Posted in February, 2009
I wondered how hard it was going to be to observe a full Ash Wednesday fast. The medication for my Lyme disease has upset the balance of my blood sugar, making it difficult to go more than a an hour or two without needing to eat. It was going to be an extra challenge, beyond just going without food for the day. 
I started the day at 4 am like I usually do. I had a small meal of bread and cheese with my medication, and resolved to make it to 5 pm for dinner.
When my body wanted to eat again at 7, I had a small glass of vegetable juice. I had another one an hour later. That carried me to 11 am, when I thought about lunch. Using an old trick from giving up smoking, before the desire to eat started to take over I thought of something else.
When I felt a tinge of hunger, or my mind told me how good some food would taste, I focused on the purpose of my fast today – to live free of all the little hungers, urges, and wants that consciously and unconsciously populate my days.
Around 1 pm I spent an hour at the gym on the treadmill and cardio machines, then doing weights and situps. My body feels good with a good sweat, and when you work out you don’t want to eat. I needed salt, so I had another vegetable juice.
The rest of the afternoon I spent working on a marketing campaign and answering email. After all, Ash Wednesday is a work day for me, not a time apart on retreat.
I checked the clock at 3:30 – an hour and a half to go. My resolution wavered a second, but I resolved to go the distance.
My wife called me from Tampa a few minutes before 5 pm. When we hung up, she left for a reception and business dinner. I put the phone down and walked into the kitchen to cook dinner. The day’s fast had ended.
I felt – lighter, calmer, gentler, less hungry. I usually wolf down my food; tonight I ate slowly and savored every mouthful. I paused for a moment for grace.
God must have helped me get through 12 hours without any food; when the day before I had a hard time managing 30 minutes without a handful of cheddar fish or a container of apple sauce.
Fr. Peter Kennedy, 71, was removed as pastor of St. Mary’s, South Brisbane, Australia, by Archbishop John A. Bathersby earlier this week. This action was a tremendous loss not only to the parishioners of St. Mary’s, but all Catholics around the world that look for points of light–parishes, groups, schools, retreat centers, religious people, theologians, authors, bloggers–to take hope and comfort in knowing light from an open door shines for us. 
Archbishop Bathersby accused Fr. Kennedy of being “out of communion” with the church by allowing women to preach the homily, giving Communion to gay and divorced people, baptizing babies using unorthodox wording, criticizing the pope and not wearing traditional vestments.
The archbishop’s decree said Fr. Kennedy had “caused harm to ecclesiastical communion in spite of frequent requests from me to do otherwise.”
“The question for me,” said Archbishop Bathersby, “is not so much whether St. Mary’s should be closed down, but whether St. Mary’s will close itself down by practices that separate it from communion with the Roman Catholic Church.”
“In reality St. Mary’s South Brisbane has taken a Roman Catholic parish and established its own brand of religion,” he said. “Undoubtedly it does good, it promotes a strong sense of community, opens its doors to all who wish to come, but its own style of worship and sacramental practice can hardly be described as Roman Catholic.”
The conflict between Archbishop Bathersby and the parish community of St. Mary’s stretches back at least six years.
In 2004 the Archbishop demanded that Fr. Kennedy comply with Redemptionis Sacramentum, follow the liturgical norms and stop baptizing people “in the Name of the Creator and the Liberator and of the Sustainer.” Fr. Kennedy countered that they were doing this to make the sacrament “more inclusive, less patriarchal.” 
The parish previously angered conservatives in the church by welcoming gay couples and allowing the Brisbane Gay and Lesbian Choir to perform there in June 2003 as part of Brisbane Pride Festival celebrations. Archbishop Bathersby opposed the performance and said it was “inappropriate.”
Tony Robertson, who belongs to St. Mary’s, said parishioners were rallying to save their parish. Robertson blogs on Out and About with Tony – A Queer Perspective on Life as a Gay Catholic.
“St. Mary’s is a church which takes seriously its identity as a Catholic community and practices the teachings of the Catholic Church which calls for homosexual persons be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” Robertson said.
“Such acceptance calls for practical action which welcomes gay and lesbian people to the life and worship of the community.”
Robertson noted that other Catholic churches also welcome sexual minorities, including one church that flies the rainbow flag among its public decorations.
“Those who have concerns about our support for sexual minorities need to remember that the Catholic Church also teaches that every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. In this spirit the Church has opened its doors to the Brisbane Lesbian and Gay Pride Choir who use the Church for weekly rehersals as well as supporting the musical and religious culture of St. Mary’s,” he said.
“Gay and lesbian Catholics who prefer a more traditional worship have always been a presence at the Cathedral of St. Stephen where one of the beautiful stained glass windows is dedicated to a gay member of the famous Mayne Family of Brisbane,” he added.
“Jesus Wept” at the loss of a relationship, not the interpretation of a rule.
