Tag: Marriage Equality

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Conflict and profound loss

— The AIDS epidemic and religious protest

The Washington National Cathedral has been home to numerous affirming services over the years.

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(Editor’s note: Although there has been considerable scholarship focused on LGBTQ community and advocacy in D.C., there is a deficit of scholarship focused on LGBTQ religion in the area. Religion plays an important role in LGBTQ advocacy movements, through queer-affirming ministers and communities, along with queer-phobic churches in the city. This is the final installment of a three-part series exploring the history of religion and LGBTQ advocacy in Washington, D.C. Visit our website for the previous installments.)

Six sisters gathered not so quietly in Marion Park, Washington, D.C. on Saturday, October 8, 2022. As the first sounds of the Women’s March rang out two blocks away at 11 am, the Sisters passed out candles to say Mass on the grass. It was their fifth annual Lavender Mass, but this year’s event in particular told an interesting story of religious reclamation, reimagining a meaningful ritual from an institution that seeks to devalue and oppress queer people.

The D.C. Sisters are a chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an organization of “drag nuns” ministering to LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities. What first began as satire on Easter Sunday 1979 when queer men borrowed and wore habits from a production of The Sound of Music became a national organization; the D.C. chapter came about relatively late, receiving approval from the United Nuns Privy Council in April 2016. The D.C. Sisters raise money and contribute to organizations focused on underserved communities in their area, such as Moveable Feast and Trans Lifeline, much like Anglican and Catholic women religious orders.

As Sister Ray Dee O’Active explained, “we tend to say we raise funds, fun, and hell. I love all three. Thousands of dollars for local LGBTQ groups. Pure joy at Pride parades when we greet the next generation of activists. And blatant response to homophobia and transphobia by protest after protest.” The Lavender Mass held on October 8th embodied their response to transphobia both inside and outside pro-choice groups, specifically how the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022 intimately affects members of the LGBTQ+ community.

As a little history about the Mass, Sister Mary Full O’Rage, shown wearing a short red dress and crimson coronet and veil in the photo above developed the Lavender Mass as a “counterpart” or “counter narrative” to the Red Mass, a Catholic Mass held the first Sunday of October in honor Catholics in positions of civil authority, like the Supreme Court Justices. The plan was to celebrate this year’s Lavender Mas on October 1st at the Nuns of the Battlefield Memorial, located right across the street from the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, where many Supreme Court Justices attend the Red Mass every year.

As Sister Mary explained, this year “it was intended to be a direct protest of the actions of the Supreme Court, in significant measure their overturning of reproductive rights.”

Unfortunately, the October 1st event was canceled due to heavy rain and postponed to October 8th at the recommendation of Sister Ruth Lisque-Hunt and Sister Joy! Totheworld. The focus of the Women’s March this year aligned with the focus of the Lavender Mass—reproductive rights—and this cause, Sister Mary explained, “drove us to plan our Lavender Mass as a true counter-ritual and protest of the Supreme Court of who we expected to attend the Red Mass,” and who were protested in large at the Women’s March.

The “Lavender Mass was something that we could adopt for ourselves,” Sister Mary spoke about past events. The first two Masses took place at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation, right around the corner from the Supreme Court. The second Mass, as Sister Mary explained, celebrated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; “we canonized her.” Canonization of saints in the Catholic Church also takes place during a Mass, a Papal Mass in particular.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sisters moved the Mass outside for safety, and the third and fourth Masses were celebrated at the Nuns of the Battlefield Memorial. “It celebrates nuns, and we are nuns, psycho-clown nuns,” Sister Mary chuckled, “but we are nuns.” After the Mass, the Sisters would gather at a LGBTQ+ safe space or protest at the Catholic Church or Supreme Court. Although they often serve as “sister security” at local events, working to keep queer community members safe according to Sister Amore Fagellare, the Lavender Mass is not widely publicly advertised, out of concern for their own.

