Tag: Take Back The Chruch

Posted on

Is queer theology compatible with Catholicism?

— U.S. Catholic readers weigh in on how queer theology informs their faith.

By Caleb Murray

Growing up in a conservative evangelical church, the closest I came to understanding queer theology was in narrow, binary terms. Queer theology was theology that debated whether or not the Bible approved or disapproved of queer people. The boundary lines of queer theology mirrored other hot button issues (Abortion—good or bad? Homosexuality—good or bad?). The parameters of what counted as “queer” theology were so narrow (and laser-focused on sexual ethics) that the theological inquiry was effectively drained of all nuance; queer theology was reduced to a moral either/or.

As a straight, heterosexual teenager, I didn’t see myself in these debates, but I did have the nagging sense that—like the abortion debate—the militant my-side-is-right-ism was shortchanging a fascinating and complicated field. This leads me to an intentionally cheeky and provocative claim: There should be no “queer theology,” because all theology is queer. This statement may appear oxymoronic, self-defeating, or something else entirely. I say this not to erase a subfield of theological inquiry, but to reframe an entire field.

All theology is queer. So long as queerness stands for difference, inclusion, and creative upheaval, I will stand by my strange proclamation that all theology is, was, and will continue to be queer.

Scripture and millennia of interpretive tradition have revealed a queer God—a strange God, a mysterious God, a God of radical difference. In the incarnation, God obliterates metaphysics, mixing immanence and transcendence, spirit and matter. In the Eucharist, Catholics affirm a queer belief that accident, substance, and essence are transubstantiated. In mystical prayer, theologians have long queered and (mis)gendered the soul.

But what really is “queer?” Much like the concepts, identities, and orientations that it circumscribes, queerness is broadly and diversely defined by activists and academics alike. Difference (and difference of opinion) is all but baked into what it means to be queer and to define queer. To put it bluntly, for theorists and theologians, activists and self-identifying queer folks, queerness does not come with a one-size-fits-all definition.

Many thinkers and activists have shown how queerness might function as a creative or alternative mode of seeing and experiencing the world. Many philosophers, theologians, and gender theorists define queerness in opposition to the “norm”: For example, if heterosexuality is normative (the default social “norm”), then queerness is understood in the inverse (non-normative, countercultural, or transgressive). Such thinkers have argued quite convincingly that there’s a “problem with normal”: Try defining “normal” heterosexuality in a manner that would include every “straight” person, and you quickly realize that there is no stable category we might confidently label “normal.” Is a celibate, cisgender, heterosexual priest “normal?” Is it “unnatural” for a dad to raise his children while his wife works?

With questions such as these, one quickly realizes that there is no unitary “normal” out there. The observable reality of difference and diversity in the world pops the “normal” bubble. Queerness turns “normal” on its head and teaches us that none of us are very “normal,” and that is a good thing.

If queerness is about more than just same-sex attraction, what is queer theology? For many religious scholars, queer theology is—to put it simply and broadly—theology about queer people. As the theologian Linn Tonstad summarizes, “Queer theology [often] indicates theologies in which 1) sexuality and gender are discussed 2) in ways that affirm, represent, or apologize for queer persons.” Theologians, especially those who write and think along the lines of queer theology, ought to reaffirm the breadth of what queerness is and can be.

Queer theology isn’t just about gay and lesbian people; queer theology isn’t just about non-heterosexual sexual ethics; queer theology isn’t just about contemporary gender politics. Queer theology—if approached capaciously and with humility—is disruptive, creative, and new. Queer theology challenges us to look differently. Queer ways of thinking, inquiring, and arguing might undercut the very logic that attempts to demarcate, bracket, and contain Christian discourse. In useful, productive, or surprising ways, queer modes of knowing might destabilize rigid categories and stultifying traditions. Shouldn’t all theology do this? Doesn’t God exceed every feeble category we create? To pigeonhole queer modes of knowing to the self-contained box labeled “queer theology” is to shortchange Christian theology writ large.

