Tag: Divorce/Remarriage

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Catholics Want Justice For Abuse Victims And More LGBTQ Inclusion, Vatican Says

Pope Francis delivers his homily during the Wednesday General Audience at St. Peter’s Square on May

By Mary Whitfill Roeloffs

The Vatican on Tuesday released the results of a two-year canvassing of churches around the world that showed that rank-and-file Catholics want more rights for women in the clergy, justice for victims of widespread sexual abuse within the church and acceptance for previously shunned groups, including divorced and remarried and LGBTQ+ parishioners—but it’s unclear how the Vatican will act on the findings.

Key Facts

The document raises several key questions brought forward by members of worldwide parishes: Should women be ordained deacons in the church, should married priests be allowed to serve where there is a clergy shortage, how can the church better welcome LGBTQ+ members and should the church’s current hierarchy be restructured in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis?

The prospect of allowing women to be ordained as priests was not discussed, but the document found a “unanimous” and “crucial” call for women in positions of power.

The Vatican also said parishioners wanted “radical inclusion and acceptance” of LGBTQ+ people, minorities and poor people, and called to “reform structures, institutions and functioning mechanisms” that have allowed high-level clergy to get away with abuse.

This marks the first time the Vatican has used the phrase “LGBTQ+ Catholics” instead of “persons with homosexual tendencies,” the Associated Press reported, suggesting a new level of acceptance.

The church acknowledged that its credibility has been “eroded” in the wake of abuse scandals, which include sexual abuse at high levels as well as “abuse of power, money and conscience,” suggesting “conversion and reform” as ways to prevent future abuses and vowing to place “great emphasis on learning to exercise justice” for victims—but it didn’t specify concrete steps.

The study, called the Instrumentum laboris, is meant to be the starting document for the General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality–what the Pope calls his vision of a less bureaucratic church–which begins in the Vatican in October 2023.

Key Background

The Catholic church has been in crisis for more than two decades as a growing overall disinterest in organized religion collided with the 2002 breaking of the sexual abuse scandal in the church by the Boston Globe. The Globe’s investigation into the Boston Archdiocese launched similar efforts across the country and the world, which in turn revealed a disturbing pattern of sexual abuse and cover-ups within the church. About 20 state attorneys general have mounted investigations that have cataloged decades of abuse by hundreds of clergy members, the New York Times reported. Americans’ membership in houses of worship has been dropping for decades, but the Catholic church has been hit the hardest, according to Gallup. Meanwhile, Pope Francis has expressed more support of LGBTQ+ people than anyone in the position before. He was hailed as revolutionary in 2013 when he responded to question about the topic of gay parishioners with a casual “Who am I to judge?” The comment was a stark juxtaposition to the actions of his predecessor, who had banned gay priests. Pope Francis went on to say earlier this year that homosexuality is not a crime, but has maintained the traditional stance that acting on homosexual urges is a sin and has said the Roman Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex marriages.

Big Number

95%. That’s how many dioceses are expected to have been affected by the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and deacons, a study by John Jay College found. Of the 195 dioceses and eparchies that participated in the study, all but seven reported that allegations of sexual abuse have been made against at least one priest.

What To Watch For

Francis last year announced a plan to restructure the Vatican toward “transparency and coordinated action.” The Pope is looking to move toward a “synodal Church,” according to Vatican News, which is broken down into three main themes: growing in communion by welcoming everyone; valuing the contribution of any church member, rather than just ordained clergy; and restructuring the church toward more communal government.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Hey Church! Stop Denying People Romance!

— What if someone told you that you were unworthy of romantic love, but instead, God and the Church could provide all the love you need? You’d probably say that was ridiculous. Yet, there are at least four groups of people to whom the church is saying exactly that. For Singles Awareness Day, I want to focus on these groups, upon whom many in the Church want to impose singleness.

