Category: Theological Debate

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Anglicans brace for second wave of defections to Rome

Hundreds of disaffected Anglicans will cross over to the Roman Catholic Church this year as the Church of England prepares to take another step toward the ordination of female bishops.

Up to 20 clergy and several hundred of their parishioners are already lined up to join the Ordinariate, the new structure set up by Pope Benedict XVI a year ago that allows them to retain some of their Anglican heritage while entering into full communion with the Holy See.

But many more members of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England will probably defect after a meeting of its governing body, the General Synod. They will switch if traditionalists, who cannot accept the ordination of women, are denied special provision.

The head of the Ordinariate, Msgr. Keith Newton, said: “There are 15 to 20 people who I think will be coming over this year. These are ordained Anglicans who wish to petition the Holy See for ordination.”

He said they would probably bring a “couple of hundred” worshippers with them in a second wave of defections, following the 60 clergy and 1,000 lay people who switched last year.

Newton, a former Anglican bishop, who is now officially known as the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, said: “Next year it depends on what the Synod decides to do. But you can’t become a Catholic because you simply want to escape the problems of the Church of England – you have to want to become a Catholic.”

Newton believes the Synod poll on female bishops is on a “knife-edge” with only a handful of votes needed to swing it either way.

On New Year’s Day an Ordinariate will be created in the United States, followed by another in Australia in the spring, both of which will probably have more members than the British one.

Complete Article HERE!

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Excommunication lifted on nun who approved an abortion

After being excommunicated, the sister who said “yes” to a therapeutic abortion in Phoenix, Arizona was “pardoned.” Sister Margaret McBride was forgiven and brought back into the Sisters of Mercy, despite the fact that three years ago, as member of the ethics committee at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, she had authorized a voluntary termination of pregnancy for a woman in her eleventh week of pregnancy who suffered from pulmonary hypertension.

In 2009, with the consent of Sister Margaret McBride (who was one of the hospital’s Church administrators), a woman was given an abortion at the hospital, after doctors said she risked dying if her pregnancy was not terminated. The Bishop of Phoenix excommunicated McBride and, as a direct result of the abortion, withdrew the Catholic Church’s patronage from the clinic. After being ousted from the Church for an act that the bishop judged “unacceptable,” the nun has now been returned to her position.

The St. Joseph’s patient suffered from pulmonary hypertension, a rare and potentially lethal disease which is often aggravated by pregnancy. Along with Sister McBride, the doctors involved in the abortion, as well as the mother herself, were also excommunicated.

Complete Article HERE!

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Jesuits address issue of homosexuality in the clergy

Despite being surrounded by an ancient silence, the silence over homosexuality among priests and nuns, is a “real issue” that “we can no longer pretend to ignore.” For this in the U.S. state of Connecticut, the Jesuits have decided to speak publicly. And so, for the first time, a Catholic university has recently organized a conference on the controversial issue of homosexuality within the communities of nuns and priests. According to Catholic doctrine, gays must be accepted with respect and sensitivity, so every sign of unjust discrimination should be avoided.

However, while respecting gay people, the Church does not admit those who practice homosexuality, have deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture into the seminary and to holy orders. These people, in fact, are in a situation that seriously hinders them from properly relating to men and women. Since practice differs from theory, the Society of Jesus felt that it is better to remove the old walls of silence and engaged in a slippery issue through one of its prestigious academic institutions in the United States. 110 among theologians, clergy, religious and seminarians attended the study day sponsored by the “Fairfield” University of the Jesuits entitled “The cure of souls: sexual diversity, celibacy and ministry.” Personal stories, general principles, insights, and specific situations are involved in the discussion. The Church, in fact, distinguishes between homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies.

The acts are serious sins: for tradition they are intrinsically immoral and contrary to natural law, so they cannot be approved under any circumstances. The deep-seated homosexual tendencies, however, are also objectively disordered and often constitute a trial. In the era of sex scandals, the negative consequences of ordaining people with deeply rooted homosexual tendencies has created an alarm in the Church. However, if it comes to homosexual tendencies that express only a transitory problem (like that of an adolescence not yet completed), these, however, must be clearly overcome at least three years before being ordained as a deacon. In terms of the Magisterium, “Educating” the Congregation for Catholic Education represents the cornerstone with which, for six years, the Holy See has prohibited homosexuals from accessing the priesthood.

On paper, therefore, the problem is solved: no more gays in seminaries and religious orders, no more priests who “practice” homosexuality, have “deeply rooted homosexual tendencies” or even support “the so-called gay culture.” The Vatican has permanently closed its doors with a nine-page document divided into three chapters: “Affective Maturity and Spiritual Fatherhood,” «Homosexuality and the Ordained Ministry,” “The discernment of the suitability of candidates by the Church.” A candidate for the sacrament of Orders must reach affective maturity, which will allow him to be in a correct relationship with men and women. According to the rules laid out in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI just “one serious doubt” on the homosexuality of a candidate (expressed by the superiors who follow him) will bar the way to ministerial priesthood.

