Posted in October, 2008
The Synod of Bishops on The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church ran October 5-26, 2008 in Rome. 
The final 55 propositions submitted to Pope Benedict XVI represent a victory for what might be called the “moderate” line. The Synod’s conclusions are merely advisory, and it will be up to Pope Benedict XVI to decide on what action, if any, to take. But the propositions illustrate the thinking of a representative cross-section of bishops from around the world.
This Synod is likely to be remembered for its efforts to reach out to women.
For the first time, women were a majority among the official “observers,” occupying 19 of 37 spots. Six female scholars were nominated as experts. More women participated in this synod than in any edition since the body first met in 1967.
In the end, concern for women came through most clearly in Proposition 17, devoted to “Ministry of the Word and Women.”
Under existing church law, the ministry of lector is technically open only to males. In part, that’s for historical reasons; before 1972, the office of lector was considered one of the “minor orders” leading to priestly ordination. 
Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) it’s become common practice for women to read at Mass, including during papal liturgies in Rome, but this is officially considered only a “temporary” measure.
The bishops recommended it be made permanent.
“It is hoped that ministry of lector can be opened also to women, so that their role as announcers of the Word may be recognized in the Christian community.”
The proposition on the lectionary did not directly address complaints from some quarters that the current selection omits stories about women, but it called for attention to the “exclusion of certain important passages.”
St. Peter Damian was a monk. He lived in Italy in the 11th century. A reformer, he focused on homosexuality in the clergy. 
Ironically, his time and writing are a distant mirror to our own day – perceptions of rampant homosexuality in the hierarchy and clergy; sex abuse or at least use, of young men and boys. The prescription for reform was the same: harsh punishment, including banning gay men from religious orders and seminaries.
Were monasteries and clerics ripe for reform? Yes. But it also appears that reformers like Peter Damian didn’t possess the healthiest psychological state. His ferocity and leaning toward an eremtic life didn’t have a broad appeal. In fact, I believe they stemmed from his own internal fear and loathing.
Among his most famous writings is his lengthy treatise, Letter 31, the Book of Gomorrah (Liber Gomorrhianus). It was presented to Pope Leo IX in 1049 or 1051. Leaving nothing to misinterpretation, Damian distinguishes between the various forms of sodomy beginning with solitary and mutual masturbation and ending with interfemoral (between the thighs) stimulation and anal sex.
Pope Leo IX accepted his letter, agreed with everything he had to say, and outside of a few examples, did very little.
What kind of a man was Peter Damian? 
- He couldn’t bear the “distractions” of university life so he left
- He wore a hairshirt “to arm himself against the alurements of pleasure and the wiles of the devil”
- His excessive “watchings” brought on a severe insomnia which was cured with difficulty
- Both as a novice and professed religious his fevour led him to such extremes of penance his health was affected. This included fasting and mortification, including self-flagellation.
Previously used as a punishment, St. Damian played a crucial role in popularizing this practice. This is discussed at length in the book, In Praise of the Whip by Niklas Largier, a professor of German at the University of California-Berkeley 
Is this the type of person we want creating a moral blueprint for sex?
Every so often, Catholic conservatives take a breather from liberals to beat each other up. When that happens, it usually provides some great vaudevillian slapstick comedy. Here’s a recent instance:
On October 22, 2008, the Long Island, NY newspaper, Newsday, reported an uproar at the ultra conservative parish, Our Lady of Lourdes in Massapequa Park. The new pastor has cancelled a few parish traditions that have some parishioners steaming.
Our Lady of Lourdes has been described as “a sanctuary from the ravages of the Spirit of Vatican II.”
For 32 years, the Rev. Robert E. Mason, 77, celebrated a children’s Mass that attracted a loyal following among some families at the parish. He also heard confession on Saturday night.
Fr. Mason retired earlier this year. He was replaced as pastor in June 2008 by Msgr. James Lisante, the telegenic conservative commenator at Fox News. Earlier this year, Msgr. Lisante attracted attention by endorsing Sen. John McCain and leading a prayer for his election.
Lisante’s first clash with his new parishioners came in early in the summer when–without official permission–he brought in a priest from the Northern Mariana Islands in the South Pacific who had worked with him every summer since 2000 at his former parish, St. Thomas the Apostle in Hempstead.
Who knows that happened, but the priest, Rev. Matthew Blockley, was sent packing back to the Mariana Islands by Bishop William Murphy in July.
Next, Msgr. Lisante cancelled Father Mason’s Mass and confessions. He also rescheduled his Sunday Latin Mass to 1:30 pm from the morning time. When some parishioners complained Lisante said they were overreacting.
“I’m livid. I’m appalled,” huffed Chris Layer, 42, of North Massapequa. She called the Mass cancellation “a blatantly vindictive move” intended to silence those critical of Msgr. Lisante.