By Greg Smith

1. LGBTQ Folks

The first group are LGBTQ folks. Recently, the pope said that it’s not a crime to be gay, but gay sex is still a sin. Many Catholic and Protestant conservatives share this view. Some have finally come around to understanding that it’s not a choice to be gay. They have quit condemning people for having gay thoughts. But “doing the gay thing,” they say, is something else. So, they say you can be a Christian and be gay, but you can’t be a Christian and do gay.

A couple of years ago, a local church offered a discussion about how to love LGBTQ people. I was encouraged that they were even having the conversation, so I attended. Unfortunately, they came to the conclusion that I described above. Still, they wanted to be compassionate. They recognized the fact that human beings are made for love. So, since they believed that LGBTQ folks were created for celibacy, they said that God and the Church could provide all the love that they needed.

They encouraged the Church to offer fellowship groups for LGBTQ individuals. Straight families should invite gay friends to their homes for supper. In other words, the Church should fill in the gap. Christians should make up for the loss that a gay Christian would feel without ever being able to have sex, or a spouse, or children of their own.

Of course, church leaders realized that inviting gay people to fellowship groups to cure their loneliness is like bandaging a wound that the Church gave them. So they justified their statement by saying the Church already has other groups of people who are expected to live a life of celibacy. They insisted that the Church wasn’t asking gay folks to do anything that they weren’t asking of other groups.

2. Unmarried People

The second group is unmarried people. The pastor said, “For me, the only legitimate sexual partner is my wife. Before I was married, God expected me to be celibate. So that’s pretty much the same thing as asking gay folks to be celibate.” Except it isn’t.

The difference is that the Church says that people can (some say “should”) choose to marry. Thus, they can have a blessed and sanctioned sexual partner in their spouse. But congregations and denominations that refuse LGBTQ folks the right to marry deny them romantic and sexual expression for a lifetime.

Perhaps the Church should rethink its ban on premarital sex. This argument has been made by some. It’s not my purpose in this article to weigh in on that. But forbidding premarital sex isn’t the same as denying LGBTQ folks the right to romantic and sexual fulfillment. The first position says, “Not now, not yet.” The second says, “Not ever.”

3. Catholic Clergy

The third group is the Catholic clergy. Roman Catholic priests, monks, and nuns are asked to take a vow to abstain from all acts of sexuality. If priests can do it, Church leaders said, then LGBTQ people can do it too. There are two problems with that.

The first problem is that the church should never ask clergy to take a vow of celibacy, either. God created human beings with a sex drive. It isn’t natural to deny that sex drive your whole life. Denying people the right to sexual expression and romantic love does not make them more holy. It usually turns them into greater sinners.

Since Catholic clergy members are denied the right to marry, they are only left with the alternative of finding illicit outlets for their sexuality. Sex is a biological function that was not meant to be repressed. We have seen the results of clergy who are denied legitimate sexual and romantic relationships. They don’t suddenly become asexual. Instead, they simply get good at hiding their behavior.

The second problem is that Catholic clergy take their vow of celibacy voluntarily. When they enter the priesthood, monastery, or convent, they know what they’re signing up for. Nobody tells them that they are unworthy of sexual love. Nobody tells them that they are a different breed of person who was not created for procreation. Those who take a vow of celibacy realize that they have a right to find love, to marry, to start a family of their own. They simply choose a different path from that of sexuality, romantic love, and family.

But, when the church tells LGBTQ folks that they have to take a vow of celibacy, it’s not the same thing. Conservative churches deny LGBTQ folks their right to romantic happiness. In the case of clergy who take a vow of celibacy, they do that of their own free will. But the church imposes celibacy on gay people. To say, “Roman Catholic clergy takes vows of celibacy, so gay folks should be celibate too” is a false equivalency. One is voluntary—the other is not.

4. Divorcees

Many conservative churches still maintain that divorcees are not allowed to remarry unless their ex-spouse dies and that anyone who marries a divorced person commits adultery. (This is why some say King Charles’ coronation should be invalidated—because Charles and Diana divorced, and because Camilla’s ex-husband Andrew is still alive.) Most moderate to liberal Christians interpret Jesus’ stance on divorce loosely. But many conservative churches dictate that their members cannot remarry once they divorce.

