It's interesting (to me, at least) to think about the fact that, while National Catholic Reporter told me it did not want to hear or tell the story of the destruction of Steve's and my careers as lay Catholic theologians who happen to be gay, it continues to allow a contributor to its discussions named Purgatrix Ineptiae to claim — and repeatedly so — that the Catholic faith is hostile to those who are gay, and to gay men, in particular. NCR continues to allow Purgatrix Ineptiae to engage, in the name of Catholic faith, in what is tantamount to hate speech about gay men.
Over and over for some years now, this person has appeared at Catholic blog sites under a variety of usernames, constantly asserting that 1) gay men are diseased, 2) spread disease in society at large, 3) molest boys and are responsible for the abuse crisis in the church, 4) engage in filthy and dangerous sexual practices, 5) hate women, 6) dominate the Catholic hierarchy as a woman-hating cabal, 7) mimic females in a pathetic way that causes "alpha males" rightly to hate and attack them, 8) are intellectually inferior because they are prone to emotional outbursts that restrict their ability to reason, 9) are despicable in God's eyes because God revels in the sex acts of males and females together while despising the sex acts of two people of the same sex, 10) bring God's wrath on the world due to their divinely hated sexual acts, etc., etc.
Look at Father Thomas Reeses's article at NCR right now about how the synod on the family is doomed to failure, and you'll see her pushing several of these claims — just as you'll see at least one regular contributor to NCR discussions recognizing (correctly) that her statements about woman-hating cabals in the Vatican are aimed at gay men.
But, significantly, that contributor and many others in NCR discussions defend Purgatrix Ineptiae, and repeatedly state that, with the exception of what they see as her curious little blind spot about homosexuality, she's a scintillating intellectual with wonderful feminist ideas. As if members of the Nazi Party were fundamentally good men and women with the exception of that little flaw of hating Jews and spreading malicious lies about them that led to their murder . . . .
What these liberal defenders of Purgatrix Ineptiae will not and cannot see is that what passes for feminism in her strange, gnostic, anti-scientific right-wing version of Catholicism proceeds in the most direct way possible from her homophobia. The "feminism" is one side of a coin the other side of which is bitter hatred of gay men — for reasons Purgatrix never discloses, but which appear to have much to do with her assertion in the discussion thread to which I point you above that women prefer "alpha males" and her assertions in other threads that a world ruled by white heterosexual males is her idea of the ideal world. Under her various incarnations over several years at Catholic blog sites, Purgatrix has stated a number of times that she adored the years she spent in the military, where "alpha men" had free rein to haze and beat up men suspected of being gay.
While claiming that the Catholic hierarchy is dominated by closeted homosexual men who hate women and promote homosexuals in Catholic institutions, Purgatrix has stoutly and consistently defended the firing of every gay person by Catholic institutions that has been discussed in NCR discussion threads in the last several years. They knew the rules when they decided to play the game, she says over and over again, and they deserve to be booted.
By those same Catholic hierarchical figures who constitute, she claims, a secret homosexual cabal in the church, promoting homosexuals in the church . . . .
The point of all of this: look who Catholic organizations and Catholic intellectuals prefer to give a voice to, and who they decide to treat as persona non grata, when issues like the issue of homosexuality are discussed. Look at whom they invite into the Catholic discussion circles as the lives of LGBT human beings are dissected, and who is excluded from those discussion circles.
Look at whose voice and testimony they trust, and whose they distrust and disallow.
What does all of this tell you about the church and the place it intends to accord to LGBT human beings?
And what might reading these threads full of toxic, hateful lies about gay folks — lies spread in the name of authentic Catholic faith — do to the psyches of young gender-questioning or LGBT people seeking to find their way in the world? When will Catholics — including "liberal" ones — stop giving a free pass to people who choose to hate LGBT human beings in the name of Catholic faith, and when will they stop treating their toxic lies about LGBT people as a mere fly in their otherwise good and valuable Catholic discourse?
Father Reese is correct: any synod gathered together by an institution that can behave in such a corrupt and malicious way towards a targeted minority group, while the best and brightest of that institution continue to look the other way and even provide excuses as such destructive malice unfolds, is doomed to fail. Because it's not addressing the rottenness in the very heart of the institution . . . .