To push this argument a step further, I do not think that theologians ought to merely “queer” theology by finding apologetic examples of homosocial belonging or same-sex love in church history and doctrine; they must acknowledge with humility and embrace with earnestness the possibility that Christian theology is always already queer.

Within scripture and the Christian tradition, readers may find apologetic resources, passages that affirm queer existence, and arguments of acceptance. For example, Romans 8:38 reminds us that nothing can separate us from God’s love. In Psalm 139 the poetic speaker declares that God knows everything about God’s creation, that God created humanity with love and intention, and that God will never abandon anyone. In no uncertain terms, 2 Corinthians 5:19 presents a theology of absolute forgiveness and generous reconciliation—ours is not a scorekeeping God, and in Christ God “no longer count[s] people’s sins against them.” But I am after something other than arguments of rebuttal.

To be clear, these are good resources, and I believe Bible verses that unequivocally affirm a God of infinite love and forgiveness eclipse the various passages pulled by bigots about pre-Judaic marriage law or the direction of fabric warp and weft. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. In my estimation, arguments of rebuttal represent a fraction of what queerness can do for Christian thought and practice. So, with this definition of queer in mind, is it really possible that all Christian theology is queer?

It is difficult to approach scripture and the Christian tradition from outside of “normal.” Indeed, the church has an entire category for the maintenance of normality and tradition: orthodoxy. Orthodoxy draws a line between things that are normal and things that are not—things that are inside the fold and things that are beyond the pale. However, if we try to read the Bible and experience the Christian tradition with new eyes and open hearts—our vision and attachment not yet bound by orthodoxy—we are reminded that Christianity and its sacred texts are often rather strange, abnormal, countercultural, and transgressive.

Reread the Beatitudes and they start to sound a little queer. Reconsider the Trinity and you start to see something homosocial or even homoerotic in its structure of mutuality and God’s self-desire for God’s self. Contemplate the sacred mystery, which revolves around transubstantiation, and you might catch a glimpse of an ineffable God who makes a habit of shattering our categories and expectations.

For hundreds of years Christians have gendered the soul. From medieval mystics to Protestant reformers, the male soul has often been theologized as feminine so that the soul might pursue a heterosexual union with Christ the bridegroom. If one’s sex, gender identity, and gender expression are thoroughly embodied, then it takes some mental gymnastics to “gender” the soul. Again, something queer is going on here. In order to avoid a gay spiritual union with Christ, there is a long tradition of cisgender men affirming the transgender status of their souls. Just as souls might transmigrate from earthly to heavenly bodies, the selective gendering of the embodied soul throws a queer wrench into the way things work. What is the line between material things and ideal objects? Where does spirit end and matter begin? Does the human man’s “female” soul retain its feminine identity, even after the man’s earthly, bodily death?

Queerness haunts the New Testament. Some might argue that Jesus and his male disciples share homosocial bonds—instances of camaraderie and same-sex intimacy, kisses, and declarations of love and fealty. But much of this is anachronistic, a ham-fisted projection of contemporary gender and sexuality categories onto misunderstood history.

But this cuts both ways. Categories are not static. Words and meanings shift over time. Take the creation myths for example. Genesis gives us two conflicting accounts of creation. In one telling, God creates a singular, androgynous human. In another, God creates Man and Woman. This certainly says something about the theological rigor of the “it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” polemicists who pick a few passages from Genesis while ignoring neighboring paragraphs. Queer theology should not fall for the same reductionism. Instead, queer theology should champion complicated, conflicting, and category-busting inquiry.

Queer theology isn’t about cherry-picking passages that support one’s agenda while ignoring verses that don’t. Indeed, there are passages of scripture that do not square with contemporary LGBTQ politics. I am not after a simple apologetics that “prove” the moral acceptability of certain gender identities and sexual preferences once and for all. Queer theology, as a broader project, should encourage creative, surprising, and even upsetting ways of looking at scripture and tradition.