Here’s the problem with a literal interpretation and enforcement of this: it makes divorce an unforgivable sin. Jesus talked about only one unforgivable sin—and this isn’t it. Yet, conservative churches stigmatize divorcees. They not only forbid divorcees from remarriage but sometimes from serving in ministry. Yet, if we believe that God is in the business of second chances, we should recognize that God can bless subsequent marriages. If we understand that God made us for romantic and sexual fulfillment, we should encourage people to find happiness and hope for their future.

We don’t tend to focus that much on divorce as a sin these days. If we did, we’d have to recognize our hypocrisy. If churches are going to be hard-nosed about forbidding gay marriage, then they should enforce this rule about divorcees. However, if they want to excuse divorcees and grant them the ability to remarry, then they need to recognize gay marriage as well. You can’t have it both ways. Instead of saying, “It’s okay for us to deny sex to gays because we deny it to divorcees as well,” we ought to relax about both.

A Cross to Bear?

So, we have four large groups of people to whom the church has denied the right to be sexual human beings: LGBTQ folks, unmarried people, Roman Catholic clergy, and divorcees. For unmarried people, this prohibition is temporary, as long as they marry eventually. For Catholic clergy, at least it’s a choice. For divorcees, churches are becoming more liberal. But for LGBTQ folks, the conservative Church denies them any choice. Conservative leaders insist that God gave LGBTQ people a sex drive just to make them deny it. “It’s their cross to bear,” these leaders say, grateful that they themselves don’t have to carry that load.

Celibacy isn’t what Jesus meant when he said that we should take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow him. If this were so, then the church would ask everyone to be celibate. Sexuality and the need for romantic love are intrinsic to humanity. Certainly, there are some who identify as asexual—for these people, celibacy is consistent with who they are at their core. But for the majority of the planet—people with sex drives and a desire for romantic intimacy—the Church has no right to ban fulfillment to an entire group of people. What if the Church allowed us all to be faithful to who we are at our core?

Hey Church! Stop Denying People Romance!

Too often, the church tells people, “Don’t worry about love. Give yourself to faith, and love will find you.” As a trite saying, it sounds sweet. As a way of helping people not to perseverate on finding the right partner prematurely, it kind of makes sense. The right person will come at the right time, so to speak. But, in honor of Singleness Awareness Day (February 15), I have to say that if a person wants to stay single, that’s okay, too. While singleness may be a calling for some people, it isn’t something the Church has a right to impose on anyone. But as a way of denying people’s right to romance and sexuality, phrases like this are a crime against basic humanity. Only when the Church recognizes the rights to sexuality and romantic love for all types of people can we embrace the fullness of who God meant us to be.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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German Bishops Rethink Catholic Teachings Amid Talk of ‘Schism’

Conservatives, particularly in the U.S., greet the prospect with alarm

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich (far left) during an audience with Pope Francis (right) at the Vatican last year

By Francis X. Rocca

Germany’s Catholic bishops will meet in Frankfurt on Thursday to launch their most ambitious effort yet in their role as the church’s liberal vanguard: a two-year series of talks rethinking church teaching and practice on topics including homosexuality, priestly celibacy, and the ordination of women.

Conservatives in Germany and abroad are greeting the prospect with alarm, and nowhere more so than in the U.S., whose episcopate has emerged as the western world’s foremost resistance to progressive trends under Pope Francis.

The tension between the groups epitomizes significant divisions in the church, which some warn could lead to a permanent split.

Earlier in January, a group of conservative Catholics from various countries, including Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former Vatican envoy to the U.S. who has become one of the pope’s harshest critics, gathered in Munich to warn that the German initiative would result in “the constitution of a church separate from Rome.”

The event starting this week originated as a response to the scandal over sex abuse of minors by Catholic priests. A 2018 report on the crisis in Germany called for a more positive attitude to homosexuality and more attention to the challenge of celibacy. Catholic women’s groups later prevailed on the gathering to also address the question of gender equity in the church’s leadership.