Follow the St. Mary’s situation on St. Mary’s Discussion Forum.
Show your support for St. Mary’s on their MySpace page.
Interesting notes on gay history in the Mayne family can be found on page 229 in Colonialism and Homosexuality by Robert Aldrich.
This week, Pope Benedict XVI received the U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, her husband and members of her entourage at the close of his regular Wednesday General Audience in Rome.
Pelosi, a self-proclaimed “ardent Catholic,” has sparked criticism from some conservative U.S. Catholic bishops for her pro-choice views. She arrived in Italy on Sunday for an eight-day official visit.
As Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi is second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency, behind only Vice President Joseph Biden, another Catholic who also disagrees with Church teaching on abortion and birth control.
Benedict’s willingness to meet Pelosi gave some pro-life Catholics agita.
By meeting Pelosi, Benedict signaled he wants lines of communication to remain open with the new American leadership, even though there is no meeting of minds over the issue of abortion.
Benedict and Pelosi each issued a statement following the meeting.
“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death,” the Vatican statement read, “which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life in all stages of development.”
In a statement issued by her office Wednesday, Pelosi said it was “with great joy” that she and her husband, Paul, met Benedict. She said she had praised “the church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger, and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel.”
“I was proud to show His Holiness a photography of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren,” said the California congresswoman.
Pelosi’s statement did not mention the pope’s comments on abortion.
The pope’s statement can certainly be read as a rejection of Pelosi’s statements of last summer, when she suggested that the church’s position on abortion had been fluid and ill-defined; and that it’s acceptable for Catholics in public life to take a pro-choice position.
What was said–or unsaid–in that small room in the Vatican that fact remains each of these two Catholic leaders profess to care deeply about the welfare of children–those born as well as the unborn.
The pope cannot be a single issue Catholic–the way some U.S. bishops and pro-life Catholics are–if he is to attend to the Gospel’s work of justice for all, especially people in need.
Before she went to the Capitol to be sworn in as the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi attended Mass at her (and my) alma mater, Trinity College in Washington, DC. The late Fr. Robert Drinan was the celebrant, and he offered the Mass in honor of the children of Darfur and Katrina, praying there that “the needs of every child are the needs of Jesus Christ himself.”
“He challenged us,” said Pelosi of the homily, “by saying ‘Imagine what the world would think of the United States if the health and welfare of children everywhere became the top objective of America’s foreign policy! It could happen–and it could happen soon–if enough people cared.’”
“He continued,’Let us reexamine our convictions, our commitments, and our courage. Our convictions and our commitments are clear and certain to us. But do we have the courage to carry them out? God has great hopes for what this nation will do in the near future. We are here to ask for the courage to carry out God’s hopes and aspirations.”
“As he led us in prayer that day, Father Drinan said, ‘We learn things in prayer that we otherwise would never know.’”
Poor Pope Benedict XVI. The 3-week-old Lefevbrist storm was just starting to die down, when another gift horse just bit him.
The late Marcial Marciel Degollado is back in the news. He may have had one or more mistresses that bore him a daughter and possibly a son. The rumoured daughter is in her 20s and living in Spain. 
Jim Fair, a spokesman for the Legionnaires of Christ, said only: “We have learned some things about our founder’s life that are surprising and difficult for us to understand. We can confirm that there are some aspects of his life that were not appropriate for a Catholic priest.”
That’s a understatement.
And here I thought he was just a closeted serial molester of boys and young men. It turns out he was working both sides of the room.
Imagine that.
Another rumor – the Legionnaires came clean because the Vatican was about to release the news. 
More here and here.
I do feel for the membership who believed in this man and now feel betrayed.
But my heart goes out to the dozens of sex abuse victims of Fr. Marcial, who have never been acknowledged by either Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI or the Legionnaires of Christ.
Their betrayal continues.
In Defense of Desire – The Theology of James Alison is an article in the January 30, 2009 edition of Commonweal Magazine. It was written by Christopher Ruddy, associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Here is an excerpt:
“Alison builds his argument for the goodness of homosexuality by drawing from Catholic teaching on creation, original sin, and salvation. As (the Council of) Trent taught, human nature retains its integrity, even after the Fall. No dimension of human desire is therefore instrinsically evil–that is, irredeemable–because it is capable of being rightly ordered and healed. Salvation is the perfection of human nature, not rejection.
As Alison lays out the argument, Catholicism has long taught that people are heterosexual by nature, and that homosexual activity is thus unnatural. But this teaching conflicts with the growing recognition that homosexuality is a way of being, not simply a way of acting; unchosen, it belongs to one’s nature or essence. Drawing upon the scholastic axiom agere sequitur esse (acts flow from being), Alison maintains one cannot hold both the homosexual inclination is natural or involuntary and that homosexual acts are inherently evil. ‘Either being gay is a defective form of being heterosexual,’ he reasons, “or it is simply a thing that just is that way”–a reality, like “rain, tides or left-handedness,” as he puts it elsewhere. Alison affirms the latter position, and consequently holds that homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality. Like rain or tides: arguments from nature, for so long used to condemn homosexuality, now become its greatest support. ‘Natural law is our friend,’ Alison writes; the gay or lesbian person is saved in the perfection–not the rejection–of his or her homosexual nature.”
