Posted in April, 2008
There was a major push this past Lent for people to go to confession, now called the milder, “Sacrament of Reconciliation.” I’m not sure how many people followed through on this appeal, since the concepts of sin and priestly authority to forgive it have lost so much credibility in the last four decades, especially from the sex abuse crisis of the 90s, and the uncovering of the hypocrisy of so many influential religious figures.
In a survey released on April 13th by CARA, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, only 2% of Catholics said they participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation once a month or more; and 45% say they never make a sacramental confession. 62% of Catholics agree “somewhat” or “strongly” with the statement, “I can be a good Catholic without celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation at least once a year.”
One of the reasons I hesitated in going to confession is that I wondered if the promotion of this sacrament now was primarily a push to restore power and authority to priests. The other is that I was unsure of the sacrament itself–surely it can’t be the same recital of mortal and venial sins we did as kids. It had to be deeper, more adult–an event, a circumstance of life, belief or time we kept silent in the face of abuse or injustice that makes us feel alone and unloved, or ashamed, or sad or angry. But how to approach this reconciliation was never articulated.
If people think they have to confess using birth control, or getting a divorce and remarrying, or making love with a member of their own sex within a commited relationship or without; then the light on the confessional door will remain off. People are not going to give up loving relationships or sex. These two things are the barriers for many Catholics to enter a confessional–because they cannot reconcile themselves to living without love, and human warmth and intimacy.
Bishop George Lucas of Springfield, Illinois authored a pastoral letter on the sacrament of reconciliation that I found to be gentle and sincere. I appreciated him touching directly on the the hurts and estrangement that sex abuse victims, women who have had abortions, divorced and remarried people, women who feel barred from priestly ministry, and what gay and lesbian Catholics, hear and feel from their church.
His is not a positive message of hope by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a hand of welcome. We don’t have to accept what he has to say as truth, or strive for change less, but I believe when a hand is extended in a genuine wish for contact, we should take the risk and extend ours, too. 
The entire pastoral letter is worth reading. His specific comments on gay and lesbian Catholics follow:
“Homosexual persons may feel that there is no place for them in the Catholic Church. Church teaching about homosexual orientation and practices may seem harsh, particularly as voices in modern culture wrongly portray those teachings as designed to deprive persons of their rights. I want any homosexual person to know that the Catholic Church supports your human dignity, wants to accept you as a full member and offers you the same share in the life of God’s grace enjoyed by all the baptised.”
“It is my responsbility to affirm the teaching of Jesus that calls each of us to live chastely, according to our state in life. The call to chaste living is challenging for many in our culture. It can be a particular challenge for persons with a homosexual orientation who cannot look forward to a chaste sexual partnership within the context of married life.”
“This challenge is not experienced only within the Catholic community. We see other Christian communities suffering fracture because of the struggle to be true to Gospel teaching, to preserve the traditional teaching of God’s design for marriage and to respect the true human rights of all. In the face of these challenges, I offer my prayful acceptance and support to homosexual persons who wish to live as full members of the church. I offer my encouragment as well to count on the grace of God to sustain your desire to come to full stature in Christ.”
Young Women & Catholicism is a blog by two young Catholic women at Harvard Divinity School “who think women our age (18-35) have something important to say about Catholicism.”
“Our hope is that women from a range of perspectives and backgrounds will grapple with questions about Catholic identity in their writing–growing up Catholic, racial and ethnic identity intertwined with Catholic identity, Catholic relationship with the body, Catholic feminism, Catholic activism, coming out in Catholicism, Catholic-inspired art.”
I hope their “anthology of memoirs” ultimately helps them to build a good, strong network of future theologians, writers, activists, parish leaders; and maybe even someday, women priests.
It isn’t necessary for members of this group to be friends or like everyone the same, but treat each other as respected colleagues, as individual women who are bringing their own unique contribution to Catholic faith, thought and practice to the world.
I also pray that unlike some Catholic womens’ groups I have been involved with, the members can challenge one another: hold differing opinions, speak passionately, and be forgiven for a heated word or indiscretion. In other words, welcome and value diversity.
“From today on, my cathedral will be the country,” Fernando Lugo declared when he resigned from the priesthood in December 2006. The Vatican, irritated by the public gesture, says Lugo remains a priest and is barred by canon law from seeking public office.
But this former bishop ran for the office of president of Paraguay. And won. His slogan: “Lugo has heart.” His personal warmth and religious background stirred hope in many Paraguayans seeking change.
