Nihil Obstat

Good Catholics Use Condoms

Bishop Gaillot

The last time Bishop Gaillot was feted in the United States was at the 1996 Call to Action Conference in Detroit. The title of his address was, “My Option for the Poor.” You can read it here.

After that, I haven’t heard about him. He is a man who deserves never to be forgotten, although that is what Pope John Paul II hoped, when Gaillot was removed from the Diocese of Evreux, France and appointed to an ancient and fictitious see, Partenia.

The See of Partenia, now located in the desert of Algeria, has not existed in reality since the 5th century when it was in Mauritania. But, thanks to the web, Gaillot managed to outwit the Vatican and continues to teach and pastor via the internet as a “virtual bishop.”

“As Partenia does not exist anymore” says Gaillot, “it becomes the symbol of all who feel like non-existing in society or in the Church. It is a huge diocese without borders where the sun never sets.”  Travel to Partenia here.

Bishop Gaillot didn’t start off as a radical.  Little by little, his contacts with people who came to see him and events to which he chose to respond led him to some unexpected places:

He called on all Catholics to persist in dialog without condemnation so that the church can, as Jesus did, embrace the dispossessed: those marginalized by poverty; those living with AIDS, those in prison, those ostracized for homosexuality; and ultimately, those struggling on the borderlands of their own Christian faith.

“If we take as our starting point the poor, everything will be renewed – liturgy, catechism, the life of the church. It changes the way we think, pray, our very lifestyle. But if we take as our starting point the Status Quo, we will never be able to catch up with the Good News.”

Gaillot infuriated members of the French Bishops’ Conference and the Vatican with his outspokenness on a number of issues including clerical celibacy, the use of condoms for the prevention of AIDS, ordination of women and married men to the priesthood, and especially, homosexuality.

“The church must be where there is need, and homosexuals have suffered innumerable discriminations. If the church doesn’t free people from oppression, what purpose does it serve?” he asked.

In 1988 Gaillot took the unprecedented step for a Roman Catholic bishop of blessing a homosexual union after the couple requested it in view of their imminent death from AIDS.

He was the only French bishop to participate in the ceremony of the transfer of the ashes of the Abbe Henri-Baptiste Gregoire to the Pantheon, a burial place for “the great men of France.”

Gregoire (1750-1831), a Catholic priest and bishop, was a leading French abolitionist at the turn of the 18th century, a participant in the Revolution of 1789, and a member of its governing assembly.

Gregoire was among the most active deputies of the Assembly, advocated abolishing Negro slavery and granting citizenship to Jews. He objected to some provisions of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, but agreed to swear the oath of allegiance and was the first member of the clergy to take it (1790). Because of this, the hierarchy of the church refused to give him the last sacraments. (Although he was given them by some sympathetic priests in defiance of the ban.)

After these and other “incidents,” Pope John Paul II relieved  Bishop Gaillot of his responsibilities as bishop of Evreux on January 13, 1995. After being removed from his office Bishop Gaillot wrote the following statement:

“I had a dream: to be able to accompany the poor, the excluded, the ignored, without having to explain myself or justify myself to the rich, the secure, or the comfortable. To be able to go where distress calls me without having to give advance notice. To be able to show my indignation at destitution, injustice, violence, the sale of weapons, and managed famines without being considered a meddler in politics.”

“I dreamed of being able to live my faith within the church, but also in society, in my time and with my times. I dreamed of the freedom to think and express myself, to debate and criticise, without fear of the guillotine. I dreamed of the being different within the unity of faith, and remaining myself, alone and yet in solidarity with others. Ultimately, I hoped to be able to proclaim a Gospel of freedom without being marginalised.”

Closeted in ‘62: Sal Romano in Mad Men

The hit HBO show “Mad Men” features a closeted homosexual. Salvatore Romano, the married Italian American art director at Sterling Company, has a crush on Ken Cosgrove, a young account executive at the agency climbing his way up the corporate ladder.

In the first show of the series, ”Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” Sal replies to Dr. Guttman’s statement about smoking and a death wish: “So we’re supposed to believe that people are living one way and secretly thinking the exact opposite? That’s ridiculous.” (Sound a little like the life a closeted person might lead?)

Sal married. His wife, Kitty, was a neighborhood girl in Baltimore, Sal’s hometown.  They moved to New York and live with his Italian-speaking mother in an apartment in Brooklyn or Queens.