On October 8th, nine people gathered on the grass in a circle—six sisters, myself, and two people who were close with professed members—as Sister Mary called us to assemble before leading us all in chanting the chorus to Sister Sledge’s 1979 classic song “We Are Family.” 

Next, novice Sister Sybil Liberties set a sacred space, whereby Sister Ruth and Sister Tearyn Upinjustice walked in a circle behind us, unspooling pink and blue ribbons to tie us together as a group. As Sister Sybil explained, “we surround this sacred space in protection and sanctify it with color,” pink for the choice to become a parent and blue for the freedom to choose not to be a parent but also as Sybil elaboration, in recognition of “the broad gender spectrum of people with the ability to become pregnant.” This intentional act was sought to fight transphobia within the fight for reproductive rights.

After singing Lesley Gore’s 1963 song “You Don’t Own Me,” six speakers began the ritual for reproductive rights. Holding out our wax plastic candles, Sister Sybil explained that each speaker would describe a story or reality connected to reproductive rights, and “as I light a series of candles for the different paths we have taken, if you recognize yourself in one of these prayers, I invite you to put your hand over your heart, wherever you are, and know that you are not alone – there is someone else in this gathered community holding their hand over their heart too.”

The Sisters went around the circle lighting a candle for those whose stories include the choice to end a pregnancy; those whose include the unwanted loss of a pregnancy or struggles with fertility; those whose include the choice to give birth, raise or adopt a child; those whose include the choice not to conceive a child, to undergo forced choice, or with no choice at all; those who have encountered violence where there “should have been tenderness and care;” and those whose reproductive stories are still being written today.

After each reading, the group spoke together, “may the beginnings and endings in our stories be held in unconditional love and acceptance,” recalling the Prayer of the Faithful or General Intercessions at Catholic Masswhere congregations respond “Lord, hear our prayer” to each petition. Sister Sybil closed out the ritual as Sister Mary cut the blue and pink ribbons between each person, creating small segments they could take away with them and tie to their garments before walking to the Women’s March. The Sisters gathered their signs, drums, and horns before walking to Folger Park together into the crowd of protestors.

At first glance, the Lavender Mass may appear like religious appropriation, just as the Sisters themselves sometimes look to outsiders. They model themselves after Angelican and Catholic women religious, in dress—they actively refer to their clothing as “habits,” their organization—members must also go through aspirant, postulant, and novice stages to be fully professed and they maintain a hierarchical authority, and in action. Like white and black habits, the Sisters all wear white faces to create a unified image and colorful coronets, varying veil color based on professed stage. Sister Allie Lewya explained at their September 2022 meeting, “something about the veils gives us a lot of authority that is undue,” but as the Sisters reinforced at the Women’s March, they are not cosplayers nor customers, rather committed clergy.

As such, the Sisters see their existence within the liminal spaces between satire, appropriation, and reimagination, instead reclaiming the basis of religious rituals to counter the power holders of this tradition, namely, to counter the Catholic Church and how it celebrates those in positions of authority who restrict reproductive rights. Similarly, the Lavender Mass is modeled after a Catholic or Anglican Mass. It has an intention, namely reproductive rights, a call to assemble, setting of a sacred space, song, chant, and prayer requests. It even uses religious terminology; each section of the Mass is ended with a “may it be/Amen/Awen/Ashay/aho.”

While this ritual—the Lavender Mass—appropriates a religious ritual of the Catholic Church and Anglican Church, this religious appropriation is necessitated by exclusion and queerphobia. As David Ford explains in Queer Psychology, many queer individuals retain a strong connection to their faith communities even though they have experienced trauma from these same communities. Jodi O’Brien builds on this, characterizing Christian religious institutions as spaces of personal meaning making and oppression. This essay further argues that the fact this ritual is adopted and reimagined by a community that the dominant ritual holder—the Catholic Church—oppressed and marginalized, means that it is not religious appropriation at all.

