gay human beings to a tagged and stigmatized mass, the churches undercut all of their claims to be motivated by pastoral concern for homosexual sinners. This is not about pastoral concern: it’s about using a group of people for base political purposes. Pure and simple.

It’s despicable. It’s as despicable as the church’s use of the Jews throughout history—the dirty, devious, child-killing Jews who infect pure, clean, honest, child-loving Christian cultures, in order to undermine and destroy.

The churches have rightly been resoundingly criticized for the anti-semitism that led them to be largely silent about the evils of Nazism in the first half of the 20^th century, all over Europe. There will come a time in which they are similarly resoundingly criticized for the homophobia that leads them to be largely silent about violence towards LGBT people at this point in history.

Is it any wonder that Europeans have increasingly refused to affiliate themselves with—or participate in the liturgical life of—the churches after World War II? And is it any surprise that, according to the latest Pew report, a third of American Catholics have now dropped their Catholic identity? Catholicism would be dying on the vine in the U.S. now, if immigrants weren’t filling the pews being vacated by millions of Catholic who have grown weary of the sound and fury that signifies nothing.

Sound and fury, as in a constant clerical bleating about abortion and homosexuality as though these are the sole moral issues demanding attention at this point in history—at this point, when the United States is in an end-game war in the Middle East, which we entered on the basis of government lies; at this point, when many of our citizens cannot afford healthcare; at this point, when the tiny minority of our citizens who own most of our resources have enriched themselves even more grossly in the last decade.

Sound and fury: I have grown weary of hearing my church talk about abortion and homosexuality as the most pressing ethical issues about which I should think, when the same church officials talking to me about those issues have not cleaned their own houses following revelations of widespread clerical abuse of minors. It is no secret that Catholic officials have routinely and systematically covered up this abuse for decades, have paid out millions of dollars given to them by unsuspecting layfolks to silence families that have experienced this abuse, have lied, destroyed evidence, and obstructed justice.

It is no secret that the cover-up goes right to the Vatican.

And yet we’re still expected to listen, when the pope and bishops shake their croziers at us and command us to vote solely on the basis of candidates’ positions re: gay marriage and abortion?

What’s clear to me is that these issues aren’t primarily about morality, in the real mind of church officials, in the mind that informs their political calculations. They are primarily about political utility. They’re useful galvanizing issues to call the faithful to stand in solidarity—in solidarity against, rather than for; in opposition to rather than in support of efforts to build a more humane culture. These are issues that are supposed to stop all questions, to cut off all critical discourse and critical thinking. Abortion = killing babies = unthinkable evil = stop asking pesky questions.

The intent interest the Vatican has recently taken in the political life of both Italy and Spain suggests this utilitarian political intent to me. In Italy, the Vatican has helped bring down the center-left government by colluding with some very disreputable political characters whose hands are far from clean. The ostensible concern of the church has been the previous government’s intent to sanction gay unions, and its liberal position on abortion.

In Spain, the Vatican and many Spanish bishops continue to try to herd the faithful to the polls to vote against the current Socialist government in the upcoming March 9 election. There again, the abortion and gay marriage issues loom large in Catholic rhetoric. As I reported in a previous posting, the Vatican and the bishops organized a mass pro-family demonstration at the end of last year to fire a warning shot against the current government. In both countries, an American-style politics of religious-right opposition is being tested, with the abortion and gay-marriage issues as the centerpoint of the opposition.

Never mind that the current abortion policy in Spain pre-existed the Socialist government, and that abortion does not have the political traction in Europe that it does in America. Gay marriage is a new phenomenon, however, and it appears that the mindset of the Vatican in using both issues as rallying points for right-wing Catholic opposition is to use the gay issue (which is to say, gay persons) as its primary wedge issue in the European context, with the abortion issue tagged onto that issue to galvanize rich American Catholics, who are helping to fund these right-wing movements in European Catholicism.

One suspects that the real heart of all this political action—the heart of darkness—is a growing sense on the part of the Vatican that it is losing control. To be specific, there is a growing sense that it is losing control of the political life of the West—a control that it held more securely in a period of Republican dominance of the White House.

