Posted in category "Arts & Letters"
“I have a theory that all addiction is, at bottom, a search for God. Think about it: the blackout–a crude form of mystical union; the willingness to sacrifice reputation, family, money, health, one’s very life–a twisted martyrdom. Sometimes I think anyone as drawn as I am to suffering would have to become a Catholic,” King writes.
“Maybe God uses even our illnesses, our compulsions, the defects we can’t fix no matter how hard we try, for the greater good. As for the wounds other people inflict upon us–maybe he uses those most of all.”
King reminds us that “when Christ appeared to his disciples after the Resurrection, he still bore the wounds. One of the things this seems to say is that our suffering counts.”
King articulated the spiritual dimenson of addiction perfectly.
I am still in a quantry if Catholics are drawn to suffering or if we are just accustomed to it; thanks to ever-present crucifixes, tales of saints meeting grusome ends with praise, not screams; and scary stories of the eternal torment and pain of Hell or Purgatory if saving grace slips through our fingers.
Suffering can make us compassionate, but it can also make us cruel and manipulative. Some sufferers use their suffering to lash out at the world and cause pain to other people, especially those close to them.
I am intrigued by her statement that Christ’s wounds survived the Resurrection. Perhaps our wounds help define who we are, both in this world and the next. What comes in through them, as well as what goes out of us.
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.”
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.
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.”
Michael Hampson, an Anglican priest for 13 years and now a full time writer and retreat leader, wrote and asked if CCLonline would like a review copy of his upcoming book, God Without God. I wrote back to him to say I would be delighted to review the book, and post the review in our May 2008 bookshelf. God Without God is published by O Books, an imprint of John Hunt Publishing of Hampshire, U.K.
I picked up my copy at the Greenport post office yesterday morning. I plan to take the book with me on my upcoming pilgrimage trip to Ireland. It was probably serendipity to receive the book now, as I head off in the footsteps of St. Patrick and St. Brigid.
Hampson descibes his book as “suprisingly conservative” in its affirmation of the entire Nicene Creed and serious approach to scripture and tradition; and yet the final chapter (”Home Life, Sex and Gender”) affirms the place of LGBTI people within the Christian community.
It appears Hampson also attempts to refute the God of atheists–the angry, invisible avenger–is not the God of people of true faith.
I welcome anyone else to read the book with me, and let’s exchange comments for the book review.
In the meantime, my thanks to Michael Hampson and Catherine Harris of O Books. I’ll do my best. 
Last night I attended a private screening of “They Killed Sister Dorothy,” a documentary about Sister Dorothy Stang, S.N.D., an environmental activist who was murdered in Brazil in 2005. She began her ministry there in 1966. The movie was filmed by Daniel Junge and produced by Henry Ansbacher and Nigel Noble of Just Media of Denver, CO.
A citizen of Brazil and the United States, Sr. Dorothy worked with the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization of the Catholic Church that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants, and defends land reforms in Brazil. Her death came less than a week after meeting with the country’s human rights officials about threats to local farmers from loggers and landowners.
After receiving several death threats Sr. Dorothy commented, “I don’t want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacronsanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while protecting the environment.”
The film examines the following questions: who was this woman, and why was she killed? What will become of her murderers, and who else was involved? What are the implications of her murder and these trials in the future?
The film’s producers are outreaching to Catholic groups, environmentalists like the Rainforest Alliance, and other socially-minded people and organizations who want to support the poor in finding sustainable livelihoods.
I found the film very timely, with a growing interest by Catholics around the world in protecting the environment, and the way its abuses fall disproportionably hard on the poor and the marginalized.
Sr. Margaret A. Farley, an emeritus professor of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School has been awarded the 2008 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. The award, which carries a $200,000 honor, is given for new ideas. Farley’s belief is that justice is an indispensable part of sexual ethics. She defined the verb ”justice” in her book as, “to render to each her or his due.”
In her 2006 book, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, Farley argues that justice is the quality that forms, guides, and protects loving relationships.
When she became an ethicist almost 40 years ago, it never occured to her that she might write a book about sexual ethics. But after looking at the pained faces of hundreds of lay people and students tussling with the complexities of love, she began to mull over their struggles.
Farley, a Sister of Mercy who lives in Guilford, CT, acknowledges she’s taken a progressive stance on issues like homosexuality, remarriage and masturbation. “Although homosexual genital actions are still judged to be intrinsically disordered, and hence, ‘objectively’ immoral, they can be ’subjectively’ moral depending on the state of mind and intentions of an individual person,” she writes.
“It is difficult to see how on the basis of sheer human rationality alone..an absolute prohibition of same-sex relationships or activities can be maintained…We have to witness that homosexuality can be a way of embodying responsible human love and sustaining human and Christian fellowship.”
Farley says that gay people have both a right, and a responsibility, to be fruitful through having and/or raising children an that a committed couple has the right to a satisfying sexual relationship.
Her views on divorce and remarriage, same-sex relationships and the ordination of women can be considered to differ with he official positions taken by the current Roman Catholic hierarchy, but Farley said that she proposes such challenges as an ethicist and moral theologian who is “trying to think through some of the troubling issues facing the church and society.”
“I do not just assert my positions,” Farley said, “I work my way to them, paying serious attention to the concrete situations in real lives where questions are raised, and working with significant resources in Scripture and Christian tradition. My conclusions may indeed sometimes differ from official positions, but my effort is to shed light both on new questions, new contexts, and potential new interpretations of the tradition.”
Susan Garrett, who directs the Grawemeyer award program, said Farley’s idea to chew over these issues, rather than believe what society or the church advocates, is essential.