The decline of the Catholic Church in Germany has accelerated amid the scandals and growing secularization. According to the church’s latest statistics, 216,078 people left the church in 2018—a leap of 29% from the previous year. A poll published in January by the Forsa Institute showed that only 14% of Germans trusted the Catholic Church, down from 18% the previous year. Trust in Pope Francis fell to 29% from 34%.

However, the church in Germany is prospering as never before in material terms, receiving a record €6.6 billion ($7.3 billion) through a state-collected tax in 2018. German bishops are among the biggest financial supporters of the Vatican and of Catholic institutions in the developing world.

German bishops have enjoyed rising influence under Pope Francis, reflected in his policies of greater leniency on divorce and more autonomy for local church authorities on matters such as liturgy—moves long advocated by German theologians.

The leaders of the German synod, which will include representatives of Catholic laypeople, say they are offering it as a model for the church at large.

Ludwig Ring-Eifel, head of the German bishops’ news agency, estimates that around two thirds of the bishops—the threshold for passing a resolution—support the ordination of married men and women deacons and half are in favor of blessings for same-sex unions.

American conservatives say that for a branch of the church even to consider such moves poses a threat to unity.

“The German bishops continue move toward #schism from the universal Church,” Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver said on Twitter in September.

A minority of German bishops share such fears—and look to the U.S. for support. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne, leader of the German conservatives, traveled last summer to the U.S., where he visited various church institutions and met with some of his most prominent American counterparts.

“Everywhere, I encountered concern about the current developments in Germany,” the cardinal later told his diocesan newspaper. “In many meetings, the worry was tangible that the ’synodal path’ is leading us on a German special path, that in the worst case we could even put communion with the universal church at risk and become a German national church.”

Pope Francis himself has cautioned the Germans not to stray too far.

“Every time an ecclesial community has tried to get out of its problems alone, relying solely on its own strengths, methods and intelligence, it has ended up multiplying and nurturing the evils it wanted to overcome,” the pope said in an open letter to German Catholics in June.

But after meeting with the pope and Vatican officials in September, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, chairman of the German bishops conference, said: “There are no stop signs from Rome.”

In fact, when Pope Francis has publicly entertained the possibility of a split in the church, it has been in regards to the U.S., not Germany.

“There is always the option for schism,” the pope said in September, in response to a reporter’s question about conservative American opposition to his agenda. “I pray that schisms do not happen, but I am not afraid of them.”

That lack of fear could be because only the pope can decide whether or not a state of schism even exists, said Adam DeVille, a professor of theology at Indiana’s University of Saint Francis.

“If things get too far out of hand one way or another, I can see him acting in extreme but selective cases,” to stop any separatist moves, Mr. DeVille said.

“All it would take would be the sudden forced ‘retirement’ of a couple especially outspoken or perceived troublemakers, in Germany or anywhere else, for the others to shut up, and fall docilely in line,” he added.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why Catholic bishops need a year of abstinence on preaching about sexuality

A view of St. Peter’s Square during a Pentecost Mass celebrated by Pope Francis, at the Vatican, Sunday, June 9, 2019.

By

If Catholic bishops hope to reclaim their moral credibility after revelations about covering up clergy sexual abuse, the hierarchy might start by sending a simple but potent message: Church leaders should take a year of abstinence from preaching about sex and gender.

It might seem obvious that a church facing a crisis of legitimacy caused by clergy raping children would show more humility when claiming to hold ultimate truths about human sexuality

Instead, in the past month alone, a Rhode Island bishop tweeted that Catholics shouldn’t attend LGBTQ pride events because they are “especially harmful for children”; a Vatican office issued a document that described transgender people as “provocative” in trying to “annihilate the concept of nature”; and a Catholic high school in Indianapolis that refused to fire a teacher married to a same-sex partner was told by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis that it can no longer call itself Catholic

There is an unmistakable hubris displayed when some in the church are determined to make sexuality the linchpin of Catholic identity at a time when bishops have failed to convince their flock that they are prepared to police predators in their own parishes.