There is a growing sense of alarm at the inability of the church to use abortion, in particular, as the rallying point for oppositional right-wing politics in the U.S. In the current American elections, the religious right is in total disarray. All the old shibboleths, all the well-tried rallying cries, are falling on deaf ears. Too many revelations in the past several years have shown Americans that the leaders of the religious right do not have their own moral houses in order.

Conservatives are not very good at generating new ideas. When pressed, they quite commonly resort to the same old same old, the same tried and true tactics that have worked in the past. When those fail, the reflex action of the right is then to remove the velvet glove and show the iron fist: to try to coerce where it cannot cajole.

This, I fear, is what the Vatican hopes to do now, both in Europe and in North America. There is a hardening of the lines everywhere in American Catholicism in particular, as the old oppositional politics fails to yield the same predictable results.

In my home diocese of Little Rock, the diocesan administrator Msgr. Hebert has just announced that Catholics may not participate in this year’s Race for the Cure, on the ground that this anti-breast cancer event supports Planned Parenthood (in some places, but not in Arkansas), that it supports stem-cell research (not true), and that it refuses to publicize that abortion causes breast cancer (not even worthy of comment). Never mind that Komen for the Cure donates lavishly to Catholic hospitals in Arkansas. On this, see today’s Arkansas Times blog at www.arktimes.com.

In a similar move, tiny Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina has recently announced that it has canceled healthcare benefits that provide for abortions, sterilization, and contraception for faculty and staff. Eight faculty members are threatening a lawsuit. The decision to cancel these provisions of their healthcare plan were made unilaterally by the college president Dr. Thierfelder and the abbot of the monastery that owns the college, Abbot Solari.

These gentlemen claim that consultation is not incumbent on them, when Catholic moral teaching is at stake. The faculty threatening suit reply that the majority of faculty and staff are not Catholic and should not be expected to abide by peculiar Catholic moral teachings. They also note that the college receives state and federal funding, and that in doing so, it is required not to engage in religious discrimination.

Evidently Belmont Abbey is intent on keeping this funding in place, while maintaining its right to cancel provisions for contraception in its healthcare plan, without consulting those affected by the decision. In Spain, similarly, the bishops have resoundingly rejected a suggestion of the Socialist government that, if the church wants to go on the warpath against the current government, it should forego the ample state support it now receives.

All of this is sound and fury. All of this signifies nothing. It represents a desperate attempt of the Catholic hierarchy to use these political wedge issues (and gay human beings) to deflect attention from its own egregious wrongdoing in the sexual abuse crisis. At the heart of the current political offensive emanating from the Vatican is the fear that if the political makeup of the American government changes significantly, the pope and bishops will not be granted the immunity from prosecution they enjoy under the current administration.

There is a tremendous fear that, if legal action forces dioceses to open their files, the ugly story of the church’s obstruction of justice, misuse of funds, and protection of pedophile priests will be made public. There is also an overriding concern not to permit disclosures of the central role that the Vatican has played in the obstruction of justice.

For further information on the Spanish situation, see the Clerical Whispers blog at www.clericalwhispers.blogspot.com. In a posting last week entitled “Church-vs.-State: Militant Catholics Try to Sway Spanish Elections," this outstanding Irish blog notes that militant ultra-right Catholic groups with strong ties to the Vatican have organized themselves and are trying to sway the upcoming elections, using abortion and gay marriage as their wedge issues.

That excellent blog also has several postings about the Belmont Abbey situation. Others by yours truly are to be found on the blog of the National Catholic Reporter at http://ncrcafe.org/node/944. Note there the collusion of church officials with well-heeled right-wing political groups in the U.S. The same collusion is evident in the political activities of the church in Spain and Italy. The interest of these groups in the Spanish election is evident, for instance, in a recent editorial of the Wall Street Journal attacking the Spanish government: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120354690556281099.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.

If it’s not ultimately about money, why else would Wall Street be taking an interest in this election (and implicitly supporting the Vatican-endorsed attempt of ultra-right Catholic groups to topple the Spanish government)?

It’s about money. Open those files re: clerical abuse, and the money will stop pouring in. The faithful are continuing to give only because they remain uninformed about the full parameters of the abuse story.

This is the church at its worst: protecting clerical sexual abusers, meddling in the political life of nations trying to build healthy pluralistic societies that respect the civil liberty and full humanity of all citizens. This is the church at its worst, caring more about money, power, and privilege than human beings, particularly human beings experiencing oppression.