Religious appropriation, as highlighted in Liz Bucar’s recent book, Stealing My Religion (2022), is the acquisition or use of religious traditions, rituals, or objects without a full understanding of the community for which they hold meaning. The Sisters, however, fully understand the implications of calling themselves sisters and the connotations of performing a ritual they call a “Mass” as women religious, a group that do not have this authority in the Catholic Church. It is the reclamation of a tradition that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence understand because some were or are part of the Catholic Church.

Some sisters still seek out spiritual meaning, but all also recognize that the Catholic Church itself is an institution that hinders their sisters’ access and actively spreads homophobia and transphobia to this day. As such, through the Lavender Mass, the sisters have reclaimed the Mass as a tool of rebellion in support of queer identity.

Just as the Sisters recognize the meaning and power of the ritual of a Mass, along with the connotations of being a sister, the Lavender Mass fulfilled its purpose as a ritual of intention just as the Sisters fulfill public servants. “As a sister,” Sister Ruth dissected, “as someone who identifies as a drag nun, it perplexes people, but when you get the nitty gritty, we serve a similar purpose, to heal a community, to provide support to a community, to love a community that has not been loved historically in the ways that it should be loved.

The Sisters’ intentionality in recognizing and upholding the role of a woman religious in their work has been well documented as a serious parody for the intention of queer activism by Melissa Wilcox. The Lavender Mass is a form of serious parody, as Wilcox posits in the book: Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody(2018). The Mass both challenges the queerphobia of the Catholic Church while also reinforcing the legitimacy of this ritual as a Mass. The Sisters argue that although they would traditionally be excluded from religious leadership in the Catholic Church, they can perform a Mass. In doing so, they challenge the role that women religious play in the Catholic Church as a whole and the power dynamics that exclude queer communities from living authentically within the Church.

By reclaiming a tradition from a religious institution that actively excludes and traumatizes the LGBTQ+ community, the Lavender Mass is a form of religious reclamation in which an oppressed community cultivates queer religious meaning, reclaims a tradition from which they are excluded, and uses it to fuel queer activism (the fight for reproductive rights). This essay argues that the Lavender Mass goes one step further than serious parody. While the Sisters employ serious parody in their religious and activist roles, the Lavender Mass is the active reclamation of a religious tradition for both spiritual and activist ends.

Using the celebration of the Mass as it was intended, just within a different lens for a different purpose, this essay argues, is religious reclamation. As a collection of Austrian and Aotearoan scholars explored most recently in a chapter on acculturation and decolonization, reclamation is associated with the reassertion and ownership of tangibles: of rituals, traditions, objects, and land. The meaning of the Lavender Mass comes not only from the Sisters’ understanding of women religious as a social and religious role but rather from the reclamation of a physical ritual—a Mass—that has specific religious or spiritual meaning for the Sisters.

When asked why it was important to call this ritual a “Mass,” Sister Mary explained: “I think we wanted to have something that denoted a ritual, that was for those who know, that the name signifies that it was a counter-protest. And you know, many of the sisters grew up with faith, not all of them Catholics but some, so I think ‘Mass’ was a name that resonated for many of us.”

As Sister Ray said, “my faith as a queer person tends to ostracize me but the Sisters bring the imagery and language of faith right into the middle of the LGBTQ world.” This Lavender Mass, although only attended and experienced by a few of the Women’s March protests, lived up to its goal as “a form of protest that is hopefully very loud,” as Sister Millie Taint advertised in the Sisters’ September 2022 chapter meeting. It brought religious imagery and language of faith to a march for reproductive rights, using a recognized model of ritual to empower protestors.

