Thwarted

As previously mentioned in this blog, Amy and I have been attending St. Joan’s Catholic Church in Minneapolis for about the past two months.  Not every Sunday–not quite in that habit yet.  But, of course, it’s Fringe season and we are really busy.  But nearly every week.  We really like it.  We feel welcome.  The first time we went was because I wanted to see how the church handled the controversy of having the Archidiocese tell them to uninvite a speaker due to his statements made regarding abortion and abortion politics in the 80s.  They found some loopholes and handled it well. 

This week the church, and we, were thrown another curveball.  For the past few years, St. Joan’s has led a prayer service the week of the Twin Cities Pride parade / festival to honor their GLBT constiuents.  And last week, the Archdiocese contacted St. Joan’s and told them they were not allowed to hold the service on church grounds, owing to the fact that the gay “lifestyle” goes against Catholic doctrine. 

The Star Tribune has a good article about it, if you want to read it.  Not only that, the parish has been instructed to talk all of their “pride literature” off of their website.  I’m not sure I would call giving home to a GLBT church social group and a rather good quote from the Archbishop of Baltimore “pride materials”. 

You perhaps have had to climb the mountains of prejudice and discrimination, which need leveling. Or have had to contend with the winding ways of cruel humor, attitude and ignorance, which need straightening out. Or perhaps you have had to negotiate the rough roads of verbal or physical abuse.

I lead the church community in seeking the forgiveness of our living God for the sins individually and collectively the church has committed against the gay and lesbian community. We are all children of God made in God’s image and should enjoy the dignity of being a human person. For the times we have stripped you of your human dignity, we ask God’s forgiveness. Our relationships with one another should reflect the mystery and love among the three divine persons of God….For the times we have not accepted you for who you are, we ask God’s forgiveness. We are all one human family in the world and in the church. We need each other, to affirm each other’s gifts and to support one another that everyone may have the opportunity to reach his or her potential. For the times we have deprived you of those opportunities, we seek God’s forgiveness.

–Bishop William Newman

This issue is hitting home this week.  Partly because I finally felt like I found a place I wanted to worship each week, and now rulings on high are pretty much saying that I, as a gay person, should be excluded.  Partly because this is one of the topics my show is about. 

One of the reasons I was attracted to Catholicism in the first place is due to the moments of silence built into the mass for individual reflection.  For a sect whose title, by latin definition, means “universal”, the emphasis on the individual is subtle but important.  It’s not that I don’t believe in the Catholic Doctrine.  It’s not that my religion, and how and what I choose to believe, is determined by my politics.  Nor do I think it should be.  But there are two questions which trouble me.

1. What makes the sin of homosexuality, as written about in the Bible, worse than all the other sins that we have absorbed as “normal” into our modern society?
2. Why should my sexuality, which in the long run and in my life just one small part of who I am, determine what I’m allowed to believe?

The first one is an internal question that I’ve often asked myself.  I took an Old Testament as literature class while at Kalamazoo, which was absolutley fascinating–the formation of the Bible, the different threads of authors which are readily identifiable by their writing techniques (as different as if, say the Rockstars rewrote parts of the same story and mashed ‘em together.  Hey, wait a minute…that’d be fun), the meetings of church officials nearly 1000 years after the death of Christ to determine which books were “worthy” to include in the sanctified Holy Text.  Homosexuality is undeniably a sin in the Bible.  I’m not trying to argue otherwise.  But is it something that should be viewed along the lines of the Ten Commandments, or along the lines of “don’t eat meat on Fridays“?  Since in the early days of the Church there needed to be a large constituency to ensure the continuation of the faith, making sure that their followers procreated was a necessity.  It also set them apart from cultues such as ancient Greece and Rome, where homosexual relationships were, well, maybe not a norm but not uncommon.  So why, in our modern culture, haven’t we let go of the idea that being gay is a sin?  Especially when the churches espout the idea that they don’t hate gay people, just the lifestyle?  Because if a person is inherently gay, doesn’t that mean it’s in their makeup, that God made? 

Question two is one formed by externalities.  As I trolled through the comments left on the Strib article about St. Joan’s, and is something I frequently see elsewhere and also have been personally questioned on more than one occasion, is the idea that a gay person would not want to be Catholic, or Christian for that matter, because of the institutionalized hatred and non-acceptance.  Some comments:

Another reason I’m no longer a Catholic.

I have yet to understand why people stay in a place that openly and triumphantly proports to despise there lifestyle. What are these people doing participating in these organization?

As a Unitarian Universalist, I’d like to thank the aptly-named Neinstadt (“No City”) for helping boost membership in the Unitarian-Universalist Association and other liberal faiths. The Catholic Church is free to be as bigoted, medieval, and in denial about reality as it wishes. Each time it rejects another portion of its ministry the Catholic Church encourages its members to question and explore their beliefs, which is one of the principles of Unitarian-Universalism. The downside of course is that this behavior is hurtful, and does not reflect what Jesus himself would have done. But then, Jesus would not have rejected an autistic boy, or endorsed living in a gilded palace in Italy, either, so the Catholic Church has already drifted far from its foundations. So thanks, Archbishop Nienstedt! We of the UUA will welcome your former parishoners with open arms…

Why should one part of me dictate what church I’m allowed to belong to?  I feel at home in Catholicism.  The rituals, the history (for good and for bad), the full belly after participating in the Eucharist (seriously.  I don’t understand it but that wafer and shot can last me the rest of the day.  It’s weird).  I don’t want to leave.  I don’t want to be a universalist.  I want to write myself into the fabric of this universal story.  In fact, I did write myself into this fabric when I converted.

I don’t expect the attitudes to change overnight, especially in an election year, when there’s such a fight by the religious right to keep some semblance of power.  When Benedict is the pope.  When Neinstadt is our Archbishop in the Twin Cities.

I’m not leaving the church. 

I just got here.