Queerness—its categorization and its conventions, its advocates and its malcontents—has much to offer Christian thought and practice. The apologists and the bigots will continue to lob their scripture verses at each other, but it is my hope that sincere followers of Christ will listen to queerness’s countervailing promise. It is the promise of approaching things differently, seeing old ideas in a new light, reencountering ancient practices with an openness to renewed life and a future marked by greater justice, lasting peace, and unbridled love. Christ’s ministry witnesses to the queer workings of the divine. His message is and was disruptive, contrarian, and mystifying. Christ’s message to his contemporaries speaks to us today: What you take to be normal might just be average. Don’t settle, you deserve abundant life.

Results are based on survey responses from 113 uscatholic.org visitors.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

As a Queer Catholic Woman I Had High Hopes Before the 2023 Catholic Synod on Synodality

By

When the summit on the future of the Catholic Church began on October 9, I allowed myself for the first time in many years to feel optimistic. I smiled at pictures of Pope Francis welcoming LGBTQ Catholic advocates Sr Jeannine Gramick and Outreach director Fr James Martin, finally feeling that this could be our moment, my moment to find a home in the Church that had raised me. I felt that little sacristy door slightly creak open as I fumbled to dial the phone to call my mom. Was this it? Sadly, no. My excitement faded as I followed the livestream of the Synod of Bishops, punctuated by anger as I read the summit’s 41-page report.

This past Friday I saw New Ways Ministry’s statement, “Synod Report Greatly Disappoints, But We Must Have Hope,” while walking down a busy DC thoroughfare. In it Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the LGBTQ+-affirming Catholic organization, points out how, despite previous documents discussing the welcoming and inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics, there were no positive statements on LGBTQ issues—not even one use of the term “LGBTQ.” Instead, a single paragraph—approved by vote—stated:

“In different ways, people who feel marginalized or excluded from the Church because of their marriage status, identity or sexuality, also ask to be heard and accompanied.”

Once more the door that’s historically been closed to LGBTQ individuals and women was shut in my face. As I had done many times before, I opened myself up to the possibility that Pope Francis’s acknowledgement and inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics would lead to Church action. I had faith in this Synod, just like I did the Synod on Young People in 2018 whose final report also omitted the term “LGBT.”

Each time this happens, many LGBTQ Catholics dare to hope. For example, when the pope said, in 2022, that God “does not disown any of his children,” or in 2023 that “people with homosexual tendencies are children of God,” a number of LGBTQ Catholics and advocates, myself included, got excited for a day or two—maybe even called our parents (if the Church hasn’t driven a wedge between them and us). But then the news cycle passes and, with each expression of anti-LGBTQ Catholic doctrine on diocesan and global levels,  these small victories are tarnished with sadness and frustration.

This is not to say that these moments of recognition don’t matter to me or to so many other LGBTQ Catholics; it’s just to say that it hurts me so much more when these slight openings have no practical impact on my life as a queer Catholic woman.

Jesuit Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator assured LGBTQ Catholics that “the space is there to continue to have this conversation,” that no issue has been finalized ahead of the next assembly in 2024. “Nothing is closed,” remarked the dean of the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, who added that the document “attempts to pull together all the divergent positions.” But how can we represent all viewpoints if the document won’t even say my name, say our name—LGBTQ Catholics? So the door is unlocked, but we’re not permitted to open it?

I want to be hopeful, but I, as well as many other Catholics, acknowledge that the changes Francis and other LGBTQ Catholics and allies are pushing for will not be achieved this year. They probably won’t be achieved this century. The door is rusted and rooted—it’s probably going to take more substantial remodeling. The Church moves at a slow pace, and I’m hopeful that these small moments will mean something, perhaps in a few decades or centuries. But at this moment, it feels like it doesn’t. The progress that I, and so many other LGBTQ Catholics dream of realizing, is extraordinarily unlikely to come true while I’m alive. In the end we’re working to open a door we will never walk through.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

Catholic women speak up as ‘patriarchal’ Church debates its future

Supporters of Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) demonstrate near the Vatican

By Clément MELKI

“Ordain women priests!” Not far from the Vatican, where hundreds of Catholics have gathered to debate the future of the Church, purple-clad activists make their voices heard against the “patriarchy”.