The Lavender Mass this year, as always, was an act of rebellion, but by situating itself before the Women’s March and focusing its intention for reproductive rights, the Sisters’ reclaimed a religious ritual from a system of authority which actively oppressed LGBTQ+ peoples and those with the ability to become pregnant, namely the Catholic Church, and for harnessing it for personal, political, and spiritual power. In essence, it modeled a system of religious reclamation, by which a marginalized community takes up a religious ritual to make its own meaning and oppose the religious institution that seeks to exclude the community from ritual participation.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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LGBTQ-inclusive church in Cuba welcomes all in a country that once sent gay people to labor camps

1 of 8 | Rev. Elaine Saralegui, wearing a rainbow-colored clergy stole and her clerical collar, leads a service at the Metropolitan Community Church, an LGBTQ+ inclusive house of worship, in Matanzas, Cuba, Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. In recent years, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed “family law” — approved by popular vote — allowed same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt.

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Proudly wearing a rainbow-colored clergy stole and a rainbow flag in her clerical collar, the Rev. Elaine Saralegui welcomed all to her LGBTQ+ inclusive church in the Cuban port city of Matanzas.

“We’re all invited. And no one can exclude us,” Saralegui told same-sex couples who held hands sitting on wooden pews in the Metropolitan Community Church where she had recently married her wife.

These words and this kind of gathering would have been unimaginable before in the largest country in the conservative and mostly Christian Caribbean, where anti-gay hostility is still widespread.

Cuba repressed gay people after its 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro and sent many to labor camps. But in recent years, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed “family law” — approved by popular vote — allowed same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt.

Members of Cuba’s LGBTQ+ community say it marked a milestone that has allowed them to embrace their gender identity and worship more freely in a country that for decades after the revolution was officially atheist. Over the past quarter century, it has gradually become more tolerant of religions.

“It’s huge. There aren’t enough words to say what an opportunity it is to achieve the dream of so many,” said Maikol Añorga. He was with his husband, Vladimir Marin, near the altar, where at a Friday service they joined other congregants taking turns to lay offerings of white and pink wildflowers to thank God.

“It’s the opportunity for all people to be present here,” he said, “to gather and participate without regards to their gender, race or religion.”

The Catholic Church, in its doctrine, still rejects same-sex marriage and condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as “intrinsically disordered.” Yet Pope Francis has done far more than any previous pope to make the church a more welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people.

In December, the pope formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, a policy shift that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.

The family law in Cuba faced opposition from the country’s Catholic church as well as the growing number of evangelical churches that have mushroomed across the island.

Anti-LGBTQ+ rights demonstrations have faded since 2022. But back then, evangelical pastors spoke out from the pulpit, and handed out Bibles and pamphlets in the streets invoking God’s “original plan” for unions between men and women and calling gay relationships a sin.

Still, the measure was overwhelmingly approved by nearly 67% of voters. It came after a huge government campaign of nationwide informative meetings and extensive state media coverage amid food shortages and blackouts that have prompted thousands to immigrate to the United States during one of one of the worst economic crises to hit Cuba in decades.

At the time, President Miguel Díaz-Canel told Cubans in a video message that he was pleased about the wide support that the measure received despite tough economic challenges. He celebrated, tweeting: “Love is now the law.”

For years, the movement for LGBTQ+ rights has been proudly led by Cuba’s best-known advocate for gay rights: Mariela Castro, daughter of former President Raul Castro and niece of his brother Fidel.

“This just brings happiness. This just makes people feel truly worthy, respected, loved, considered – a true citizen with their rights and duties,” Castro told The Associated Press.

“I think we’ve taken a very valuable step forward.”

Long before same-sex couples were granted the right to marry, Castro was advocating for it, while training police on relations with the LGBTQ+ community and sponsoring symbolical ceremonies where Protestant clergy from the U.S. and Canada blessed unions as part of the annual Pride parade.

“It was a beautiful spiritual experience for me, and I believe for those people as well,” said Castro, who heads Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education and is a member of the National Assembly. “First, our campaign was: ‘Let love be the law.’ Now, love is the law, and we’re going to keep celebrating it.”

In 2010, her uncle, then- retired leader Fidel Castro admitted that he was wrong to discriminate against gay people. Asked about this, she said it helped mark a turning point in public attitude.