In Season 1/Episode 8, “The Hobo Code,” Sal is the recipient of an overture from Elliot, a salesman from Belle Jolie. They met earlier in the day at a presentation of an ad campaign for Belle Jolie: “Mark Your Man.”  After work, Sal met Elliot for drinks at the bar in the Roosevelt Hotel. They share a drink as Elliot rhapsodizes about the wonder of New York City. Before long, their conversation changes tone.  Elliot reaches across the table and drinks from Sal’s glass.  The sexual tension is obvious, but when Elliot asks if Sal would like to go see the view from his bedroom Sal declines, clearly embarrassed. “I know what I want to do,” he says.

In Season 2/Episode 7, “The Gold Violin,” Sal’s orientation becomes a little clearer. Ken Cosgrove, the man inspiring Sal’s smoldering longing, has written two unpublished novels and became the target of office jealousy when his short story, “Tapping a Maple on a Cold Vermont Morning,” was published in the Atlantic Monthly. But Sal seems to understand the creative, vulnerable, writerly side of Ken, and when Ken asks him to review one of his new stories, Sal invites Ken to dinner at his apartment.

When Ken arrives at Sal and Kitty’s apartment. Sal says he loved Ken’s story, “The Gold Violin” which was inspired by a violin Ken saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (”It was perfect in every way except it couldn’t make music,” says Ken.) Throughout dinner, Sal fastens on Ken’s every word, as if they are as delicious as his own cooking. (Needless to say he’s oblivious to his wife’s needs.) He’s especially thrilled when Ken lights his cigarette (some obvious symbolism).

After Ken leaves, Kitty breaks down in tears, saying Sal left her out of the conversation the entire night. “Do you even see me here?” she asks. “I am so sorry,” he replies. It wasn’t an intentional thing to hurt Kitty, because Sal really does care about her.

As he’s cleaning up, Sal discovers a lighter that Ken left behind. Sal lovingly puts it in his pocket.

The tension–and the torment–of homosexuals, especially married people, was the norm in 1962.  It is still very much the case today–a person who is sexually attracted or in love with a co-worker, a friend, a fellow student, a neighbor, a member of their religious community–but must refrain from saying or acting on their feelings, and can only communicate their interest and desire in very veiled ways.

Ironically, the actor playing Sal Romano is a very out gay man, Bryan Batt.  He and his partner, Tom Cianfichi, have been together for more than 18 years.  They own a home decor and furnishing store, Hazelnut, in New Orleans.

As an openly gay man, Batt was asked how it was to perform as a closeted man during the ’60s. “He’s so much more reserved than I am: great posture, very calculating, always analyzing what’s going on around him because he has to fit in. The hardest thing about playing him is that I’m an open book and Sal is not…as a gay man it’s very interesting to play this character because people forget what people had to go through at that time.”

Being married is also a perfect cover entertaining clients or nights out with the boys from work. He can go to strip clubs and say, “No, I’m married,” so he’s not forced to participate in the hanky panky.

Batt also commented that people stop him on the street to ask when is Salvatore coming to come out.  “My response is, ‘To what?’  There was no real gay community back then. There’s been so many great strides made in just a short amount of time to have a vocal gay community.”

Were feelings more poignant when we were closeted?

A Young Woman’s Hope

“The Catholic Church does not extend the love that we, as Catholics, are called to show the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community.  As a gay woman, I desire and deserve to receive love, which I believe is somewhere deep down in the heart of the Catholic Church. Once I chose to live an authentic life by revealing my sexual orientation, the love quickly faded.”

“I hope and pray that in my lifetime my gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters will have a permanent seat at the table of the Catholic Church.”

- Bennie Shenelle Thierry -

Her statement appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of Centerings, a publication of the 8th Day Center for Justice in Chicago.

Outrage, The Movie

Does anyone, infamous or not, deserve to be outed?  Do they have the right to privacy, but not a right to hypocrisy,” as openly gay Rep. Barney Frank believes?

“Outrage,” a new documentary from filmmaker Kirby Dick, takes issue with the secret lives of closeted gay politicians–especially conservative Republicans  who outwardly oppose gay rights.  See the “Outrage” trailer here. 