This the church at its worst, bashing gay human beings to score political points, to deflect attention from its leaders’ dirty secrets.

Is it any wonder that a third of American Catholics are now walking away, shaking their heads, shaking the dust from their feet? And will this trend diminish, in the next generation, if the hierarchy remains obdurate?

And as a final footnote, I wonder as I think through all these issues why an African-American educational leader I know and once respected, a woman who heads a church-based university and who professes support for gay persons, is willing to dirty her hands by playing political games with people who represent such malice to the LGBT community. This is a question I ponder repeatedly these days, as the campaign of Mr. Obama lifts to national attention questions about homophobia in the black community.

Do people who rise to positions of power and influence inevitably sell out? Does power truly always corrupt? And does it corrupt the more absolutely, the more absolute its claims become? Do people with such power inevitably decide that it really is, in the final analysis, all about the money?

I hope that if Mr. Obama is elected, we will not find that to be the case with him. We desperately need the change about which he keeps talking, if we are to safeguard a future worth living for the next generation.

Compendium of Recent Catholic Anti-Gay Initiatives

The following chronicle captures significant events in what commentators are seeing as an unprecedented attempt of the Catholic church to influence government policies regarding LGBT persons as 2008 begins. The Vatican’s direct intervention in many of these instances represents a new development in how the Catholic church relates to the political sphere (at least from a 20^th-century perspective)—an attempt to control, rather than dialogue. At the very center of this renewed political activism on the part of the Catholic church is a persistent attempt to undermine initiatives to afford equal rights to gay and lesbian citizens of various nations.

I am offering this chronicle to assist anyone tracking these developments to see them as a single narrative, rather than disparate strands. This is a selective list. I am not even touching on some similar controversies or initiatives in the Catholic nations of the former Eastern bloc, where the church has recently become similarly belligerent.

This is a narrative that should concern LGBT persons and their allies everywhere, as well as anyone interested in safeguarding human rights and preventing violence.

30 Dec. 2007: The tenor for Vatican involvement in politics affecting the lives of LGBT people was set as 2007 ended. On 30 December, when Pope Benedict addressed the faithful in St. Peter’s Square for the noon Angelus on the feast of the Holy Family, he was simultaneously beamed to a large “pro-family” demonstration in Madrid organized by the Spanish bishops.

The demonstration, spearheaded by Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela of Madrid, was well-organized and carefully orchestrated. The European media reported that busloads were brought from all over Spain and Portugal. Reports on European websites noted that demonstrators also came from France, Germany, and Austria. Though the Madrid police reported the numbers of demonstrators at 150,000 to 200,000, several right-wing Catholic websites had the figure as high as 2 million.

Huge television screens were set up on which Benedict addressed the crowd in Spanish. Benedict told the crowd that Catholics must resolutely hold to the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman for life. At this comment, news reports say, the crowd roared approval. Rouco Varela informed the faithful gathered for this political rally that Spain's ordinance permitting gay marriage violates the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. Another speaker at the mass demonstration, Archbishop Agustin García-Gasco of Valencia, said that the current Spanish government’s policies re: family "effect the dissolution of democracy."

The Secretary of Spain's governing party, José Blanco, responded by describing the Madrid rally as an overt political action on the part of some Spanish Cardinals, designed to challenge the Socialist party in Spain's upcoming elections by signaling how "authentic" Catholics will cast their vote.

Blanco noted that the comments of the two Archbishops appealed to "false realities and data" (that is, they distorted the truth). He noted that, in addition to legalizing gay marriage, the current Spanish government has implemented a system of financial support for all couples who have babies. The facts, in other words, support the conclusion that this government which has accorded civil rights to gays is pro- rather than anti-family.

Blanco also zeroed in on Rouco Varela's astonishing claim that acceptance of gay marriage contradicts the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. Blanco asked Rouco Varela to corroborate the claim. To my knowledge, the Cardinal has not yet done so.

Another commentator, Gaspar Llamazares, Coordinator General of Spain's Izquierda Unida party, argued that the mass demonstration harmed the church, since it allowed the extreme conservative wing of the Spanish church to represent itself as the voice of Spanish Catholicism. Polls indicate that the large majority of Catholics in Spain favor gay marriage.