“I think he was honest. It was good and healthy for him to say this because it helped the rest who were still clinging to prejudices to understand that this kind of thought can change,” she said.

“Even in a revolutionary leader like him, there were prejudices that evolved, and he was able to understand it and help clear the way for change.”

In the early years after the 1959 revolution, homophobia in Cuba, she said, was no different than in the rest of the world. In the United States, homosexuality was deemed a mental disorder by psychiatric authorities, and gay sex was a crime in most states. Currently, Russia — a major supporter of Fidel Castro when it was the core of the communist Soviet Union — is bucking the worldwide trend of greater LGBTQ+ acceptance with a multi-pronged crackdown on LGBTQ+ activism.

The previous Cuban Family Code, dating back to 1975, stipulated that marriage was between a man and a woman – not between two people – which excluded lifelong partners from inheritance rights.

The new law goes further than marriage equality – which activists tried to include in the Constitution in 2019 without success – or the ability for gay couples to adopt or use surrogates. It also expanded rights for children, the elderly and women.

The first members of Saralegui’s congregation began gathering on a house terrace in Matanzas over a decade ago to sing and pray.

“The sky was our ceiling and when it rained, we’d all pack into a small room,” Saralegui said. In 2015, with support from the U.S.-based LGBTQ+ affirming Metropolitan Community Churches, they converted a house into their church, decked with wooden pews and a stained-glass cross that hangs above the altar. Underneath, a local Tibetan Buddhist group that meets here during the week stores its musical instruments in an example of interfaith partnership.

“This church is a family,” said Saralegui, who has a tattoo of the Jesus fish on one of her forearms and wears a Buddhist bracelet. “It’s a sacred space, not just because there’s a cross or an altar, but because it’s the most sacred space for these people to come to — it’s where they come to have a safe space.”

After receiving Communion, congregant Nico Salazar, 18, said he was glad to have found that safe space here after members of an evangelical church where he grew up attending asked him not to return when he embraced his gender identity.

“It’s the essence of the Bible: God is love, and other churches should emphasize that instead of repressing and harming others with a supposed sin,” said Salazar, who was born a woman and this year started hormone treatment.

“Sin and love are not the same,” said Salazar, who wore an earring in the shape of a cross.

“And to love,” he added, “is not a sin.”

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People say they’re leaving religion due to anti-LGBTQ teachings and sexual abuse

— The PRRI poll found that the vast majority of those who are unaffiliated are content to stay that way. Just 9% of respondents say they’re looking for a religion that would be right for them.

Symbols of the three monotheistic religions

By Jason DeRose

People in the U.S. are leaving and switching faith traditions in large numbers. The idea of “religious churning” is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

It finds that around one-quarter (26%) of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated, a number that has risen over the last decade and is now the largest single religious group in the U.S. That’s similar to what other surveys and polls have also found, including Pew Research.

PRRI found that the number of those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular” has held steady since 2013, but those who identify as atheists have doubled (from 2% to 4%) and those who say they’re agnostic has more than doubled (from 2% to 5%).

This study looks at which faith traditions those unaffiliated people are coming from.

“Thirty-five percent were former Catholics, 35% were former mainline Protestants, only about 16% were former evangelicals,” says Melissa Deckman, PRRI’s chief executive officer. “And really not many of those Americans are, in fact, looking for an organized religion that would be right for them. We just found it was 9%.”

That these people are not looking for a religion has, Deckman says, implications for how and even whether houses of worship should try to attract new people.

Among other findings: The Catholic Church is losing more members than it’s gaining, though the numbers are slightly better for retention among Hispanic Catholics.

There is much lower religious churn among Black Protestants and among Jews who seem overall happy in their faith traditions and tend to stay there.

As for why people leave their religions, PRRI found that about two-thirds (67%) of people who leave a faith tradition say they did so because they simply stopped believing in that religion’s teachings.

And nearly half (47%) of respondents who left cited negative teaching about the treatment of LGBTQ people.