The place of women in the Catholic Church — led for 2,000 years by a man, which outlaws abortion and female priests and does not recognise divorce — is one of the hot topics at the general assembly of the Synod of Bishops taking place over four weeks.

Women campaigning for change have come to Rome to make their case, from Europe and the United States but also South Africa, Australia, Colombia and India.

They have different backgrounds and diverse goals — not all want female priests, with some aiming first for women to become deacons, who can celebrate baptisms, marriages and funerals, although not masses.

But they are united in their frustration at seeing women excluded from key roles in what many view as a “patriarchal and macho” Church.

“The majority of people who support parish life and transmit the faith in families are women, mothers,” said Carmen Chaumet from French campaign group “Comite de la Jupe”, or the Committee of the Skirt.

“It is paradoxical and unfair not to give them their legitimate place.”

“If you go to the Vatican, to a mass, you see hundreds of men priests dressed the same way, and no women,” added Teresa Casillas, a member of Spanish association “Revuelta de Mujeres en la Iglesia”, “The Women’s Revolt in the Church”.

“I feel that men are the owners of God.”

– ‘Voting rights’ –

The Synod assembly, which runs until October 29, nevertheless marks a historic turning point in the Church, with nuns and laywomen allowed to take part for the first time.

Some 54 women — around 15 percent of the total of 365 assembly members — will be able to vote on proposals that will be sent to .

Vatican observers have called it a revolution. “A first step,” say campaigners.

Adeline Fermanian, co-president of the Committee of Skirt, said the pope had given “openings” on the question of ordaining women.

“He recognised that the questions has not been examined sufficiently on a theological level,” she said.

Since his election in 2013, Francis has sought to forge a more open Church, more welcoming to LGBTQ faithful and divorcees, and encouraging inter-faith dialogue.

He has increased the number of women appointed to the Curia, the central government of the Holy See, with some in senior positions.

But some campaigners see the changes as “cosmetic” reforms which hide a biased perception of women.

Cathy Corbitt, an Australian member of the executive board of umbrella group Catholic Women’s Council (CWC), said the inclusion of female voting members in the Synod was a sign of progress.

But she said the wider view of women in the Church was “very frustrating”, much of it taking inspiration from the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.

“The pope still seems to have this blind spot towards women… He seems to regard women in terms of a role, and it’s usually in terms of a mother,” she said.

– Resistance –

The Synod process is slow — the current meeting in Rome followed a two-year global consultation, and a second general assembly is planned for next year.

Regina Franken-Wendelsorf, a German member of CWC executive board, said women were hoping for concrete action.

“All arguments and requests are on the table. It’s now the Vatican and the Church who have to act!” she said.

While the Church debates, “there are collateral victims, frustration, Catholics who leave because they no longer feel welcomed”, added French campaigner Chaumet.

But just as Pope Francis faces resistance in his reform agenda, there is significant resistance to the women’s push for change.

“Some American bishops are afraid to follow the path of the Anglican Church,” which authorised the ordination of women in 1992, notes one Synod participant, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another senior Church member, who also asked not to be named, noted that pressure for reform was not equal from all regions of the Church.

“We must not forget that the Church is global,” he recalled. “There are expectations (among women) in Europe, but in Asia and Africa, much less.”

Posted on

Inequality ‘embedded’ in Catholic Church says McAleese

— The Synod’s structure, notwithstanding modest lay and female participation, “is still modelled on a discipleship of unequals.”

Pope Francis at the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality at the Paul VI Hall in Rome today.