The election last Sunday was only the 4th time that Paraguayans have gone to the polls to elect a president since the fall of the dictator Alfredo Stroessner in 1989. Stroessner ruled Paraguay, a country of seven million people, for almost 35 years, leaving a legacy of corruption and one of the worst human rights records in the hemisphere.
The Colorado Party, which supported Stroessner and ran a woman candidate against Lugo, had been in power longer than any other political party in the world - almost 60 years.
The 56-year-old Lugo has never held elective office, but he comes from a middle-class family of political activists. Three of his brothers were tortured during the Stroessner dictatorship for being political activists.
Supporters say Lugo radiates a priest-like sense of honesty. He vows to fight corruption, impose long-delayed agrarian reform to benefit the landless and renegotiate hydroelectric deals with neighboring Brazil and Argentina to fund education and other neglected social needs.
Lugo refused to be characterized as a leftist or anything other than a deeply religious crusader who fights for the little guy. He takes inspiration from liberation theology, a movement championing the downtrodden but assailed by the Vatican for Marxist influences.
“I have taken a preferential option for the poor, and many interpret that as meaning I am a leftist,” Lugo said. “But I believe I am in the center. My beliefs are against confrontation and violence.”
Lugo did stints as a schoolteacher and missionary before becoming a rural bishop known for both his political activism and conciliatory skills. He says he opted to seek office after more than 100,000 people signed a petition urging him to run. On the campaign trail, he still sports his priestly sandals.
Lugo says he remains a devout Catholic who takes Communion each Sunday and finds succor in his faith. “The church has shown me how the poor live in this country. That inspires me to work on behalf of this class that is so demeaned, so abandoned, so forgotten.”
I’m happy for Paraguay, but I wish he was running for president in the U.S. He has the right stuff - priorities and humanity.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy hasn’t acted on the nomination of Federal District Judge Robert Conrad of Charlotte, NC, to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. President Bush nominated Conrad for the position on July 17, 2007. 
In 1999, when Conrad was a prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Western North Carolina, he went after a group of nuns who opposed the death penalty. In a letter to the editor printed in the Catholic Dossier, he referred to Sister Helen Prejean as a “church-hating nun” and said her book was merely “liberal drivel.”
Conrad attacked Planned Parenthood in a Charlotte Observer Op-Ed titled “Planned Parenthood: A Radical, Pro-Abortion Fringe Group.” In the article he claimed “Planned Parenthood knowingly kills unborn babies, not fetuses, as a method of ‘post-conception’ contraception, and to them that’s OK.”
“His statements make me wonder,” Leahy said, “whether any person going before Judge Conrad in a case involving reproductive rights, or indeed any issues relating to personal privacy, will feel their arguments have been fairly heard.”
Sen. Leahy and Judge Conrad are both Catholic.
Dan Barry is a reporter for the NY Times. His regular columns included “About New York” and “This Land.” His book, Pull Me Up, is a memoir of growing up an an Irish-American family in Long Island, and his struggle as an adult with cancer.
Barry wrote a wonderful article for the Times that appeared just before Pope Benedict’s visit. “The View from My Pew” beautifully articulates what many American Catholics feel about their faith and themselves. I especially loved his description of himself as “the classic stumbling, grumbling, trying-to-sort-it-all-out American Catholic.”
Sister Jeannine Gramick of New Ways Ministry once told me the story about a chance meeting with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during a flight to Germany. He had an empty seat next to his, and Sr. Jeannine, ever bold and resourceful, seized the opportunity and sat down next to him. She introduced herself, and he said with a smile and twinkle in his eye, “Oh, sister, I have known you for 20 years.” “I’m sure he was referring,” Jeannine said, “to the length of time my file in the Vatican had been accumulating.”
Jeannine was surprised by the man. He was gracious and gentle-spoken, and listened to whay she had to say. He asked questions. But Jeannine felt as she was speaking to him that Cardinal Ratzinger had already made up his mind about lesbian and gay Catholics and ministry to us. He wasn’t open to change about what he believed to be true and necessary.
In an April 17, 2008 article in Newsday, Sr. Jeannine told senior editor Carol Eisenberg that her impression of Pope Benedict is that “he comes from a worldview that sees truth as fixed and unchanging, and nothing you can say or do will change that truth.”
“The world that he and other members of the Vatican most fear is change. They cannot accept a dynamic worldview that sees truth as something we search for and something the Spirit is constantly revealing to us if we would just open our hearts and minds.”