Those numbers were especially high with one group in particular.

“Religion’s negative teaching about LGBTQ people are driving younger Americans to leave church,” Deckman says. “We found that about 60% of Americans who are under the age of 30 who have left religion say they left because of their religious traditions teaching, which is a much higher rate than for older Americans.”

Hispanic Americans are also more likely to say they’ve left a religion over LGBTQ issues. Other reasons cited for leaving: clergy sexual abuse and over-involvement in politics.

The new PRRI report is based on a survey of more than 5,600 adults late last year.

About one-third of religiously unaffiliated Americans say they no longer identify with their childhood religion because the religion was bad for their mental health. That response was strongest among LGBTQ respondents.

The survey also asked about the prevalence of the so-called “prosperity Gospel.” It found that 31% of respondents agreed with the statement “God always rewards those who have good faith with good health, financial success, and fulfilling personal relationships.”

Black Americans tend to agree more with these theological beliefs than other racial or ethnic groups. And Republicans are more likely than independents and Democrats to hold such beliefs.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Pope Francis Faces Growing Revolt

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Pope Francis is facing growing dissent among members of the Catholic Church over recent decisions that opponents portray as contrary to traditional church doctrine.

The most controversial has been the publication of a document in December by a Vatican bishop, with the pope’s approval, mooting the “possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples.” While the document stressed that it did not change the church’s stance on homosexuality, it brought a joint letter from Catholic clergy and scholars calling on others to disregard it.

Previously in his 11-year tenure as the head of the church, the pontiff has raised eyebrows by suggesting that even atheists could go to heaven and saying that he did not judge homosexuals, as well as taking a softer stance on abortion and remarriage.

Experts who spoke to Newsweek cast these tensions as an ideological clash between those in the church who wish to reform its message and those who want to conserve its traditional teachings, which reflects a broader culture war between liberal and conservative ideals.

Pope Francis Faces Growing Revolt
Pope Francis has provoked controversy and growing dissent over some of his stances on church doctrine, including allowing same-sex couples to be blessed.

They said that rather than departing from the core principles of the faith, Francis was attempting to reach out to those who might not conform to a traditional view of family life to give them greater spiritual guidance without seeking to alter church doctrine.

While the dissent is expected to continue, Francis is unlikely to face calls for his removal, the experts said, and a split within the church is highly unlikely, owing to its historical structure.

“When Pope Francis first became pope, I’d say very early on he really distinguished himself from his immediate predecessors Benedict and John Paul II,” Michele Dillon, a sociologist and dean of the University of New Hampshire’s College of Liberal Arts who specializes in the Catholic Church, told Newsweek.

“He said that, really, the church needs to go and walk with people where…they’re at, and that the church needs to be pastoral,” she said.

Dillon said this approach was designed to “recognize the complexity of everybody’s lived reality” in the modern world, allowing the clergy to continue “working with them to keep them close to God, close to the church.”

In the open letter opposing the possibility of same-sex blessings, which was published in February, over a hundred Catholic thought leaders called on Francis to “urgently withdraw this unfortunate document, which is in contradiction with both Scripture and the universal and uninterrupted tradition of the Church.” They argued that this would be tantamount to condoning “objectively sinful” relationships.

The pope in turn accused the naysayers of “hypocrisy,” arguing that they were willing to let him bless someone who exploits people despite it also being considered a sin.

He also recently provoked criticism for suggesting Ukraine should be willing to negotiate a peace settlement with Russia, but Dillon said this was a political controversy rather than a religious one.

She interpreted Francis’ sentiments on the invasion as arising from “his commitment to [the] sanctity of life, basically that war is not a good thing and, being realistic, to what extent can the valiant efforts of the Ukrainians…actually defeat Russia.”

In particular, Dillon said, the sentiments came from an understanding of “how much the Ukrainians have suffered and continue to suffer.”