It’s long been considered socially unacceptable to “out” closeted gay politicians.  “Outrage” makes the argument that when they take positions harmful to millions of gay people, it’s unacceptable to let them stay in the closet. “Traitors to their people” is how one person in “Outrage” describes politicians who live gay lives in secret while campaigning and voting against gay rights in public.

The film features interviews with former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey; Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff (who tells the story of how he met FOX News anchor Shepard Smith in a gay bar); David Phillips, the DC IT technologist who tells his story about sleeping with Sen. Larry Craig in graphic detail); muckraking BlogActive blogger Mike Rogers, journalist and author, Michelangelo Signorile, and many more.

The public has developed an increasing appetite for private details in public lives, and the press are no longer sticklers for convention. Bad news for closeted conservatives.

If a closeted politician or religious leader is too outrageous in his condemnation of homosexuality, he may well find himself  in the daily paper or headlining the six o’clock news.  This is what happened to the Rev. Ted Haggard, a fundamentalist minister who was head of the largest evangelical church in America, and a powerful voice for evangelicals nationally. 

Mike Jones, the male prostitute Haggard paid for sex and drugs, said he made his outing allegations against Haggard in response to Haggard’s political support for a Colorado Amendment 43 on the November 7, 2006 ballot that would ban same-sex marriage in that state. Jones told ABC News “I had to expose the hypocrisy. He is in the position of influence of millions of followers, and he’s preaching against gay marriage. But behind everybody’s back [he's] doing what he’s preached against.”

Catholic leaders–including bishops and cardinals–were also exempt from public scrutiny until the advent of the clergy sex abuse scandal broke everything open.  Since then, such powerful figures as Legionaires of Christ head Fr. Marcial Maciel, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer of the Archdiocese of Vienna, Austria and Archbishop Juliusz Paetz of the Archdiocese of Poznan, Poland have all been dragged into newspapers with accusations they abused young priests, seminarians, monks and youths.

Michelangelo Signorile is a gay American writer and national talk show host. His article, “Cardinal Spellman’s Dark Legacy” was published by New York Press on April 23, 2002.  Read the whole article here. It details the hypocrisy of New York Archbishop Francis Cardinal Spellman’s known, but closely guarded, gay life.

“Two Sundays ago,” the article begins, “the rector at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Monsignor Eugene Clark, gave a homily that inspired the kind of PRIEST BLAST GAYS headlines that New York’s tabloids thrive on. Standing in for the embattled Cardinal Egan, Clark blamed the sex abuse scandals on gays, railed against homosexuality as a “disorder” and said it was a “grave mistake” to allow gays in the priesthood.”

“Yet, among the several skeletons in gay-basher Clark’s closet is that he in fact dutifully worked as secretary for one of the most notorious, powerful and sexually voracious homosexuals in the American Catholic Church’s history: the politically connected Francis Cardinal Spellman, known as “Franny” to assorted chorus boys and others; who was New York’s cardinal from 1939 until his death in 1967.”

“The archconservative Spellman was the epitome of the self-loathing, closeted, evil queen, working with his good friend, the closeted gay McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn, to undermine liberalism in America during the 1950s’ communist and homosexual witch hunts.”

“During Spellman’s reign and long afterward, all of New York’s newspapers in fact cowered before the Catholic Church. On Spellman’s ordered New York departmen stores–owned largely by Catholics–pulled ads from the then-liberal New York Post in the 1950s after publisher Dorothy Schiff wrote commentary critical of his right wing positions; Schiff was forced to back down on her positions.”

“In the original bound galleys of former Wall Street Journal reporter John Cooney’s Spellman biography, The American Pope–published in 1984 by Times Books, which was then owned by the New York Times Co.–Spellman’s gay life was recounted in four pages that included interviews with several notable individuals who knew Spellman was a closeted homosexual.”

“Among Cooney’s interview subjects was C.A. Tripp, the noted researcher affiliated with Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey of the Institute for Sex Research, who shared information that he had on Spellman regarding the prelate’s homosexuality. In a telephone interview with Tripp last week, he told me that his information had come from a Broadway dancer in the show One Touch of Venus who had a relationship with Spellman back in the 1940s; the prelate would have his limousine pick up the dancer several nights a week and bring him back to his place. When the dancer once asked Spellman how he could get away with this, Tripp says Spellman answered, “Who would believe that?”

“U.S. ambassor to Ireland and friend of the Church, William V. Shannon, reviewed The American Pope for Book Review. Shannon’s review was scathing, attacking Cooney for even bringing up the subject at all: ‘Prurient interest in the sex lives of public figures serves no useful purpose.’”