The the funniest part of the story was Msgr. Lisante’s choice for new music director at this ultra conservative, Latin-Mass-go-to-confession, type of parish….Peter Rapanaro, the director of the Off-Broadway play, “My Big Gay Italian Wedding.”
Lisante insisted that Rapanaro had “met with Bishop Murphy and assured the bishop of his fidelity to the Catholic Church on every issue of sexual ethics.” 
Whether the critics have been mollified remains to be seen…
When he’s not serving as a chaplain to a monastery of contemplative nuns in the heart of Hollywood, Dominican Fr. Dominic DeLay is making films. 
His latest, Inside Darkness, is a 35-minute political suspense thriller that has its origins in the last presidential election, when DeLay said he was left with the question of how good and smart people could think so differently from himself about politics.
Inside Darkness is about three presidential candidates–the female evangelical incumbent, a black Catholic and former Marine colonel, and white agnostic religious studies professor–who awaken in a dark cell. 
“I thought I’d just put three very different people in this room together and see how they treat one another. Forget why they believe what they do. Can they at least respect each other and have a conversation?”
But can they?
“It’s very difficult for them,” said DeLay. “Fear and suspicion really kick in. After awhile, their suspicion turns from the people they think are outside the room to each other.”
A conversation with his sister gave him some insights why people react to candidates and politics they way they do.
“I understood she just had a couple of really strong beliefs and she was looking at the candidates through that prism. I think we must have certain fundamental beliefs that we look at the world with, and so we hear everything in relationship to that.”
DeLay went on: “If people aren’t talking about the poor, one kind of person is going to say, ‘Well, what’s going on here?’ And for others, if people aren’t talking about what they call traditional family values, then they can’t hear that candidate.”
The film, which is available on DVD, was released by Mud Puddle Films, a non-profit ministry of the Dominican friars of the Western United States.
Starting October 13, the film will be released in free seven-minute webisodes with the last installment the day before the election on November 4th.
DeLay is starting a new film on the seven deadly sins. When asked which one he thought was the worst sin, he said he would go with the “traditional assessment of pride as the ‘deadliest’ sin and perhaps even the root of the others.”
The sin of pride with politics makes for a natural sequel.
Gay and lesbian Catholics in the Chicago area gathered in prayer and discussion at Loyola University on June 14, 2008 to share testimonies and network on how to become more visiblde in their faith communities and the Catholic Church.
More than 70 parishioners and clergy members participated in the event from several area parishes, including St. Clements, St. Gertrude, Old St. Patrick’s Church and St. Nicholas in Evanston.
Here in Faith: Creating a Welcoming Catholic Community Through Prayer and Story, was sponsored by Call to Action, a national Catholic social justice organization, in partnership with New Ways Ministry and Dignity Chicago.
“The church belongs to lesbian and gay people as much as the church belongs to anyone,” Sister Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of New Ways Ministry said. 
The discussion opened with prayer and testimonies from various gay and lesbian Catholics where they discussed how they coped with coming out.
Parents of gay and lesbians sons and daughters discussed how they were able to accept their children’s sexualities. Other speakers related how they were able to find gay-friendly Catholic parishes in and around Chicago.
“With the help of the Holy Spirit,” said Linda Wesp, ”I was able to come out to my parents and realize that God had worked in my life through the gift of an amazing relationship.”
Michael Herman, a former priest who helped to organize the event, shared his experience entering the priesthood from his institutional seminary training. In 2005, after the Vatican released a decree condemning the ordination of homosexual priests, Herman left the priesthood and became outspoken against the Church’s doctrines in the media. 
“It really wasn’t the viewpoints of the church that changed: it was pushing it in the faces of people that was so insulting,” Herman said. He said at that time it was a difficult struggle because he loved his priesthood.
“It was a hard decision…I told (my parish) that I was born Catholic, I was born gay but that I was not born a priest. I knew that I could go on being a gay Catholic, but being a priest was no longer possible.”
Pat Sabol came to Here in Faith because it is important to him to find a way to unite his sexual and spiritual identity. “They are both such intricate parts of my life.”
The 2008 presidential election isn’t as much fun for Catholic conservatives as 2004.
This year, Catholic conservatives are having to hear two dreaded phrases over and over again: informed conscience and Catholic social teaching.
The people behind these phrases–moderate and progessive Catholics–have made an impact on Catholic voters in swing states like Pennslyvania, and will help to carry Catholics in Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas.
Catholic voters determine the election this year; and even though it will be a small margin, they will carry the election for the Democratic party.
The last four years have brought us an Iraq war with no end to the killing, carnage and financial cost of over 150 billion a year to underwrite. It’s seen the U.S. mortgage debacle and world financial meltdown; a rising unemployment rate and poverty, economic abuses of immigrants and environmental impacts from global warming.