In talks with the seminarian’s the spiritual director must especially point out the demands of the Church concerning priestly chastity and the affective maturity that is characteristic of a priest. For each aspiring “Don”, it is necessary to discern whether he has the right qualities and is free of sexual disorders that are incompatible with the ministry that awaits him. If a candidate practices homosexuality or manifests profoundly radical homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director and confessor has the duty to dissuade him in all conscience from proceeding towards ordination. Faced with prospective seminarians who have homosexual tendencies, the objective of ecclesiastical hierarchy is to discourage them from lying to their superiors in order to enter the seminary. Moreover, the candidate himself has the primary responsibility for his education and must offer himself trustingly to the discernment of the Church. So it would be gravely dishonest for a candidate to hide his own homosexuality in order to proceed, despite it all, with the ordination. Such a deceitful attitude does not correspond to the spirit of truth, fairness, and openness that must characterize the personality of one who considers himself called to serve Christ. The spiritual director is entrusted with the important task of discerning the suitability for ordination.

Although bound to secrecy, he represents the Church in the internal forum. In discussions with the candidate, the spiritual director must especially point out the needs of the Church concerning priestly chastity and the affective maturity that are characteristic of a priest, as well as help him to discern whether he has the necessary qualities. Bishops, Episcopal conferences and major superiors must watch over the candidates for their own good and to ensure that the Church has suitable priests. If a candidate practices homosexuality or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director, as well as his confessor, have the duty to dissuade him in all conscience from proceeding with the ordination. In practice, however, it is difficult to apply these rules. And among seminarians and religious communities the presence of gay men and women is still a “real issue”. So the Jesuits have decided: the time has come to discuss this out in the open.

Complete Article HERE!

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The Catholic Church and Sexuality: If Only the Hierarchs Would Listen and learn

COMMENTARY — John Falcone

Few Roman Catholic seminaries can boast an active and vibrant GLBT student organization. Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry is one. Since April 2011, the “GIFTS” group (“G/L/B/T Inclusive Fellowship of Theology Students”) has planned and hosted prayer services for the school community. We’ve celebrated the long tradition of believers who have lived their Catholicism through same-sex love, non-traditional gender roles and the quest for social justice. We have also asked some difficult questions: How can GLBT lay people with a proven calling to ministry best serve the Catholic Church? What is our responsibility to a clergy and leadership which is often homophobic and paternalistic, and profoundly conflicted about sex?

Recently, four GIFTS members and I drove to Fairfield University in Connecticut for “The Care of Souls: Sexual Diversity, Celibacy and Ministry” — the last of this autumn’s “More than a Monologue” series on sexuality and the Catholic Church. We went to hear Rev. Donald Cozzens, a respected researcher on the Catholic priesthood and a former seminary president; Mark Jordan, a queer theologian and ethicist at Harvard Divinity School and Jeannine Gramick, a Catholic nun who was silenced by the Vatican for her work with lesbians and gays. We found four themes particularly compelling: the struggles of a closeted clergy, the dynamics of Catholic patriarchy, the troubling theology of priestly vocation and the powerful Christian witness offered by lesbian nuns.

For Cozzens, the Vatican’s prohibition of gay men entering the priesthood has worked much like the (now defunct) policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Gay men have not left the priesthood (Cozzens estimates they make up 30-50 percent of US priests), and they also continue to enter — either by lying about their orientation, or by keeping it under wraps at the direction of seminary directors. Yet gay priests must steer firmly clear of their sexual identity in their preaching and public personas. As GIFTS member Oliver Goodrich asked, “How can so many priests, who preach a gospel of liberation and authenticity, lead such inauthentic lives?”

Jordan was more provocative. In a church that defines “the few and the proud” as its straight male celibate clergy, power gets tangled with maleness. But the clergy’s desire for power animates an unseemly dance of dominance, submission and career advancement. Within all-male hierarchical settings, this can smack of sado-masochist pleasures. Accepting gay men into seminary, or acknowledging same-sex love, shines an unwelcome light on these homoerotic dynamics. To keep this psychology intact and in shadow, the hierarchy must keep gay men (and straight women) out.

The notion that ritual and organizational leadership requires abstinence from sexual love is another problem for Catholic ministry. For almost 2000 years, Catholic monks and nuns have accepted celibacy as a form of spiritual practice. For 1100 years, Catholic priests could marry and raise children. Today, Church officials insist that everyone called to the priesthood automatically receives the “grace” (or spiritual power) to live a celibate life. Why must these two be connected? As Jocelyn Collen, another GIFTS member, remarked, “Grace is not given to someone on command. No one — not even the Vatican — can direct the grace of God.”

Gramick’s reflections were perhaps the most hopeful. Drawing from decades of work with lesbian nuns, she described a non-patriarchal model of ministry in which warm and affirming female friendships support lives of celibacy, service and prayer. For these nuns, the experience of sexual orientation is about the longing for intimacy, the romantic desires that shape personality and interpersonal life. This makes profound psychological sense. Lesbian and gay celibates need intimate same-sex friendships; in the same way, straight men called to celibacy need warm and affirming relationships with women. Without such intimate friendships, frustrations multiply, boundaries decay and ministers tragically act out.

At the end of the day, we drove back to Boston through the worst October snowstorm in years, and a certain chill still remains. I’ve co-written this article with another GIFTS student, whose goal is to teach in a Catholic school. The insights of this minister-in-training are all over this article. But to protect his/her future employment, I cannot disclose a name. Like the prayers that GIFTS has written, and the GLBT saints that we’ve recalled, the insights of marginalized Catholics speak of Spirit, courage and truth. Our hierarchs should listen and learn.

Complete Article HERE!