“A Jesuit priest wrote a letter to the Book Review, published a few weeks later: “Cardinal Spellman’s sex life does not matter, but (his) homosexuality does…It matters to thousands of people whose jobs, relationships and whose very lives are threatened because of their sexuality, all the while being forced to view and eat the hypocrisy of their church. And it enrages people that church men and women can retain their jobs, hiding behind their clerical and religious statutes while their own people suffer persecution, disease and discrimination.’”

“Sadly, the Jesuit’s words still ring true today, almost 20 years later. While Spellman has long been dead, his legacy of hypocrisy lives on: there are closeted homosexuals –often condemning ’sexual immorality’ publicly while having gay sex privately–throughout the uppermost echelons of the church today.”

My personal opinion: the Censor Libororum feels closeted lesbians and gays are entitled to their privacy whatever their personal opinions…. the threat of “outing” a relationship or sexual situation has been used by unscrupulous or jealous people for revenge, profit or politics.  It happened to me. (See my LCSW post on June 10, 2006 – “Edward Murphy of The Stonewall Inn” for another example.)

However, if elected leaders and members of the hierarchy are sexually active gays and lesbians, and homophobic in public statements, I firmly believe they should get the hook out of the closet, and join the people they are condemning at the pillory.

The Fall and Grace of Archbishop Rembert Weakland

“He was one of the most gifted leaders in the post-Vatican II church in America,” said Rev. Jim Martin, a Jesuit priest and associate editor of America, a Catholic magazine, “and certainly beloved by the left, and sadly that gave his critics more ammunition.”

Archbishop Weakland was among those who publicly questioned the need for a male-only celibate priesthood. He also led American bishops in a two-year process of writing a pastoral letter on economic justice, holding hearings on the subject across the county.

He stepped down as Archbishop of Milwaukee in May 2002… one day after a former lover disclosed on the ABC network television show, “Good Morning America,” he had been paid $450,000 to keep quiet about an affair with Weakland in 1980.

But now, in interviews and in a memoir, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church, Archbishop Emeritus Rembert Weakland is speaking out about how internal church politics affected his response to the fallout from his affair and why Catholic teaching on homosexuality is wrong.

“If we say our God is an all-loving god,” he said, “how do you explain that at any given time probably 400 million living on the planet at one time would be gay? Are the religions of the world, as does Catholicism, saying to those hundreds of millions of people, you have to pass your whole life without any physical, genital expression of that love?”

He said he had been aware of his homosexual orientation since he was a teenager and suppressed it until he become archbishop, when he had relationships with several men because of “loneliness that became very strong.”

Archbishop Weakland, 82, said he was probably the first bishop to come out of the closet voluntarily. He said he was doing so not to excuse his actions but to give an honest account of why it happened and to raise questions that the church’s teaching that homosexuality is “objectively disordered.”

“Those are bad words because they are so pejorative,” he said.

The archbishop said it was partly because of his strained relations with Pope John Paul II he did not tell Vatican officials in 1997 when he was threatened by a lawsuit by Paul J. Marcoux, the man with whom he had a relationship nearly 20 years before and who had appeared on “Good Morning America.”

Archbishop Weakland said he probably should have gone to Rome and explained he had had a relationship with Mr. Marcoux, that he had ended it by writing a lengthy and emotional letter that Mr. Marcoux still had and that the archbishop’s lawyers regarded Mr. Marcoux’s threats as blackmail.

But, the archbishop said, a highly placed friend in Rome advised him that church officials preferred that such things be hushed up, which is “the Roman way.”

“I suppose, also, being frank, I wouldn’t have wanted to be labeled in Rome at that point as gay,” Archbishop Weakland said. “Rome is a little village.”

In its report “Good Morning America” quoted from the 11-page handwritten letter dated August 25, 1980. The letter describes a planned vacation on Nantucket, a trip to Boston, and conflict over Marcoux’s involvement with a man named Don.

“I should not put down on paper what I would not want the whole world to read. But here goes anyway,” the letter said.

“I felt like the world’s worst hypocrite. So I gradually came back to the importance of celibacy in my life.” Weakland describes his decision to turn away from Marcoux and back to celibacy as “the greatest renunciations” in his life as a priest.