By Sarah Mac Donald

Professor Mary McAleese has criticised the Church for failing to reform its “out-dated internal structure of governance, teachings and laws” in which, she said, “inequality is embedded”.

This, she said “routinely restricted” the human rights of members especially the fundamental intellectual freedoms of expression, opinion, conscience and religion including freedom to change religion.

In a keynote address for the Spirit Unbounded assembly, the former president of Ireland said this failure to reform had impeded Christ’s mission as a consequence.

In her address on the theme, “Being Denied the Discipleship of Equals”, delivered in Rome and broadcast to network of reform groups around the world taking part in the Spirit Unbounded assembly, Professor McAleese said members believe the Catholic Church should be and could be an exemplar of equality and respect for human rights, but it is not.

“Instead, the biggest Christian Church in the world, the biggest NGO in the world, the only faith system to have representative status at the United Nations, a key influencer of laws, attitudes and cultures on five continents, is languishing in a deepening credibility crisis precisely because it has failed to reform.”

She said Pope Francis’ initiation of the synodal journey was prompted by the rapidly escalating disillusionment among the faithful over the persistence of “stark internal inequality and lack of respect for the human rights of Church members within the Church”.

“We wish the Synod of Bishops well as it takes place here in Rome this month and again next year, but its structure, notwithstanding modest lay and female participation, is still modelled on a discipleship of unequals, with evident unease as to how to deal with what has been a powerful show of lay strength in the synodal journey so far, especially its determined push towards a discipleship of equals where what affects all is discussed and decided by all.”

She said lay people had been “emboldened by the courage” of the German Catholic Church’s “egalitarian” synodal process, and “inspired” by the openness, equality and freedom of speech of the Root and Branch lay-led synod in 2021. She questioned whether the Synod of Bishops taking place in the Vatican would “stay faithful” to the discernment of the People of God.

The former head of state, who is a Canon Lawyer, criticised Pope Francis for trying to steer synodal discussions away from controversy. This had been unsuccessful because “the laity resolutely insisted on their right to debate contentious issues even those on which the magisterium has fixed contradictory views often backed by claims of infallibility”.

On the Pope’s recent response to the Dubia put to him by five cardinals, she said Francis had “reversed a very hardline message published with his approval” by the then Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in 2021 which banned Church blessings for married gay Catholics and claimed such Church members were incapable of receiving or expressing God’s grace.

“The ban and its dreadful unchristian language provoked widespread outrage among the People of God, lay, clerical and episcopal.”

Pope Francis can certainly claim credit for that notable development, but lay pressure can claim even greater credit she said.

That same pressure and “simmering outrage”, Professor McAleese said, was visible too in response to the Pope’s decision to permit the participation of a token number of women and lay synod members for the first time and to give them voting rights.

“There has been resounding demand from the global synodal process for equality for women in the Church. Had the Synod of Bishops opened this month with no concession to that now mainstream, majority voice it might just as well have closed up shop on day one.”

The retired professor of law and university chancellor said the inclusion of a small cohort of women in the synod merely highlighted the extent of the continuing gender imbalance at the core of Church governance. “It also highlights the resistance to equality in all its fullness. Equality is a right not a favour. The women attending the Synod on Synodality are there as a favour not as a right.”

And she warned that the ongoing failure to include women especially in the diaconate and priesthood was “shrinking access to the sacraments and to vibrant parish life for all the faithful”.

On dissent among the faithful towards the Church’s magisterial teachings, the 72-year-old who spends time every year with the Poor Clare nuns, said it was clear that the synodal discernment of the People of God includes serious levels of good faith dissent from magisterial teaching on gender equality, female ordination to priesthood and deaconate, inclusion of LGBTIQ+ catholics, church teaching on human sexuality, co-responsibility with the laity, compulsory celibacy, transparency and accountability of governance, credible safeguarding of children, and eucharistic access for divorced and remarried Catholics.

