Catholic Scholars Ask About Silence of Liberal Catholics re: LGBTQ Issues as They Praise Amoris Laetitia, While Vatican Official Attacks LGBTQ Community

About a month ago, I summed up my response to so-called liberal or progressive Catholics who praise the recent papal document on the family, Amoris Laetitia, despite its ugly trajectory of combined silence and condemnation as it speaks of LGBTQ human beings, as follows: 

Ivone Gebara and Krzysztof Charamsa on Amoris Laetitia: "Ideological Propaganda of the 'Joy' of Love Which Is Heterosexual Only, and Which Insensitively Excludes All Others, Who Should Not Exist"

Two more very valuable pieces of commentary about the papal exhortation on the family Amoris Laetitia that I'd like to recommend to you this morning:

U.S. Bishops Fire Tony Spence of Catholic News Service for Tweeting Criticism of Hate Legislation in North Carolina and Georgia Targeting Queer Community: Twitter Reacts

Attacks on .@TonySpence of .@CatholicNewsSvc by conservative bloggers "too much for .@USCCB " Spences asked to quit https://t.co/QTPcQZN7lS

— Dennis Coday (@dcoday) April 14, 2016

Keeping the Conversation about Amoris Laetitia Real: "There Are Absolutely No Grounds for Considering Homosexual Unions to Be in Any Way Similar or Even Remotely Analogous to God’s Plan for Mar­riage and Family"

Father Francis X. Clooney looks at Pope Francis's statement in Amoris Laetitia (§251) that there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family, and confesses himself perplexed:

Michael Boyle on North Carolina Bishops' Praise of Anti-LGBTQ Hate Law and Who Really Represents Christianity Adequately Today (and the Connection to Amoris Laetitia)

This is not unrelated to the discussion of Amoris Laetitia that I began in my first two postings this morning: I'd like to recommend to you as a companion piece to that discussion a posting Michael Boyle made yesterday at his Sound of Sheer Silence blog. Michael's responding to the David Gushee essay about which I blogged earlier in the week.

Amoris Laetitia: No Good News for LGBTQ People or Women — The Commentary Begins

Good news! The definition of mercy remains securely in the hands of heterosexual (and heterosexual-posturing) men this morning. God's in His heaven and all is right with the world!

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "Welcome to the Year of Mercy. You're Fired"

Father Peter Daly, pastor of  St. John Vianney parish in Prince Frederick, Maryland, writing in National Catholic Reporter yesterday:

North Carolina Catholic Bishops Peter Jugis and Michael Burbidge Issue Warm Thank You to North Carolina Legislators for Bill Attacking LGBTQ People

On Holy Saturday, I wrote that Steve and I had chosen to celebrate Easter with Christian communities that actually welcome us and invite us to participate in their liturgical life — unlike our "family" church, the Catholic church. I noted the draconian law Republicans in the state of North Carolina had recently passed to attack queer citizens of that state, especially transgender ones, and then I stated:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: LGBTQ Human Beings, "the Church Doesn't Owe You Understanding or Mercy, but Recognition"

Basque Franciscan theologian Jose Arregi tells LGBTQ human beings (his statement in Spanish is at the ATRIO site, and has been translated into English by Rebel Girl at Iglesia Descalza),

As Easter Nears, I'm Pondering Kaya Oakes's Question, "Is the Catholic Church in America Getting Worse for LGBTQ People and Women?" (My Answer: Yes)

An open thread for Holy Week: is the Catholic church in America getting worse for LGBTQ people and women? https://t.co/q0KR9LKpfU

— kaya oakes (@kayaoakes) March 24, 2016

I've replied to Kaya Oakes's tweet (and Facebook posting) above. Here's my reply: Yes.