The letter also makes clear that even then, Marcoux was pressuring Weakland for money. “Paul, I really have given you all I personally possess.  The $14,000 is my personal limit…Your anger was evident that I couldn’t play the great patron…”

He signed the letter, “I love you.”

Seventeen years later, Marcoux resurfaced threatening to file a lawsuit. The archdiocese was prepared to counter with an extortion charge, but according to the signed settlement agreement, eventually Marcoux walked away with $450,000. Marcoux’s sister told reporters Marcoux had burned through all the money by 2002 – the time of the “Good Morning America” program.

Paul Marcoux told ABC News reporter Brian Ross he was just trying to get an apology. “That’s not blackmail?” Ross asked. “What do you call it?” Ross asked. “A settlement for a sexual assault case, and what I wanted to do was to have my day in court,” Marcoux said. And though the agreement bars Marcoux fom discussing it, he told Ross he couldn’t keep his silence any longer. “I’ve been involved in the cover-up. I accepted money to be silent about it, not to speak out against what was going on,” he said.

Marcoux linked his situation to the clerical sex abuse scandals: “He was sitting next to me and then started to try to kiss me and continued to force himself on me and pulled down my trousers, attempted to fondle me. Think of it in terms of date rape.”  Marcoux was 32 at the time of the affair. A graduate student in theology at Marquette University, he met Archbishop Weakland at a reception.

His “date rape” example could apply to what most teenage girls get used to fending off with regularity.

Shortly after the “Good Morning America” program aired, Archbishop Weakland said he phoned the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington, DC–Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo–who, he said, told him, “Of course you are going to deny it.”

Archbishop Weakland said he told the Nuncio that while he could deny emphatically it was date rape, “I can’t deny that something happened between us.”

The book comes out on May 29th.

I welcome the return of Archbishop Weakland.  We have missed him.

Murders

While researching a post about the character of Sal Romano, a closeted homosexual advertising executive on the very popular AMC series, “Mad Men,” I clicked on a link to a story about the 2002 murder of Salvatore Romano, 57, the last of the capoclaques, professional clappers traditionally entrusted with leading the applause at the theater, opera or other such event.  Romano was paid by singers to  applaud their performances at Rome’s opera house.  He was believed to be murdered by someone he picked up and brought home for sex. Neighbors saw a young man running down the stairs with a cigarette in his mouth.

But it was another Roman victim mentioned in the article that caught my eye – Enrico Luizi, a papal protocol aide.

“Police are hunting for the killer of one of the pope’s gentlemen-in-waiting,” an article began, “who was found battered to death in his apartment surrounded by his Vatican medals and with a gay pornographic cassette in his VCR.”

Papal official Enrico Sini Luzi, 67, was founded dressed in his underwear with a cashmere scarf wrapped around his neck, lying face down on a velvet cushion. The back of his head had been smashed in by a brass candelabrum found nearby.

At the time of his death in January 1998, he was the latest of 19 men, suspected to be gay, who were murdered in Rome since 1990. There was speculation that some or all of the unsolved killings are the work of a serial killer, as many of the victims were found with scarves tied around their necks.

Mr. Sini Luzi, in his day garb of white tie and tails bedecked with papal decorations, served as an escort for bishops, ambassadors and heads of state who came to the Apostolic Palace for audiences with Pope John Paul II. His family family belonged to the minor nobility.

At night, Luzi was a well-known figure in Roman male-only bars.

“He was a sociable man, maybe too much so.  He knew a lot of people and brought many people home, usually young people,” a neighbor said.

The Vatican yearbook noted Mr. Sini Luzi began service as a Gentleman of His Holiness in April 1989. The Gentlemen of His Holiness were formerly known as Papal Chamberlains; they received their current title after the 1968 reform of papal ceremonies by Pope Paul VI.

A Vatican spokesman didn’t comment on Luzi’s murder, but the newspaper La Repubblica quoted an official of the Curia, the Rev. Giovanni D’Ercole, as saying: “In the face of death, one must only be silent. One cannot express judgements because it is not yet clear how the whole thing happened.”

Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Catholic bishops’ conference, reported in a brief notice that Luzi, whom it identified only as “E.S.L, a Roman nobleman,” died earlier that week, presumably the victim of violence.

Franco Grillini of Arcigay, the Italian gay and lesbian rights organization, accused the Vatican and Catholic hierarchy of creating a “homophobic atmosphere” that he said was “in large part responsible for this culture of violence.”