She criticised the synod gathering in Rome saying, “Veiled discussions behind closed doors which are subject to confidentiality and publishing restrictions are disappointingly old school and smack of reluctance to trust even the Holy Spirit.”

The Spirit Unbounded Assembly, she said, was there to showcase what a discipleship of equals looked like and a way of being Church when we meet prayerfully, in Christ, as equals, with complete freedom of speech and opinion, openness to the Holy Spirit and open doors out to the world, looks like.

“Our ambition is for a Church where magisterial teaching is proposed not imposed, where teaching is arrived at through a process where what affects all is discussed by and decided by all, where Church members are volunteers not conscripts, where all are equal regardless of gender or lay or clerical status, where governance roles are open to all, where Canon Law acknowledges our God-given human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) to which the Holy See is a State Party.”

These rights include freedom of speech, belief, conscience, opinion and religion including the right change religion. “None of that is how things are in Church teaching and Canon Law,” she said.

As she has done in the past, Mary McAleese revisited her criticisms of infant baptism in the Church. Noting that for 84 per cent of Church members baptism occurred, “when we were non-sentient infants”, she said that she has no issue with Infant baptism itself when it is seen as “God’s gratuitous gift of membership of the body of Christ, a miraculous source of grace which we are at liberty to draw down or not”.

However, she argued that Canon Law attaches to baptism “a crude list of man-made rules which turn our christening into a lazy form of life-long conscription and subservience which Christ never intended. It infantilises faith, robs us of choice and presumes an automated rather than a real personal commitment”.

She added, “The language of these canons is the typical language of elitist, hierarchical, top-down control. It is not a language which honours in any way our fundamental intellectual freedoms. Quite the opposite.”

The idea that non-sentient infants can make promises or have promises made on their behalf is risible and very troubling to those literate in human rights law, she stated.

“The very idea that a childhood ceremony which we could not comprehend nor take an active part in, irrevocably binds us for life to a faith system and obedience to teachings which comprehensively impact our lives but into which we have no input, is risible.”

The mother and grandmother who served two terms as president of Ireland underlined how currently Canon Law makes no provision for the infant baptised to validate their Church membership when mature enough to do so. “The sacrament of Confirmation could do so, but it does not – instead it maintains the fiction of baptismal promises by asking us to renew them,” she said.

“Canon Law offers us no exit strategy, brooks no dissenters, but rather provides serious penalties for those who leave or who oppose Church teachings. That this contradicts our God given human freedoms especially the freedom to make up our own minds is clear to an educated People of God and indeed many today exercise their human right to leave or stay while protesting and critiquing magisterial teaching.”

Unless you are one of the few who entered the Church as an adult catechumen, she said there never were baptismal promises made by infants.

“They are a fiction. And that is the ‘appalling vista’ too many in the Magisterium simply cannot face because it means that its authority over Church members as currently understood and exercised, is legally and morally questionable. It belongs to an old disintegrating empire of generals and conscripts  and it stands in the way of being Church that is a discipleship of equals and volunteers, members by choice not compulsion. There is not even the merest hint that this reality is up for discussion at the Synod of Bishops.”

Criticising Pope Francis for operating out of a “compulsion model”, she took issue with his recent words on the church teaching which excludes women from ordination, written in response to the Dubia raised by five cardinals.

“I am here to say Holy Father, many of us have studied it deeply and prayerfully and are here to publicly contradict it for we have concluded that it is unscholarly sexist humbug masquerading as threadbare theology.”

She added that many catholic women are “tired of being spoken for”.

“We resent the recent pretentious words of the head of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life which is charged with responsibility for women in the Church that ‘the activities of women are exquisitely lay by their nature’. No, they are not; they are lay by misogynistic magisterial decree.

“It beggars belief that this same Dicastery until it was publicly challenged, up to very recently, published on its website as recommended texts, the words of Tertullian which in 230AD, addressed women as, ‘the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that [forbidden] tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert – that is, death – even the Son of God had to die’.”