Even before abuse scandals exploded into public consciousness a decade ago and more, many Catholics were tuning out the all-male hierarchy’s teachings on sexuality. Surveys show the vast majority of Catholics use birth control and nearly 70 percent now support same-sex marriage.

This isn’t simply a matter of the church’s image, however. When the Catholic Church describes sexual intimacy between gay people as “intrinsically disordered,” it fails to take into account how this degrading language contributes to higher rates of suicide among LGBTQ people; when it condemns even civil recognition of same-sex unions that don’t impede the church’s ability to define marriage sacramentally, bishops appear indifferent to the roadblocks committed couples without marriage licenses face in hospitals and other settings.

Unless church leaders are content to drive away a generation of young people, these positions are self-inflicted wounds. Millennial Catholics understandably ask why centuries of Catholic teaching on human dignity and justice about don’t apply fully to their LGBTQ friends, family members and teachers. Those who are raised Catholic are more likely than those raised in any other religion to cite negative religious treatment of gay and lesbian people as the primary reason they leave, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

A document on gender identity released earlier this month from the Vatican’s congregation for Catholic education, titled “Male and Female He Created Them,” underscores why we need a break from lofty church pronouncements on these issues. The document is right in its call for respectful dialogue with LGBTQ people, but the work itself fails to reflect that ideal.

The authors clearly didn’t spend time with transgender Catholics. There was no apparent effort to engage with modern science or contemporary medical insights about gender development. It feels as if it was written in a bunker sealed off from the world in 1950.

Ray Dever, a Catholic deacon who has a transgender daughter and who ministers to Catholic families with transgender members, called the document “totally divorced from the lived reality of transgender people.”

Dever added, “Anyone with firsthand experience with gender identity issues will confirm that for an authentically transgender person, being transgender is not a choice, and it is certainly not driven by any gender theory or ideology.”

While abstract Vatican musings on sex and gender are unhelpful, the church faces a more urgent crisis in the making in the firing of LGBTQ employees at Catholic schools. In a rare display of defiance, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis clashed with Archbishop Charles Thompson, who wanted the independently operated school to terminate an employee who is civilly married to a person of the same sex. The school refused, and the archbishop now says the school can no longer call itself Catholic. Brebeuf Jesuit’s supervisory body, the Midwest Province of Jesuits, said the decision will be appealed through a church process all the way to the Vatican if necessary.

“We felt we could not in conscience dismiss him from employment,” the Rev. William Verbryke, president of Brebeuf, told the Jesuit publication America magazine earlier this week, explaining that the teacher in question does not teach religion and is not a campus minister.

After the Jesuit school’s decision became national news, another Indiana Catholic high school announced it was complying with the archdiocese and dismissing a teacher in a same-sex marriage. Administrators at Cathedral High School called it “an agonizing decision” and wrote a letter to the school community. “In today’s climate we know that being Catholic can be challenging and we hope that this action does not dishearten you, and most especially, dishearten Cathedral’s young people.”

In recent years, more than 70 LGBTQ church employees and Catholic school teachers have been fired or lost their jobs in employment disputes. Heterosexual Catholics who don’t follow church teaching that prohibits birth control or living together before marriage, for example, are not disciplined the same way by Catholic institutions. The scrutiny targeting gay employees alone is discriminatory and disproportionate.

Efforts to narrow Catholic identity to a “pelvic theology” hyperfocused on human sexuality raise questions about what Christians should be known for as we seek to live the gospel. Are Catholic employees at schools and other Catholic institutions evaluated for how often they visit the imprisoned, care for the sick, treat the environment, confront inequality? All of these moral issues are central to papal encyclicals, centuries of Catholic social teachings and the ministry of Jesus.

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods,” Pope Francis said in one of his first interviews after his election. “The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards.”