Following the rally, the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, reiterated that gay marriage is supported by the "immense majority" of the Spanish people, adding that in Spain, everyone has rights. Following the Madrid demonstration, 150 grass-roots Catholic communities in Spain issued a statement accusing the bishops who orchestrated the event of ignoring the will of the vast majority of Spanish Catholics, who are strongly committed to human rights for all.

Both in the past year and recently, several Spanish bishops have sought to portray homosexuality as either pedophilia or mental illness. In 2007, Bishop Bernardo Álvarez of Tenerife equated homosexuality with pedophilia, a statement for which the Spanish Federation of Lesbians, Gays Transsexuals, and Bisexuals (FELGTB) has filed suit against Álvarez.

In January, 2008, Bishop Rafael Palmero of Orihuela-Alicante stated to the Valencia newspaper Levante, "Biology says that normally it's an illness. What happens is that in some case there might be a concrete situation that has another explanation and such, but normally no one wants to be a homosexual." Palermo added that "same sex marriage" is unnatural and wrong.

More information on these events is in postings I made on 3 Jan. and 10 Jan. to the National Catholic Reporter’s thread, “The Intrinsic Disorder Question Revisited (Again)” at http://ncrcafe.org/node/1337.

As the preceding account indicates, the Vatican and other senior Catholic officials appear to have made a deliberate decision, as the new year begins, to mount a strong attack on gay marriage (and gay rights in general). At its level of highest official leadership, the Catholic church seems intent on making the gay issue a central political-religious issue for this year.

1 Jan. 2008: On new year's day, Pope Benedict fulfilled a promise he made in mid-December, when he first issued the text of his new year's address, to make the so-called attack on the Christian model of the family the centerpiece of his new year's statement. In it, Benedict declares that "everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and woman ... constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace." Gay unions threaten world peace…. (again, for my take on this statement, see my 3 Jan. posting at NCR http://ncrcafe.org/node/1337).

7 Jan. 2008: As the Jesuits gathered in Rome to elect a new Father General, Cardinal Franc Rodé, head of the Vatican congregation that oversees religious communities, gave a homily at their opening Mass of the General Congregation. In the homily, he gave the Jesuits a dressing down that some commentators have found rather harsh: he spoke of his “sadness and anxiety” about aspects of Jesuit life today, and said, “I see a growing distancing from the hierarchy.” That these remarks had, in part, an anti-gay subtext became apparent in a letter Pope Benedict sent the Jesuits on 10 Jan.

10 Jan. 2008: Pope Benedict sent a message to the Jesuit General Congregation. The letter was made public on January 18. It calls on the Jesuits to renew their fidelity to the papacy. In particular, it addresses the Jesuits' position regarding certain "neuralgic points" in the dialogue between the church and contemporary culture. These include "the pastoral care of homosexual persons." (For my take, see a posting I made on 25 Jan. at NCR’s intrinsic disorder thread, http://ncrcafe.org/node/1337).

17 Jan. 2008: Italian Justice Minister Clemente Mastella resigned after he and his wife were implicated in a cash-for-favors scheme. According to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, before doing so, Mastella consulted with Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian bishops' conference. It was foreseen that Mastella’s resignation would bring down the center-left coalition government of Romano Prodi. Previously, Mastella had stated that his party would continue to support the Prodi government. However, at the time of his resignation, Mastella reneged on this promise and denounced Prodi. La Stampa reported that the Vatican had leaned on Mastella to change his mind in order to bring down Prodi, stating, “Prodi’s government dared to challenge the ecclesiastical hierarchy for the second time and this time it has had its hands burned.” Among the most neuralgic issues in the dealings of the Italian government with the Vatican is gay marriage. Last year the publication The Trumpet noted that the Vatican had been seeking to force Prodi to toe its line when it came to same-sex unions.

20 Jan. 2008: another mass demonstration was organized at a Sunday Angelus gathering in Rome, this time to show solidarity with the Pope, who has been portrayed as embattled following protests preceding a lecture he was scheduled to give at Rome’s La Sapienza Univeristy. Following the 20 Jan. demonostration, on 23 Jan., Christoph Prantner wrote in the Standard (Vienna) that European politics were being “retheologized” through Vatican intervention. Prantner interpreted papal involvement in the political life of Spain and Italy as an attempt to stage "a politicized Reconquista."