Regretting that there is no mention of a “discipleship of equals” in the working document for the Synod of Bishops, she said any positive references to the human rights of Church members was also absent. “Instead, you will find scathing dismissals of human rights.”

Recalling Pope Francis’ words on his way back from the World Youth Day in Lisbon last August, when challenged by journalists about the exclusion of women and the demonising of LGBTIQ+ Catholics by the Magisterium, the Pope said, “The Church is open to everyone but there are laws that regulate life inside the Church.

McAleese told the international assembly of reform groups, “We dare to suggest that the laws that regulate life inside the Church do not all bear scrutiny, are often oppressive and are not consonant with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. They are at odds with a God of love and a discipleship of equals.”

She said the synodal process offers a real opportunity to recalibrate the shape of internal laws, structures and relationships, to drive towards a Christ-centred discipleship of equals but only if the magisterium listens humbly and recognises that a new leaven is at work among the People of God.

“It is now apparent that the People of God are no longer bending the knee to the Magisterium. Beginning in the West they are now actively dismantling what is widely accepted is a dysfunctional magisterial culture and its long list of unchristian teachings. They are doing it from the bottom up, hollowing out misogynistic, homophobic, judgmental and legalistic hierarchical authority by challenging, ignoring or bypassing it.”

Reform, she said, will require a new legal infrastructure which unequivocally accepts the principle of equality of all Church members and accepts their inalienable and indivisible human rights.

Church personnel will need training in internalising the principles of equality and intellectual freedoms at all and especially the highest levels of Church leadership. Church governance structures will have to change and will have to be based on equality.

“To be credible it will require agreed plans, programs, measured outcomes for the delivery of equality, inclusive decision-making and accountability mechanisms and strict gender quotas to redress historical imbalances. There is no other way to harness the energies and talents of all Church members, or to truly honour Christ’s mission and open the horizon of hope the Synod is praying for.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Posted on

‘It’s time to abolish celibacy,’ says president of Swiss Bishops’ Conference

“The time is ripe to abolish celibacy. I have no problem at all imagining married priests,” said Felix Gmür.

The president of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference admits mistakes in dealing with abuse cases in the Catholic Church and advocates for the abolition of celibacy and the admission of women to the priesthood.

In an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) am SonntagExternal link, Bishop Felix Gmür also said that the Catholic Church has been active in the topic of abuse cases for a long time.

The prevailing conditions must be questioned, the Swiss Bishops’ Conference president explains. In his view, the time is ripe to abolish celibacy and to allow women access to the priesthood.

At the beginning of his time as bishop, Gmür emphasised the legally correct conduct in cases of abuse, he said in the interview with NZZ am Sonntag. The victim’s perspective had been neglected in the process. “In this respect, I have changed my perspective over time”.

Gmür is in favour of an external monitoring of the church investigation into the cases of abuse, as demanded by the Roman Catholic Central Conference.

In general, power in the Church must be better distributed, Gmür said. “I will lobby in Rome for the Church to decentralise.” A new sexual morality is needed, together with the possibility to make regulations regionally.

The Swiss Bishops’ Conference has decided to set up an ecclesiastical criminal and disciplinary tribunal for the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland. However, this still has to be discussed with the Pope, since such tribunal is not provided for in canon law, said Gmür. However, the proceedings under church law are subordinate to state law, “so they do not replace secular criminal proceedings.”

Women should join the priesthood

Part of coming to terms with the situation is questioning the prevailing conditions. “Celibacy means that I am available to God. But I believe that this sign is no longer understood by society today,” says Gmür. “The time is ripe to abolish celibacy. I have no problem at all imagining married priests.”

The exclusion of women from priestly ordination should also fall, he says. “The subordination of women in the Catholic Church is incomprehensible to me. Changes are needed there,” Gmür said. He added that the Church is “not yet where we need it to be” when it comes to the ban on concubinage for employees.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!