I haven’t heard our conservative brothers and sisters issue so much as a peep at Catholic voters about the moral choices involved in these life and death issues. Where have they been?
This year the USCCB has issued their own (and the definitive!) guide for Catholic voters: Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. This basically dumped partisan politics out of the parish, and added a whole host of social justice concerns appealing to liberal and moderate voters. 
Moderate and liberal Catholics, under the leadership of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholic Democrats are stressing Jesus’ message of care and justice for the poor, the helpless, and the marginalized.
In 2004, armed with little pamphlets from Catholic Answers, conservatives trumpeted their narrow interests in the “Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics.” The guide discussed five “nonnegotiables” that the authors opinioned, and a few bishops agreed, that Catholics had to follow as their sole moral compass in voting.
“These five issues are called non-negotiable because they concern actions that are always morally wrong and must never be promoted by the law. It is a serious sin to endorse or promote any of these actions, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any of the five non-negotiables.”
Their five issues specified included: 1) Abortion; 2) Euthanasia; 3) Fetal Stem Cell Research; 4) Human Cloning; and 5) Homosexual “Marriage”.
In reality, this meant total alignment with the Republican party. Their politics of death: war, the death penalty, pollution, hunger, shelter, high energy costs, health care–were conveniently left off the table as a lesser moral evils.
The life of those born was of less concern then those unborn.
But this year, Catholic conservatives wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing act as been up-ended.
When Carl Anderson, the national head of the Knights of Columbus, attacked Sen. Joseph Biden’s Catholicism in full page advertisements in several major U.S. daily newspapers, he was forcefully countered by Dr. Patrick Whelan, president of Catholic Democrats.
“It is sacrilegious for Mr. Anderson, someone who holds himself up as a flag bearer for the values and the virtues of our faith, to use his shared Catholic identity with Sen. Biden as a foil to attack him for blatantly political purposes.”
“The (Anderson) letter ignores Sen. Biden’s strong commitment to Catholic social teaching, reflected in legislation he was instrumental in passing, including: the United States Commission on Civil Rights Act of 1983, the Global Climate Change Act in 1987, Stopping Genocide in Bosnia, Kosovo and Darfur in 1993 and 2004 respectively, …among many others during his 25 years of service as U.S. Senator.”
Anderson said he wrote the letter “on behalf of 1.28 million members of the Knights of Columbus and their families in the United States.”
As least one Knight disagreed.
Thomas P. O’Neill, former lieutenant governor of Massachusett spoke up. “As a member of the Knights of Columbus, I want to make it clear that Carl Anderson does not speak for me. For 125 years, the Knights have stood for solidarity and for aiding those in need.”
“These statements, transparently promoting the McCain candidacy and by extention all the moral failures of the Bush years, do not reflect our Catholic tradition. Instead they risk making the Knights a tool of political partisanship at a time when the Knights can, and should, be focusing on the church’s greatest gift to our country, the rich tradition of Catholic social teaching.”
Every weekend I’m in Greenport I thank God we were able to buy a house here. I love the village, but most of all I love the nature that surrounds us. Close to the ocean, we are also graced with farmlands and vineyards. It reminds me of a mix of Vermont and Cape Cod.
The closest I have come to a contemplative lifestyle are the weekend walks on the beach. We soak in the sun and the sounds of the gulls and tide rolling over the pebbles on the shore.
We often walk by little shrines people have built of rocks and shells. I understand why they are there.
We snuggle next to each other on a rock or against a driftwood log and watch the sea and the sailboats. We daydream. Every time we say we wish we didn’t have to go.
Fall has started, and it brings its own rhythm. We get out the bird feeders and put away the terra cotta pots and saints of summer.
It’s like prayer time going back and forth with my old battered green wheelbarrow to bring maple and apple wood to the house to stack near the fireplace. It will soon be cold enough for our first fire. Those nights bring their own day dreams, watching the fire burn down to embers.
The leaves have started to fall, but we’ll need a big fall storm to really shake them down.
My “Trinity” icon – one of those iconic fall leaves – reminds me daily of God’s presence in nature. 
Trinity was painted by James Napoleon, who did a series called “Leaves of Autumn.” I bought it last year during his show in Greenport.
The North Fork of Long Island is blessed by a very special light. The sunlight shining on Long Island Sound and Peconic Bay combines to illuminate the fields, vineyards and sky of the land in-between.
Napoleon captures this light in his paintings, and how it illuminates everything and everyone.
Father Geoffrey Farrow of the Saint Paul Newman Center in northeast Fresno shocked parishioners Sunday morning when he came out against Proposition 8, an initiative that would eliminate the right for same-sex couples to marry in California. He was prompted to speak out because so many of his parishioners asked him for direction on how to vote on the initiative.