“This time, the victim is a gentleman of the pope’s entourage, which confirms that the people at risk are those who hide and live among people where homosexuality is not acknowledged, like the Curia,” he said.

Some members of Mr. Sini Luzi’s familystrenuously denied he was homosexual. “He was not a person of ‘certain habits,’” his brother, Lillo, 72, was quoted by La Repubblica as saying. “Such comportment cannot be reconciled with his morality and the Catholic education he always observed.”

Mr. Lillo Sini Luzi said any evidence of homosexual activity found in his brother’s apartment had probably been introduced by the assailant “as a trick.”

Two New Catholics Have Something To Say

Tony Blair has challenged the “entrenched” attitudes of the Pope on homosexuality, and argued it is time for him to “rethink” his views.

During an April 8, 2009 interview with the U.K.’s leading gay magazine, Attitude, the former Prime Minister said: “Organised religions face the same dilemma as political parties when faced with changing circumstances.”

“You can either A: hold on to your core vote, basically, say ‘Look let’s not break out because if we break out we might lose what we’ve got, and at least we’ve got what we’ve got, so let’s keep it.’ Or B: you say, “Let’s accept that the world is changing and let us work out how we can lead that change and actually reach out.’”

Asked about the Pope’s stance, Mr. Blair blamed generational differences and said: “We need an attitude of mind where rethinking and the concept of evolving attitudes becomes part of the discipline with which you approach your religious faith.”

“There are many good and great things the Catholic Church does, and there are many fantastic things this Pope stands for, but I think what is interesting is that if you went into any Catholic Church, particularly a well attended one, on any Sunday here and did a poll of the congregation, you’d be surprised how liberal-minded people were. The faith of ordinary Catholics is rarely found “in those types of entrenched attitudes,” he said.

Not all British Catholics applauded with his remarks.

On March 29, 2009, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, was received into the Catholic Church.  He has not said publicly why he converted, but his third wife, Callista Bisek, is Catholic.  Mr. Gingrich had been a Baptist.

But a comment he recently made may contain a hint: “Over the course of the last decade, attending the basilica…reading the literature, there was a peace in my soul and a sense of well-being in the Catholic church.”

Mr. Gingrich,  a  conservative Republican who has not run for elective office since he was forced out of Congress in 1999, has toyed with running for president in the past and is much-rumored to be considering a 2012 bid.  It is not clear how his Catholicism might affect his political future, but in a recent Twitter post Gingrich commented President Obama has “anti Catholic values.” 

“It is sad to see,” he texted, “notre dame invite president obama to give the commencement address Since his policies are so anti catholic values”

Based on his sexual infidelities and multiple marriages, some U.S. Catholics question Rep. Gingrich’s self-promotion as a spokesman for authentic ”Catholic values.”

Top of the First for Archbishop Dolan

On April 15, 2009 Archbishop Timothy Dolan became the 13th leader of the Catholic church in New York since the Vatican appointed the first bishop here in 1808. A vast territory, the archdiocese includes Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and seven northern counties, stretching from the border of the city to the Catskill Mountains.

This stretch of territory is the home of the toughest, crankiest, most argumentative and nit-picky baseball fans in the country–Mets and Yankees fans.  It’s a great place when you’re on the back page of the Daily News – it’s a tough town when you’ve blown the save.

“You are what your record says you are,” said Bill Parcells, the revered former head coach of the New York Giants and Jets football teams and another Catholic sports guy.

There are a lot of Catholic players and piles of Catholic fans spread out among the different NY teams. One of the reasons I’m back at church today is that I spotted a man in a Mets jacket heading for the door of my neighborhood church. I followed him in. As it turned out, that person happened to be the pastor, Fr. Danny.  Here was somebody, I thought, like me. 

Archbishop Dolan, 59, appears to be a very genial, down-to-earth, outgoing kind of guy. He likes to be with people.  He laughs and smiles a lot.   He’s a big baseball fan. He has gone from rooting for his hometown St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers to wind up at a NY Mets game at Citi Field his first weekend in New York. 

One of his first stops as the new Archbishop of New York was the West Bronx Community Center in Highbridge. The teams of workers there give out free nutritious meals across the borough each year through a partnership between Catholic Charities and the Rusty Staub Foundation, a   “I’m happy, happy,” said a delighted Anna Rodriquez, 76, after she got to give the archbishop a big bear hug. “He is so friendly.” 