Dr. James Alison, 49, is a Catholic thelogian, priest and author. He lives in London. Visit his website. 
“What should we give up for Lent?” I asked my wife recently. But the usual choices–chocolate, dessert–weren’t appealing and felt superficial. In past times it seemed clever to combine Lenten “give-ups” with shaving off five pounds in time for the beach. Not this year.
Last year I promised to put $5 in the charity box every time I used a curse word. The poor box at church made out quite well by the end of Lent, with a big boost from one especially bad day at work which netted $50 before noon.
Once, about two weeks before Easter–when my resolution really starts to wobble–Lori and I were at a Friendly’s near Middletown, NY. That year, we had given up chocolate but not dessert. I noticed one of the sundaes included M&Ms candies.
When the waitress came over to take our order I said: “I have a religious question. I gave up candy for Lent, but if I order the “M&M Sundae” does it…”I didn’t even get to the word “count” before she burst out: “It counts! It’s been tried before! It counts!” 
So much for “wiggle room” during Lent at Friendly’s.
I had to settle for the hot fudge sundae, and sneak sideways glances at my (probably protestant) neighbor in the next booth slurping down a sundae with M&Ms. It looked delicious. It was all I could do not to grab it and run out the door. There is something about sin that just makes things taste better, even though you (always!) regret it later.
The above all fell under the proscribed “give-ups” for Lent, but never impacted my spiritual life in any meaningful way. I justed felt deprived, and tried to turn it into a grace.
But three things converged this year to make me rethink my Lenten practices.
The first was receipt of a notice by Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry’s “Church in the 21st Century” announcing their spring series would focus on “the riches of the Catholic tradition of spiritual practices.” One lecture in particular caught my eye. “Christian Spiritual Practices: Drawing from the Storeroom Both the Old and the New.” I made a note to explore what ancient practice I could use this Lent.
The second came to me from Zenit, the Vatican news service. The February 3rd edition included Pope Benedict’s Lenten Message for 2009:
“Dear Brothers and Sisters!
As the beginning of Lent, which constitutes an itinerary of more intense spiritual training, the Liturgy sets before us again three penitential practices that are very dear to the biblical and Christian tradition–prayer, almsgiving, fasting–to prepare us to better celebrate Easter and thus experience God’s power that, as we shall hear in the Paschal Vigil, ‘dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace and humbles earthly pride’ (Paschal Praeconium). For this year’s Lenten Message, I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting.”
You can read the message in its entirety here. (For the record, I do particularly appreciate the Holy Father’s outspokeness for the protection of the environment, the disproportionate impact of environmental degradation on the poor, and his willingness to take the gloss off of some of Pope John Paul II’s favorites, including Fr. Marcial Mariel and the Virgin Mary apparations as seen by the six “visionaries” of Medjugorje.)
The third was stumbling upon an Ancient Practices Series book entitled Fasting by Scot McKnight, the popular Jesus Creed blogger and Anabaptist theologian. I thumbed through the book while I was browsing at Barnes & Noble on Friday. He inspired me to consider diferent fasts this Lent.
A search on Google led me to Carole Gardibaldi Rogers, a writer, poet and oral historian whose backgound is both Roman Catholic and Jewish. Her articles have appeared in the National Catholic Reporter, America and Commonweal, including one or two on fasting. Her book, Fasting – Exploring a Great Spiritual Practice, will be my companion guide this Lenten season. 
Besides the usual fasts on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and the abstinence from meat on Friday (when every cheeseburger in the world seems to jump in my face, and the scent of bacon wafts from every open diner door) I will resolve to clothe myself in the armour of the Lord and keep walking. But this year I plan to go beyond and make every Friday my weekly fast day.
This Lent, Lori and I also decided to fast from spending money. That is, the spending on consumables–particularly those we love, like books, chocolate, going out to dinner, tickets to shows and sport events, antiques, stuff for the house, outdoor goods…anything. All discretionary spending will end for 40 days beginning Febuary 25th.
The pain has already set in. I’m going to miss the one New York Knicks basketball game I was going to see this season – February 25th at the Garden against the Hornets.
It will be interesting to see just how much discipline will be involved not to give my body and my imagination whatever it wants, the moment it wants it. And discover just how much of my life is an impulse dedicated to the daily gratification of my wants and needs.
How hard is it going to be to get beyond them?