Kaya Oakes on Why Americans May Not Get Pope Francis's Insistence on Mercy: "Racism, Homophobia, Violence"

What Americans should give up during #Lent: racism, homophobia, violence. Why we fail at mercy, by me. @RDispatches https://t.co/9o8x3rhrFi

— kaya oakes (@kayaoakes) February 8, 2016

Robert Mickens on Bread, Circuses, and Dressed-Up Enbalmed Corpses for the Year of Mercy (and John Allen's Counter-Analysis)

Robert Mickens on bread and circuses (and dressed-up enbalmed corpses) for the Year of Mercy:

Footnote to Previous Posting re: Jamie Manson's New NCR Article: Knives Are Out in NCR Thread Full of Pseudo-Charity and Pretend-Objectivity

A footnote to what I published earlier today about Jamie Manson's powerful statement at NCR noting that it's justice that LGBT Catholics need, not mercy. I've just posted the following observations to my set of friends on Facebook:

Quote for Day: "LGBTQ Persons Do Not Need Mercy from the Church. We Need Justice"

In a powerful statement at National Catholic Reporter today, Jamie Manson notes that many Catholics would like to hope that the door of mercy they think Pope Francis is opening in the church has a "connecting corridor" to a door of justice for LGBT people. She reports that many of her well-meaning heterosexual friends encourage her to hope that Francis's appeal to mercy will some way, somehow, lead to a decision on the part of the Catholic church to treat LGBT human beings with justice, as well — though (as she also points out) the pope was utterly silent on his recent trip to Africa about draconian laws targeting LGBT people in some African nations. And as she also points out, LGBT people are still being ceaselessly fired by Catholic institutions.

National Catholic Reporter Editorializes: "How Will We As a Church Live with Our Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Brothers and Sisters?"

Let the Church always be a place of mercy and hope, where everyone is welcomed, loved and forgiven.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) June 16, 2013

National Catholic Reporter names Catholic couple Greg Bourke and Michael DeLeon of Louisville, lead plaintiffs in the Obergefell case, persons of the year. NCR writes, 

Catholic Committee of Appalachia Releases People's Pastoral Including LGBT Voices: "Churches That Condemn Same-Sex Relationships End Up Attacking the Very Personhood of Gay and Lesbian People"

Today, the Catholic Committee of Appalachia released its "People's Pastoral" (pdf file) entitled "The Telling Takes Us Home; Taking Our Place in the Stories that Shape Us." The pastoral document is being released on the 40th anniversary of the 1975 pastoral letter "This Land Is Home to Me." I'm grateful to my friend-colleague Michael J. Iafrate, who chaired the board of the committee producing the pastoral, and who sent me the press release the committee sent out as it released the pastoral statement. Jeanne Kirkhope was coordinator of the pastoral-writing process.

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: An Eye-Opening Dialogue About Pope's Year of Mercy and Catholic Gay-Bashing

One Purgatrix Ineptiae, responding* to Joshua McElwee's article at National Catholic Reporter noting that Pope Francis has opened a Jubilee year calling for a church that puts mercy before judgment:

The Rest of the Story at Belmont Abbey College: Aftermath to the Destruction of Two Careers (Claims That the College's Catholicity Had Waned, Reassertion of Direct Monastic Control)

And then down the road, this happened at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina after that college and the monastery that owns it shattered my vocation as a Catholic theologian:

More of My Story: 1993 Letter That "Went Everywhere," According to Abbot Who Accused Me of Assaulting Him by Telling My Story — A Sequel

Mary Oliver, “The Chance to Love Everything,” in Dream Work (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), p. 9. 

In the past three days, I've posted (in three installments — here, here, and here) a letter I sent to friends and colleagues in September 1993, explaining why I had resigned my position at Belmont Abbey College after I was given a one-year terminal contract for which the college officials refused to provide a reason. This is a sequel to that letter I sent to the same friends and colleagues in February 1994 — an update to the September letter:

More of My Story: 1993 Letter That "Went Everywhere," According to Abbot Who Accused Me of Assaulting Him by Telling My Story (3)

Mary Oliver, “The Chance to Love Everything,” in Dream Work (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), p. 9. 

This is the third and final installment of a document I've now shared in my two previous postings. For parts one and two of the document, please click here and here. As those two postings explain, this is a letter that I sent on 29 September 1993 to friends and colleagues in many places, telling them that I had resigned my position at Belmont Abbey college after I had received a one-year terminal contract that the college's officials refused to explain.