Rusty Staub, a former Mets baseball star, was on hand with the archbishop at the food pantry. Staub said he was honored that that Dolan chose to spend his first morning of face-to-face duties with the organization. “He obviously has a tremendous amount of energy,” Staub said, “I think that’s going to be a blessing.” “(I want) to learn, to listen, to shake hands, to meet people, to hear them dream,” Dolan said. “That’s a greater lesson than reading briefing reports, or reading histories.”

“I aim to be a happy bishop, sharing joys and laughs with you.  So you will see me at the St. Patrick’s parade, and at the new Yankee Stadium, and at processions and feast days and barbecues across our almost 400 parishes. Being Catholic is not a heavy burden, snuffing out the joy of life; rather our faith in Jesus and His Church gives meaning, purpose and a joy to life. I love being Catholic. I love being a priest, and I fully intend to love being archbishop of New York while loving all of you in the Church in New York.”

“Loving the Church here means supporting her indispensable work for caring for the poor, the immigrants, the sick and elderly, the lonely, the unborn and the abandoned. It means working hard for her Catholic schools, in many ways the pride of the archdiocese. It means ensuring that our parishes are places where people encounter the Lord Jesus in the Mass, the sacraments and in an authentically Catholic community.”

“It means speaking from America’s most famous pulpit for justice and peace, for religious liberty and the sanctity of all human life.  It means teaching the Catholic faith in season and out of season, as a good shepard must.”

Archbishop Dolan chose as his motto “Ad Quem Ibimus,” which means ”To Whom Shall We Go?” 

For Catholics who love their Church, this is the crux of the matter. When Jesus asked the disciples if they, too, would leave him, St. Peter replied, “Lord, to whom should we go? You have the words of everlasting life.” 

Let’s start from there. Not polemics and threats about Communion.

One team.

Nearer to God

Commonweal’s February 27, 2009 issue had a short piece entitled “The Perfect Sinner” by Harold Bordwell.  It was about Max Jacob, a French Jew born in Brittany, who was a painter, poet, novelist, playwright, and critic, who played an important role in the formative years of Cubism as well as in the new directions of modern poetry during the early 20th century. His poetry was made up of an amalgam of Jewish, Breton, Parisian and Roman Catholic elements.

Max Jacob alternated between a wildly bohemian lifestyle and periods of contemplation.  He converted to Catholicism in 1915, after experiencing a vision of Christ a few years earlier.  But his conversion did not save him from the Gestapo, who rounded him up and took him to Drancy internment camp.  He died there of pneumonia on March 5, 1944, two days before he was scheduled to be sent to Auschwitz.  He was 68. His body was eventually returned to his home of Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire near Orleans.

Saint-Benoit was the site of a celebrated abbey church. Max Jacob first came to Saint-Benoit in 1921, and stayed there periodically until 1937, when he settled down permanently, living a quietly religious life–early daily Mass, evening prayer, and working as a church guide.

Max Jacob reminds me of David, a “man after God’s own heart.” Sensuous, a sinner, each man experienced periods of prayful contemplation and penitence. But in their full and vivid life each also held God in a loved and honored place.

Max Jacob chose Saint-Benoit to escape his disorderly and worldly life–he was homosexual, he took drugs, he liked to play the clown–and, as his biographer Beatrice Mousli notes, to be nearer to God and away from his temptations that he could never resist in Paris.

It was a very different life than his days in Paris, where his writings and gouache paintings led to friendships with Picasso, Jean Cocteau, anf Guillaume Apollinaire, among others.  There were rumors that Jacob was a male lover of Picasso. “Oh, Picasso was absolutely having sex with Max Jacob. And everyone knew!”, said John Richardson, Picasso’s biographer. Even Picasso’s mistress, Fernande Olivier, noted upon first meeting Jacob that the two men were “toujours ensemble.”

In his journals, novelist Julian Green remembers how Max Jacob used to haunt the Cafe Select by night, and then the next morning hurry down the boulevard to Notre-Dame-des-Champs to confess his sins, with the priests hiding behind the church columns but knowing that one of them would eventually have to listen to the same sins they all knew by heart.

Green calls Max Jacob the perfect sinner because he was truly sorry for his sins, which didn’t prevent him from starting all over the next day.