The article below was written by Ned O’Gorman, and appeared in the December 5, 2008 issue of Commonweal.
There is a place where even the liberal Catholic press fears to tread. The relative lack of serious discussion about homosexual desire casts into spiritual darkness a tribe of believing Catholic men and women who must fend for themselves in their quest for a serene emotional life, for companionship, and for the comfort of sexual love. For “the teaching church,” the subject is untouchable.
There are few intellectuals, lay or clerical, who will take it on, for it is risky to bring into the public forum the notion that there are Catholics who practice their faith with diligence and who love those of their own sex and have known the joy of that love. I am such a Catholic. I have discovered that such a love is easy to bear, complete, and holy.
So, I will offer some thoughts I have about a homosexual’s life and its difficulties, its spirituality, its struggles with desire and the church’s punitive silence. 
If I obey the church, there is only a life of absolute celibacy open to me. I must accept my lot, hope for the best, cross my fingers, and “offer it up.” What “the best” is, the church does not quite say, but it cannot be sexual.
Everything must be avoided that might lead to the discovery of the beloved: no flirtations, no gathering together with other homosexuals, no dating, no risk of arousal. If such constrictions were imposed on heterosexuals, there would be no marriages.
No priest will bless a union between homosexual Catholics, no matter how committed the couple is to a long fidelity, for the church forbids the homosexual an erotic life. An erotic life sets the homosexual beyond the communion of the sanctuary.
And if that is it, a Roman Catholic homosexual, devoted and faithful, believing and rigorous in the practice of his faith, after long suffering and neglect, might just say the hell with it and welcome love and live outside the sanctuary.
Could it be there is a band of men and women set apart by God who will never know the fullness of love within the life of the church? That question does not give comfort. I have known men who have married so that they might have a place in the church and in society, knowing that they were turning their back on the truth of their sexuality. They abandoned the love they had for other men and entered into marriages that failed, and devastation was soon everywhere-children, wives, families all in ruins.
What, then, does the church do?
It seems that the church has decided that there is nothing to do. So upon this tribe of men and women exile falls with a mighty thud. Perhaps the only way for them to live a life of faith and fullness is to live the life of the outlaw and the renegade, trusting in the Lord and his consolations.
Two weeks ago Bolivian citizens voted to approve a new constitution. Exit polls estimated about 60 per cent of voters had approved the document that is designed to give more rights to the indigenous minority and give the government more control over the economy. It would also allow the president, Evo Morales, to run for a second five-year term.
Mr. Morales is an Aymara Indian who leads the ruling party, the Movement to Socialism. The campaign pitted poor, heavily indigenous western areas where Mr. Morales is revered against whites and mixed-race mestizos in the natural gas-rich tropical lowlands.
The campaign to change the country’s constitution sparked a religious battle.
Pre-referendum campaign ads by evangelical christians showed Bolivia’s leftist president dressed in the garb of a traditional shaman. An image of Jesus Christ arrived to knock Mr. Morales off the screen, and a document labeled “New Constitution” appears amid flames. “Choose God. Vote No” the ad advises.
At the heart of fight is the new constitution’s stated goal of “refounding” Bolivia as a “socially-just state guided by indigenous beliefs–including elevating the female Andean earth deity, PachaMama, to the same stature as the God of Christianity. Bolivia’s previous constitution allowed for freedom of religion, but specifies Roman Catholicism as the sole state religion.
The new constitution recognizes broad new rights for Bolivia’s Indians, termed “originating indigenous farming peoples” in the document, and demands “decolonization” of all aspects of society.
For Christians, whose faith arrived in Bolivia with the Spanish Conquistadors almost 500 years ago, the fight is over fundamental values, which they say the new constitution shoves aside, and replaces with ultra liberal concepts, or worse, indigenous religions.
They contend the new constitution appears to opens the door to abortion and gay marriage, although it doesn’t speak directly to either issue.
The Catholic church hoped the constitution would define life as beginning at conception, and marriage as being between a man and a woman. The text doesn’t offer a clear definition on either point, instead offering broad statements such as one that “guarantees the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights,” language that has religious groups worried. “One of the problems with the constitution is that it’s full of ambiguity,” said Robert Flock, vicar general of the Santa Cruz archdiocese. The constitution “could open the door to a civil law allowing homosexual marriage if there was a public will to do that.”
The Catholic church disavowed the evangelical christian ads, but followed with its own detailed critique of the proposed constitution, handed out after Mass in cities around Bolivia prior to the election. While praising Mr. Morales’ focus on the poor, it raised concerns about his effort to concentrate power in his hands.
In a country that is officially 95% Catholic, the stance by church leaders carries significant weight. So much so that on the day before the referendum Mr. Morales–who has actively promoted indigenous beliefs, including appointing traditional medicine men to his government–publicly declared himself a Catholic, though believing “quite a bit” in PachaMama. 
