Manila Archbishop Caudencio Cardinal Rosales scolded members of one parish for allowing gay men dressed as female saints and queens to participate in the Santacruzan processional.
He added the incident prompted him to issue a letter saying that any parish or chapel that will use gays in a procession honoring the Virgin Mary will not be allowed to have Mass.
The Philippines observes the Flores de Mayo festival every May. The highlight of the celebration is the Santacruzan, a procession that features beautifully dressed young women portraying queens and women religious figures from the past.
Santacruzan recalls the search for the Holy Cross by Queen Helena and her newly converted son Emperor Constantine the Great. They found it in Jerusalem and brought it to Rome to joyous thanksgiving.
“We should keep sacred what is sacred,” Cardinal Rosales said as he admonished parishes now to allow gay men to play Saint Helena and other female roles traditionally given to local beauty queens.
“The procession is religious. (But) what the parishes do is organize a parade. That’s an insult to the Blessed Mother. Instead of pious young women, gay men are paraded, which makes (the procession) ridiculous,” he added.
Danton Remoto, a professor at Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University, and head of the LGBT rights group, Ang Ladlad, said many gay participants were low-income people who had spent for expensive gowns they would wear in the procession “out of the goodness and love in their hearts for the Virgin Mary.”
Remoto went on to say “In the eyes of God, everyone is equal. Some of these gay men have saved a lot of money for their gowns and they were doing it because they believed in the Virgin Mary. They need understanding, not condemnation.” “There is really no intention to malign the Catholic Church,” he added.
Cardinal Rosales dismissed the charges of discrimination against individuals with “homosexual inclinations.” “I’m not angry at gay men. But, I am against what they’re actually doing.”
What’s that, I wonder? Having sex with each other, or dressing up as the Virgin Mary and St. Helena and parading down the main street? The Cardinal wasn’t specific about what he was against.
I have mixed feelings about cross-dressing gay men participating in the procession:
Can’t we have religious events in which the leading female roles are limited to women? It seems to me to be arrogant and disrespectful for these men to assume women should step aside for them to participate–especially if it is to turn a religious procession into a drag show.
However, I also feel that if these men are compelled by faith to witness to the roles these female figures played in their religion, then I feel they should be welcomed to participate as such.
The Most Rev. Geoffrey James Robinson, former Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Australia, will be making a stop near my home during his upcoming book tour. I want to go meet him, buy the book, shake his hand and thank him. I also want to be in the presence of someone whose faith is so important–so pure and strong–that they will face anything to proclaim it. To me, that will be the closest I’ll probably ever get to someone who is like the old-time saints.
Bishop Robinson headed the Australian bishops’ committee that developed guidelines and procedures for dealing with clergy sex abuse. He retired in 2004 when, he said, the burden of his “profound reservations” about the church he loved became too strong to be ignored. Actually, what he found, and the response of the church to the sex abuse crisis, made him sick.
In November 2007 he emerged from retirement to promote his new book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus Christ,” and to demand a better church.
Robinson says the church–especially the hierarchy in Rome–must tackle the twin problems of sex abuse and power.
In the book, he writes that the church has not confronted the sex abuse crisis; it’s simply managing it. He blames the late John Paul II, in particular, for failing to exercise the leadership demanded by the sex abuse crisis, allowing it instead to ravage the church.
He criticizes the church’s teaching on sex and sexuality, which are based on offences against God, as outmoded and inadequate. He suggests a sexuality morality based on human relationships.
Bishop Robinson told the National Catholic Reporter that he sees a fractured church with a major division between the “proclaimers of certainties and the seekers after truth,” with the proclaimers of certainties seeming to be in the favored position.
“This has left many people feeling a sense of alienation, of being marginalized, of no longer quite belonging to the church that had given them much of their sense of belonging, meaning and direction throughout their lives.”
“In writing the book I became aware that I was writing a book for these people, that I was trying to tell them that there is a church for them and that it is fully in accord with the mind of Jesus. I was telling them that there are basic certainties, but there is also abundant room for search, for taking personal responsibility and growing through that process to become all we are capable of being, all God wants us to be.”
“I became aware that it was important for many that there should be a bishop saying these things. At moments I felt that the needs of these many people were so great that it is perhaps true that I have never been more of a shepherd. I have never been more justified in carrying around a pastoral staff than I have in this.”
25 years before he was named bishop of Belleville in southern Illinois, Fr. Edward K. Braxton wrote a book titled The Wisdom Community: A Framework and a Program for Renewing Communication and Understanding Between Priests, Bishops, Theologians and the People in the Pews.
Bishop Braxton needs to sit down and reread his book. Right now.
The pastoral crisis in Belleville, where communication has broken down during the three years of Braxton’s leadership, is such that on April 17, the third day of Pope Benedict XVI’s U.S. visit, a quarter-page ad appeared in USA Today asking the pope to remove Braxton. The ad was written and paid for by Frank S. Ladner, 81, a Catholic philanthropist from Lawrenceville, Illinois.
A few weeks earlier, 46 Belleville priests, representing about half of the active diocesan priests, took the unusual step of signing a letter of no-confidence, urging Braxton to resign.
In the March 14th statement, the priests said that “because of the bishops lack of cooperation, consultation, accountability and transparency, it is the judgement of a great number of the presbyterate that he has lost his moral authority to lead and govern our diocese.”
In February the regional superior of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, an order that has served in Belleville for 138 years, wrote to the papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, urging him to “use all the power of your office to create a moment of change.” Citing “an unraveling of both trust and hope,” Sr. Jen Renz, the regional superior, said, “The climate of secrecy that surrounds committee meetings and actions within the diocese must end.”
In his defense, it appears Bishop Braxton wasn’t welcome in Belleville. Appointed by a dying Pope John Paul II, there was no consultation of anyone in the diocese, so there was a pot of resentment from the start. It would have taken someone with considerable people skills to overcome this rocky beginning, and Braxton doesn’t appear to have a lot of political or management smarts.
He has been accused of being monarchial. This could be just a slap by detractors. However, one small action seems to illustrate the point very well. 
Kelly Casey of Belleville noted that Braxton brought the old, ornate president’s chair out of the cathedral museum when he came, reinstalled it in the sanctuary and raised its height twice to better express his episcopal dignity. It’s the sort of thing that turns people off, said Casey.
Ann Hartner, a leader of FOSIL (Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity), a church reform group critical of Braxton, said she hoped the priests’ bold action would inspire priests in other dioceses to take action against tyrannical bishops. “In a sense, we hope Braxton stays,” she said. “He’s empowered us to take ownership.”
The Catholic church, if nothing else, is a believer in fresh starts. One is needed in Belleville.