The other controversies surrounding Francis primarily concern the church’s teachings and could be viewed as an attempt to keep the church relevant in a changing world. While the number of Catholics worldwide has more than tripled in the past century, the proportion of Catholics compared with the total global population has decreased slightly in that time.

In August last year, the pontiff called out the “backwardness” of some Catholic conservatives in the United States, arguing that they had replaced faith with political ideology.

His opponents appear to accuse him of the same. Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas—a firebrand who has frequently railed against what he has described as “woke” values and has been critical of the pope—was among the loudest voices to oppose the idea of same-sex blessings.

He has previously said that “we must be first-century Christians in the 21st century” and that “corruption” had a “devastating stranglehold” on the church.

Strickland was removed from his diocese in November following an investigation earlier in the year. The Vatican has not disclosed why it chose to remove him. Strickland said he had “threatened some of the powers that be with the truth of the gospel.”

Darrell Bock, a senior research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, told Newsweek that Francis “represents a lean of the Catholic Church that tends to be more liberal and less traditional, and so some of the pushback is coming from the more traditional-oriented Catholics.”

Dillon said that the pope wanted to “find a way forward that can be inclusive rather than condemnatory.”

However, there is “a narrow segment—but it’s a loud segment—of very strongly conservative Catholics, including in the U.S….who really demand this [other] approach, even though the development of doctrine is something that is so essential to the Catholic Church,” she said.

Pope cardinals
Pope Francis appears alongside his cardinals to preside over the funeral of German cardinal Paul Josef Cordes on Monday in Vatican City.

Dillon described Catholic doctrine as a “living tradition” and said that Francis was seeking a discussion on how to interpret the religion’s teachings “in light of the realities of the time.” But others have argued that he has shown an intolerance for disagreement.

“So far, no doctrine has been changed,” she said. “He’s not talking about the core principles of the Catholic faith. He’s not talking about anything to do with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus.”

Dillon argued that if Pope John Paul II—considered a more conservative pontiff—had been subjected to a similar form of public dissent by liberal bishops, “that would be seen as being heretical by the very same bishops who now seem to be calling out Pope Francis and exaggerating what it is he is doing.”

While Bock casts Francis’ softening of the church’s rhetoric on key issues as a bid to maintain relevance, Dillon argues it is more to appeal to Catholics who may have been overlooked by the church in the past.

“What you’re seeing is an attempt to be more modern, more sensitive to the position of the church that’s been marginalized in a modern world. I think that’s the main thing that we’re seeing,” Bock said. “He is less bound by tradition as historically the Catholic Church has been and is willing to think through handling things differently than the way they’ve been handled, and I think that’s part of what you’re seeing.”

Dillon said, “It’s not trying to be relevant because he’s looking for votes at an election, so it’s not the relevance of a cynic.”

She added that a lot of sociological work in the 1990s investigated why gay individuals wanted to remain Catholic despite being stigmatized by the church and found that they saw its theology and rituals as a “very important part of their identity.”

“Despite the challenges that a lot of people have living out the letter of church teaching in terms of some of these issues, there’s still, nonetheless, a hunger for the spirituality and the theology…that the Catholic Church, over centuries, offers them,” Dillon said. “I think the challenge is for church leaders to try to harness people’s longing.”

But if the dissent over Francis’ leadership continues to grow, those more conservative voices might start calling for him to be replaced.

Pope Francis
Pope Francis gestures to pilgrims as he arrives in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly audience on Wednesday in Vatican City. The pontiff has rebuffed the idea of stepping down.

“I am not sure how much power exists to try and challenge a pope within the structure of the Catholic Church,” Bock said. “I think the pressure that comes is just the pressure that will come from the internal debates among the leaders in the Catholic Church, and there are very much two sides. His election reflects that.”

Dillon said that removing a pope was ultimately precluded for theological reasons. “Catholics believe in the Holy Spirit,” she said. “From this perspective, there is a reason why he is chosen to be pope.”