“It’s an important message in light of all the confusion surrounding sexuality today,” Garrett said. “The religious right issues stark decrees while the entertainment industry tells us ‘Anything goes.’ People get confused about what’s right.”
The half-Catholic (father) , half-Jewish (mother) comedian Bill Maher has made a film mocking religion. It is scheduled for an Easter 2008 release. “Religulous” is a combination of religion and ridiculous. It appears Maher-the-merciless doesn’t spare anyone–the Vatican, Jews, Islam, Mormons–all get slammed. Bill Maher was raised Catholic, so he has plenty of experiences to draw on. Since he is pretty liberal, evangelical Christians and the Bush administration have been a great source of material, too. 
Listen to Bill Maher’s interview with Larry King on the movie here.
“We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. If you look at it logically, it’s something drilled into your head when you were a small child. It certainly was drilled into mine at that age. And you really can’t be responsible when you are a kid for what adults put in your head.”
I am looking forward to this movie. I’m sure most of it will be funny with a few cheap shots. Perhaps Maher ought to thank the nuns and priests for helping him to become such a great comic and social commentator. The crucible of a Catholic education has produced an inordinate share of people passionately dedicated to change and foment–artists, writers, reformers–because it inspires the rebellion of creative thinkers.
Bill Maher is absolutely right on one point - we all need to doubt. The struggle between doubt and belief sparks faith.
God writes in straight ways through crooked lines…
Carol Curoe and her father, Robert, hope that their book about their personal struggle to reconcile her being a lesbian with his staunch Catholic faith will be a conduit for healing for other families. The book, “Are There Closets in Heaven? A Catholic Father and Lesbian Daughter Share Their Story” was published in fall 2007.
A November 2, 2007 article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune described how the Curoes were “uninvited” to appear at St. Francis Cabrini Church to discuss the book. The event was moved to another location after a few conservative bloggers encouraged their readers to flood the Archdiocese of Minneapolis with complaints.
Carol sees the book as a tribute to her parents, especially her father. She knows how difficult it was for him to support her while adhering to the teachings of the church. His approach: Whenever an issue arose, he would step back and try to see it from his daughter’s perspective.
Carol and her partner have two sons who are being raised Catholic because “it feels right.” When she was growing up, “being Catholic was the reference point for our lives” she said. But she also acknowledges a philosophical difference from public statements of the hierarchy. “I have to acknowledge that the leaders at the top of my church don’t think it’s OK for our sons to have two moms. And I want my sons to know so that they’re not surprised when they run into people who feel that way.”
The Curoes have received a mountain of mail from people who have found strength and hope in the book. “Not just gays. And not just Catholics,” Carol said. “We’ve heard from Jews who married outside their religion and women who got pregnant before they were married. This is just my story, but it resonates with anyone who experienced a split between child and parent.”
The Curoes is a wonderful story how, despite differences, their relationship was the most important thing. “They focused on keeping the lines of communication open,” said Carol of her parents. “In the end it was all about keeping relationships strong.”
Contrast the attitude of the Curoes on family love and communication with the “Faithful Rebel”, one of the bloggers who urged them to be banned from speaking in a Catholic parish:
“This whole thing is a disgrace. Such an event has no business taking place in a Catholic Church. Ms. Curoe opposes Catholic teaching, and she admits openly that she attends a Catholic Church only because it accepts her degenerate lifestyle…”
“Ms. Curoe advocates that the Church actually accept her sin. She wants the Church to encourage her to violate its teachings and the teachings of Scripture. The issue, of course, is not about whether or not the Church should love homosexual persons. That is a given. The question is about whether or not the Church should accept her sin and allow her to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ while openly proclaiming her allegiance, not to the teachings of Jesus Christ, but to the fulfillment of her own disordered passions. That is what is not possible.”
After reading his rant I thought - if I were a young Catholic woman, which one of these men would I want as a father? The man who would sit down and talk with me and listen, even if he didn’t agree or condone my life or actions–like Mr. Curoe. Or a man like Faithful Rebel, who would deliver a pious lecture for his benefit, and then kick me out on the street.
Which one has the better family values?
All across the political spectrum censorship among Catholics is alive and well.
In January, students and faculty at Rome’s La Sapienza University caused Pope Benedict to cancel an academic address he was scheduled to deliver. The protesters claimed that Benedict was an enemy of science and reason, citing a 1990 (!) speech he gave in which he quoted a controversial historian of science who argued that “the church’s verdict against Galileo was rational and just.”
Conservative Catholics were quick to point out the irony of censorship by those who think of themselves as guardians of rationality and open debate.
Certainly another irony is the sting Pope Benedict must have felt when he was barred from an opportunity to air his views-something he has done to numerous scholars over the years in his position as the Perfect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
In February, Commonweal published a column describing how Edward K. Braxton, Bishop of Belleville, Kentucky, denied Luke Timothy Johnson of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University the opportunity to speak at the Newman Center of Southern Illinois University. Dr. Johnson is one of Commonweal’s most popular speakers, and one of the most highly regarded scripture scholars in the nation.
”The reason is quite simple,” said Bishop Braxton. “I do not wish Catholic institutions or organizations to invite speakers into the diocese who have written articles or given lectures that oppose, deny, reject, undermine, or call into question the authentic teachings of the magisterium of the Catholic Church.”
I suspect Dr. Johnson’s position that the church should reconsider its teaching on homosexuality had a lot to do with the bishop’s decision.
In light of these two incidents we are left with this question: Is the best way to strength the boundaries of Catholic identity by marginalizing or prohibiting anyone from speaking who questions magisterial teaching? Or, is a degree of pluralism a sign of spiritual vitality and genuine faith in an intellectually confident church?