In a 21 Jan. article, the German paper Die Welt characterized the 10 Jan. Angelus demonstration as the "largest demonstration of solidarity with the Papacy since the Middle Ages." The following day, John Hooper of the English paper The Guardian recounted how the “long arm of the Vatican” had been reaching into current Italian politics. (For more on these stories, see my postings at a thread of the National Catholic Reporter café, http://ncrcafe.org/node/1542, 17 Jan. and 25 Jan.)

22 Jan. 2008: Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, whom Clement Mastella had consulted before he resigned, bringing down the Prodi government, gave an interview to Osservatore Romano. In it, he mounted a head-on attack against the Prodi government and called for Catholics to enter the public square courageously and promote "non-negotiable values" there. The phrase “non-negotiable values” echoes a statement made by Pope Benedict on 13 March 2007, in which he says that Catholics must not vote for laws that contradict the Catholic position issues where “non-negotiable values” are at stake. The statement specifically draws attention to gay marriage as such an issue.

23 Jan. 2008: Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver published an article in the diocesan newspaper the Register. In it, he attacks a bill before the Colorado General Assembly which, as he described it, would restrict the ability of charities sponsored by religious groups to hire and fire personnel on the basis of religious beliefs. Specifically, if passed, the bill will bar charitable agencies that receive state funding from discriminating on the basis of religion in personnel policies.

Though media treatment of this story (other than articles by National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen) has ignored the fact, Chaput’s resistance to the bill is fueled by resistance to gay rights. In April 2006, the Boston diocese shut down the adoption services of its Catholic Charities program after it failed to win an exemption from a state law that required adoption agencies receiving public funding to provide services to same-sex couples. A majority of board members of this chapter of Catholic Charities resigned in protest against the church’s refusal to accord equal rights to gay couples.

Around the same time, the Archdiocese of San Francisco announced that it was re-thinking its involvement in a similar adoption program. In February 2007, the English government announced that adoption agencies refusing to serve gay couples would not receive government support, resulting in the loss of over $9 million annually to Catholic charities in England.

24 Jan. 2008: Archbishop Paul-Josef Cordes, President of the Vatican’s main charitable office “Cor Unum,” called for clearer provisions in the Code of Canon Law to underscore the duty and authority of bishops to defend the Catholic identity of church-run charitable agencies. This clearly reflects the Catholic Charities controversy discussed above.

On the same day, Romano Prodi resigned. As he did so, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins stated, “What has happened is a result of a lack of dialogue with Catholics, which has penalized Catholic values in particular. Without this dialogue, the country cannot go forward.”

28 Jan 2008: The homophobic subtext of the Vatican attack on the Italian government became explicit when the news media noted that Senator Stefano Cusumano of the Christian Democratic Udeur Party, to which Clemente Mastella belongs, had been spat upon in the Italian Parliament and called a “faggot,” “a dirty queen,” and a “traitor” after he broke ranks with his small Catholic-oriented party and announced he would vote to defend Italian Premier Romano Prodi against a resolution aimed at bringing down his center-left government. (For more on the story, see my 1 Feb. comments on NCR’s thread at http://ncrcafe.org/node/1337).

Jan. 30: the Spanish Bishops’ Conference announced that Spanish voters should not back parties that support gay marriage or other social reforms on which the church frowns. Spain will go to the polls in March—an upcoming event that clearly has motivated much of the church’s attempt to put pressure on the existing government, which has permitted gay marriage.

2 Feb. 2008: Cardinal Franc Rodé published his 7 Jan. remarks critical of the Jesuits in L’Avvenire, reiterating his concerns that the Jesuits display fidelity to the Vatican.

On the same day, the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See, Francisco Vazquez, met with a Vatican official to express "perplexity and surprise" over the 1 Feb. Spanish bishops’ statement. In announcing this in Cordoba, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said that the church hierarchy in Spain is reverting to a "fundamentalist and neo-conservative" position, and that the church does not represent a majority of Spanish Catholics. Moratinos accused the bishops of "using terrorism politically to divide all Spaniards."