Even though internal politics was likely at play in his election, the conclave of cardinals that select a new Catholic leader is supposed to be guided by divine inspiration in their choice. “They don’t have the authority to override what might be seen as the work of the Holy Spirit,” Dillon said.

But if the dissent became pronounced enough, Francis’ position might be seen as untenable. Questions have already been raised about his health and the possibility of his abdicating on such grounds, as his predecessor did.

But in recently published excerpts of his autobiography, the pontiff said that he did not see “any conditions for renunciation” and disregarded criticism of his leadership. Bock said Francis would likely see stepping down “as an abandonment of what [he’s] trying to achieve.”

Much of the conservative dissent against the pope’s decisions appears to come from the U.S. Many of those who signed the open letter were American. While there has not been a significant split in the Catholic Church in hundreds of years, could there be another on the way?

“The Catholic Church, precisely, is not a schismatic church,” Dillon said, adding that it has always had diversity. “To me, the talk of schisms is really attention-grabbing, and, in my assessment, it’s very un-Catholic to even have that thought.”

Bock agreed, saying, “The Catholic Church is structured in a very traditional and historical way, and I just don’t see it getting to the point of an absolute break of any kind. What you’ll get is just that sound of protesting voices in the internal dialogue within the church. This has been going on for a long time.”

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Banned priest Tony Flannery to break silence on fate of the Catholic Church

Fr Tony Flattery has been unable to celebrate mass publicly since his faculties were revoked in a Vatican crackdown on liberal views.

By Lorna Siggins

Banned Redemptorist priest Tony Flannery plans to question the survival of the Roman Catholic church at a public talk in Galway shortly before Easter Sunday.

Fr Flannery (77), who was suspended from public ministry by the Vatican in 2012, intends to give his views on whether “religious belief as we have known it can survive in modern Ireland”.

He also intends to pay tribute to Pope Francis for “freeing up discussion, areas of study and the search for the truth”.

The Redemptorist priest had been disciplined in 2012 for publicly expressing support for women’s ordination and same-sex marriage, and for expressing more liberal views on homosexuality.

Although he has been outspoken since his suspension and was profiled in a recent TG4 documentary, he has not given a public talk with a question and answer session in six years.

He says the talk he intends to give in the Clayton Hotel, Galway on March 27 was scheduled to be given in church property several months ago.

However, when the organisers learned that the ban imposed on him applied not only to speaking in churches but to speaking in “all church-owned property”, a new venue had to be found.

Fr Flannery says that in spite of his suspension, he has “studied and read” and has been contemplating “how best to address the falling attendances at Mass” and “the falling away in general from the Catholic faith”.

“If we take the traditional indications of the health of the faith as measured by the Catholic Church… then all the signs are that it is in serious trouble, and that the faith is in the terminal stage of ill health,” he says.

“Churches are emptying or are being frequented only by the older generation,” he says, noting that “seminaries are closing down, and priest numbers are declining rapidly”.

“There appear to be few, if any signs of new growth – but that is by no means the full story.

“We are living in a really interesting time in the [Catholic] church since the arrival of the papacy of Francis. Even in the 11 years since his appointment he has brought about a great deal of change,”he says.

“I have no doubt that the biggest legacy Pope Francis will leave from his time in charge is that he has freed up discussion, areas of study and the search for truth in the church – all of which had been seriously restricted for many centuries by rigid imposition of official teachings.

“The “pre-Francis” church had adopted the position that it had the full truth, and that it had nothing to learn from the world.

“Francis, on the other hand, realised that in order for the church to be relevant, it must engage with modern life, and be part of the debate about the future of the world and of people.”

He cites as examples of that attitude change “the extent to which Francis has engaged in the debate about the destruction of the environment and the necessity of facing up to climate change”.

Fr Flannery says all are welcome to his talk in Galway’s Clayton Hotel, Briarhill, on March 27, and will allow for a question and answer session.

Last year, the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) and Lay Catholic Group (LCG) called for him to be restored to the ministry and said he had experienced a “grave injustice”.

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