A year of abstinence for church leaders preaching about sex would demonstrate a symbolic posture of humility that could substantively show those of us still left in the pews that the hierarchy isn’t completely clueless to the stark reality of the present moment.

During their silence on sex and gender, Vatican and local Catholic leaders should get out of their comfort zones and conduct listening sessions with married, divorced, gay, straight and transgender people. They should step away from the microphone and take notes. There would be disagreement, but the simple act of flipping the script — priests and bishops quietly in the back instead of holding forth up front — might help clergy recognize there is a wisdom in lived reality and truth not found solely in dusty church documents.

Taking risks and sitting with discomfort is part of a healthy faith. It’s time for our bishops to lead by taking a step back.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Catholic Church is bursting with secrets. Investigating one will unravel them all.

Pope Francis in Rome on Feb. 14.

By Garry Wills

The New York Times published an extraordinary article this week based on interviews with two dozen gay Catholic priests and seminarians in 13 states. “Out” men and women today are often widely admired, but most of the interviews had to be conducted anonymously because the Vatican still treats homosexuality as “objectively disordered” — a policy that persists even though the representation of gay men in the priesthood is higher, probably far higher, than in the general population.

The relevant catechism about sexuality does not condemn people with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” just those who act on those tendencies. In other words, you can be gay so long as you don’t do anything about it. The Times article rightly presents this distinction as a trial for the priests involved — one of the last major throwbacks to the era of “the love that dare not speak its name” (as Oscar Wilde’s partner, Lord Alfred Douglas, put it). But I wondered how the church’s policy on homosexuality affects men and women, as well as boys and girls, who are not priests.

The gay priest is required, generally, to uphold the official teaching of his church and of his superiors, making him a collaborator in the suppression of his gay brothers and sisters outside the clergy. In this way, without intending to, the victimized become victimizers. How does that play out, to take an example, in the confessional? If a penitent confesses homosexual activity to a gay priest, does the priest channel God’s forgiveness of a sin that he does not himself consider a sin? This is just one of the many ways in which we Catholics, if we refrain from criticizing this particular stance of our church, contribute to the persecution of the LGBTQ community.

The deepest irony is that a priest who is required to go against his nature is told that he must do this because of “natural law.” The church’s quaint theory of natural law is that the first biological use of an activity is the only permissible use of that activity. If the biological use of sex is for procreation, any other use is “against nature.”

The absurdity of this view is made clear by considering the first biological use for eating: the sustenance of life. If every other use of nutrition is against nature, then any diet beyond what is consumed for life-maintenance is a sin — in other words, no wedding cakes, no champagne toasts. Yet the church continues to adhere to so-called natural law because it underpins doctrine on all sexual matters, including the condemnations of abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization and stem-cell research.

Given the stakes in these and other matters, the ban on gay sex involves a larger “church teaching” than the single matter of homosexuality.

Priests and bishops who cover up male homosexuality are prone to a mutual blackmail with those who commit and conceal heterosexual acts by the clergy — sometimes involving women, including nuns, who have been victimized by priests. The Times’s portrait of gay priests was followed by a powerful Feb. 18 article revealing that the church has internal policies for dealing with priests who father children. The Vatican confirmed, apparently for the first time, that a priest with progeny is encouraged to ask for release from his ministry “to assume his responsibilities as a parent by devoting himself exclusively to the child” — there being no requirement in canon law that a priest perform this basic act of love for his offspring and the child’s mother.

Secrecy in one clerical area intersects with secrecy in others. There is an implicit pledge that “your secret is safe with my secret.” If there are gay nuns — and why would there not be? — that adds another strand to the interweavings of concealment.

The trouble with any culture that maintains layer upon layer of deflected inspections is that, when so many people are guarding their own secrets, the deep examination of an institution becomes nearly impossible. The secrecies are too interdependent. Truly opening one realm of secrecy and addressing it may lead to an implosion of the entire system. That is the real problem faced this week by Pope Francis and the church leaders he has summoned from around the world for a conference at the Vatican to consider the labyrinthine and long-standing scandals of clerical sex abuse.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!