“In directing the faithful to vote “Yes” on Proposition 8, the California bishops are not only entering the political area, they are ignoring the advances and insights of neurology, psychology and the very statements of the church itself that homosexuality is innate,” he said.
Fr. Geoff decided to go with with he feels is right.
His homily on “Respect Life Sunday” taught of acceptance, love and rejection. His closing remarks left some parishioners stunned. “What most Catholics hear about being gay or lesbian at their parish is silence.”
“I know that these words of truth will cost me dearly. But to withhold them would be far more costly and I would become an accomplice to a moral evil that strips gay and lesbian couples, not only of their civil rights but of their human dignity as well.”
Fr. Geoff was asked if he was gay. “It’s a secondary issue. But yes, I am. And when I was a boy I asked God to please make me normal and that prayer never got answered and I realized why. Because God would’ve made somebody else he wouldn’t have made me.”
Mass ended with about half the congregation giving Fr. Geoff a standing ovation. Outside, parishioners had a mixed reaction.
Esmeralda Gonzalez told a reporter “I believe that as the body of Christ and as being Catholic we are made to follow the commandments. And God made it to be Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.”
Joshua De La Cerda, another parishioner, had an entirely different reaction: “This is something Jesus would have done, or Christ would have done, spoke out for the truth.”
Fr. Geoff said after months of struggling with what to do, in the end he followed his heart.
“In any event regardless of what I or anyone else does in their life, one day you die, and on that day were you true to your conscience, were you true to what you believe. And I think that’s the question each of us has to answer. If the answer is no, hell already began before you died.”
My thanks to Thom from Ad Dominum who pointed me in the direction of this story.
Read the full text of Fr. Geoff’s homily here.
Fortunate Families provided a link to the video.
Priests at three Hamtramck, Michigan Catholic churches are urging voters to reject an antidiscrimination ordinance that includes legal protection for gay people. 
“We have to keep the morals and have the regular families and bring up children according to God’s law,” said Rev. Miroslaw Frankowski, pastor of St. Florian Catholic Church. “Keep it the way it was from the beginning.” 
The Rev. Bogdan Milosz, pastor of Our Lady Queen of Apostles Catholic Church is also against the ordinance.
In a joint written statement, the priests said, “the proposed ordinance does not provide new protection for anyone in Hamtramck, except that it gives new rights that would protect homosexual and lesbian behavior, expression and attire.”
Supporters have said the ordinance simply ensures all residents are protected under the law and demonstrates compassionate governance.
It states that in the “City of Hamtramck that no person be denied the equal protection of the laws; nor shall any person be denied the enjoyment of his or her civil or political rights or be discriminated against because of actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, height, weight, condition of pregancy, marital status, physical or mental limitation, source of income, family responsibilities or status, educational association, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or handicap.”
Simply stated, it is not lawful in Hamtramck to discriminate against any person because they’re gay, or because you think they might be.
The Hamtramck City Council passed the ordinance in June, but opponents gathered enough signatures to place it on the November 4th ballot in hopes of repealing it.
The ordinance prohibits discrimination in housing, employment and city contracting by several groups, but its inclusion of gays and transgendered people stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy in several of the Polish parishes.
“We feel that this proposal goes against the rights of straight people,” the Rev. Andrew Wesley, pastor of St. Ladislaus Catholic Church stated.
Wesley has written about the issue in the parish bulletin, and spoke with members after Mass. “Nobody’s under any obligation to vote one way or another.”
A group Fr. Wesley co-founded – Hamtramck Citizens Voting No to “Special Rights” Discrimination - will host a rally on October 12 at the Knights of Columbus Hall.
France has withdrawn its nomination of an openly gay man as ambassador to the Holy See following objections from the Vatican.
The diplomat in question is Jean-Loup Kuhn-Delforge, former ambassador to Bulgaria, head of the Consular Affairs Directorate, and an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. 
According to the Italian daily La Repubblica, not only is Kuhn-Delforge out, he is “stably united with an official companion.”
I’m not *suprised* the Vatican said no. I am also not surprised the French couldn’t resist giving the Vatican at little tweak I hope it was not at Mr. Kuhn-Delforge’s expense…
Jean-Loup Kuhn-Delforge is ostensibly qualified for this diplomatic post. He is a cultural if not practicing Catholic. Why did the Holy See reject his appointment? Because he’s out; or because he’s in a committed relationship with a man? Either one would probably have gotten him blackballed.
Compare his situation to the pomp accused sex abuser Fr. Marcial Marciel, founder of the Legionaires of Christ, was accustomed to receive in Rome!
I guess the moral of the story is – be in the closet, and stick to forcing yourself on boys and young men. That’s ok. But don’t walk into a diplomatic function with a man on your arm—if you’re a man. That presents a moral infraction the Church cannot possibly accept.