Cardinal Ratzinger as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith–the Vatican’s chief theological enforcer–had some pretty fixed ideas on how to handle dissent and alternative ways of thinking. He cracked down.
Much of the debate on homosexuality and women’s ordination became “secular” because discussion and theological exploration and exchange wasn’t permitted in church venues. It’s ironic the Vatican decries a secularization it helped to create!
The discussion of gay and lesbian issues in the Church has always been faith-based. Some Catholics hear “Church teaching” as the starting and ending point of this topic. Other groups of Catholics focus more on Jesus’ example of challenge to religious authorities.
I guess if I had five minutes with Pope Benedict, I would ask him–as a scholar–does he believe in the limit of knowledge? What is the relationship between faith and knowledge? And then, with my minute or two left, I would ask him–as a Catholic–does he believe the Holy Spirit works in the mystery of the human heart?
William F. Buckley, Jr., founder of National Review magazine, and a driving force in the rise of conservative politics in the post-war era, had his memorial service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on April 4th. The recessional piece, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, was also the theme for “Firing Line,” Buckley’s long-running syndicated television show. All 2,200 seats in St. Patrick’s were filled. His memorial, announced weeks in advance, was open to the public.
Politically, Buckley described himself as a “conservative controversialist.” But unlike some of his right-wing heirs, he did not interrupt his political opponents. Rather, he gave them time to articulate their positions during his debates. And Buckley’s provocative remarks were mostly ameliorated by humor, elegant diction, and a mischevious smile.
During one memorable encounter on ABC with Gore Vidal, however, Buckley lost his temper - responding with a homophobic slur and threatening to sock Vidal in the face when the author called him a “cryto-Nazi.”
The two never made up, and Vidal kept throwing darts at Buckley and his politics.
“Granted, Buckley’s brand of conservatism, especially in the early years, had its ugly side,” Hendrik Hertzberg wrote recently for the New Yorker. “He embraced (Sen. Joseph) McCarthy and McCarthyism. He conflated liberalism and communism. He dismissed the civil rights movement….But he did his best to purge the right of anti-Semitism, overt racism, xenophobia, philistinism and anti-intellectualism.”
Here’s my take: I liked Bill Buckley the way I liked John Cardinal O’Connor. I liked them for their character, and the fact they were multi-dimensional human beings with a sense of humor. What I also appreciated about them was their graciousness. They spoke with irony (how could they not…they were Irish), but without any meanness.
There is a quality of meanness in many conservative Catholic bloggers that is a big turn-off. If you express a differing opinion from the Magisterium and/or Republican Party, you get bulls-eye’d–not engaged as a fellow human being. Particularly spiteful posts are often accompanied by a vultures’ chorus of “Blessed Mother protect us” type of sentiments, or heart-felt wishes the Pope will whack the hell of whatever miscreant(s) are getting kicked. Folks, what happened to the Gospel?
For the other side, offer an opinion that can be perceived as one millimeter over the line of political-correctness, and you will find yourself frozen in intellectual and social Siberia. Forever. Folks, the mind and the spirit need to be free to roam. Creative solutions don’t come from lockstep views.
What happened to just having a discussion? You can be passionate; you can get heated, but is it necessary to have contempt when you disagree?
Buckley spoke in sentences, not platitudes. He is a good role model for every Catholic that takes up the pen, and values a good “turn of the phrase.”
The upcoming papal visit will generate a lot of press coverage by TV, radio, newspapers and the internet. New Ways Ministry hopes to make a good use of this opportunity to help the pope and others in our church hear the voices of those who support lesbian/gay inclusion and equality.
On April 10, 2008, New Ways will host a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC featuring four prominent lesbian and gay Catholics speaking about their lives, loves and hopes for the Church.
Entitled “A Few Minutes with the Pope: Lesbian/Gay Catholics Speak About Their Church,” the press conference will feature four leaders in the worlds of social service, literature, politics and journalism.
Teresa DeCrescenzo, Executive Director of Gay Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS), Los Angeles; Gregory Maguire, author of more than a dozen novels, most notably Wicked, which was the basis of the Tony-award winning Broadway musical; Heather Mizeur, Delegate representing the 20th District in Maryland and a leader in the debate about legalizing same-sex marriage; and Richard Rodriguez, social and cultural commentator, author, and Peabody-award winning contributor to PBS’ News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
