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At Gay Mystic, Jayden Cameron uses the occasion of the publication of Sister Teresa Forcades's new book És a les nostres mans to remind his readers of the interview she did earlier this year with Pikara magazine (English translation at Iglesia Descalza), in which she says,
So I think that homosexual love is perfectly understandable to the church, because it has what is essential: it's not having children, but an open intimacy to an interpersonal relationship that includes respect for the integrity of the other. Two people who love one another, desire one another, and respect one another are giving testimony: this is the sacrament, a visible sign -- like baptism -- that's saying, "This creature is accepted in this community as any other." Trinitarian theology says that all sacraments are an embodiment of God's love. (It's in Our Hands).
At Hepzibah, Alan McCornick asks how Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco can look at the website of the National Organization of Marriage, whose work he'll be supporting by attending NOM's "March for [Some People's] Marriage" this week, and feel no shame. Alan looks at NOM's "absurd" presentation of itself as a group of "'Americans fighting for freedom' - cue Martin Luther King, using his photo," and then asks,
What is the matter with the man [i.e., Cordileone] that he would allow such wretched abuse of language and reason?
At Spirit of a Liberal, Obie Holmen looks at the relentless attempt of the Christian (including Catholic) right in recent years to ally itself with the Republican party and attack progressive forms of Christianity, and concludes the attempt has failed. He observes,
Over the years, the Republican establishment has stoked nativist, racist, sexist, anti-intellectual, anti-government, and anti-Muslim fears with a politics of scapegoating the immigrant, the black, the feminist, the queer, the academic, the government worker, and the welfare recipient.By appealing to lesser instincts–especially of the angry white male–the party has enjoyed sufficient electoral success to continue feeding the beast, but Krugman’s article suggests this "bait and switch" tactic may no longer work as evidenced by Tea Party primary challenges to the party favorites.
The Krugman article to which Obie is referring is an op-ed piece Paul Krugman published in New York Times this weekend which argues that the Republican establishment has long used the culture warriors of the religious right to fire up its base, and then, building on the victories it wins in this way, the GOP uses the victories, Krugman asserts, "mainly to push an elitist economic agenda."
And then there's this, from Michigan's ABC10 by way of Bob Shine at Bondings 2.0:
Bobby Glenn Brown committed himself to his longtime partner, Don Roberts, in a small backyard wedding ceremony. For that, Brown has been removed from several parish volunteer positions in his Catholic parish in Marquette, Michigan, and told he may observe Mass only from the 'crying room' at the rear of the church.
And this, from someone calling herself Purgatrix Ineptiae (i.e., "Expunger of the Inept") responding to an article by David Gibson at National Catholic Reporter about Archbishop Cordileone's defense of his decision to march on behalf of NOM tomorrow:
In ten or twenty years, when this farce has been unmasked for the pernicious nonsense it is, it will be to the Church's credit to have been on the right side of history.
"This farce" refers to same-sex marriage. Purgatrix has informed readers both at Bilgrimage and the other Catholic blogs at which she leaves her hate-laced comments about gay people (under sobriquets ranging from Felapton to Amy Ho-Ohn, Purgatrix Ineptiae, and others) that she lives in Boston — where same-sex marriage was legalized on 17 May 2014. Where it became legal, that is to say, just over ten years ago, and as she herself has admitted in comments here at Bilgrimage, the skies didn't fall in Massachusetts when same-sex couples began to marry there.
And so what does this Catholic so intent on crafting an image of Catholicism hateful to, unwelcoming towards, and condemning of those God makes gay (a Catholicism of which I want no part) imagine she's talking about here?!
But then there's this — also from NCR, from an article by Tom Fox recommending Stephen Colbert's latest segment (video link) on marriage equality, the video at the head of this posting:
Our bishops, meanwhile, have staked their credibility in a fight to . . . assure gay rights are not extended to marriage. They are flat out wrong to do so.
Purgatrix and Salvatore Cordileone (and NOM's movers and shakers) are Catholics. But Tom Fox, Teresa Forcades, and Stephen Colbert are also Catholics.
And so, on this day on which I'm remembering my father on what would be his 94th birthday if he were alive, I conclude that not all Catholics think and act alike regarding these questions about whether our church should love and embrace those who are gay, or taunt and shove them away, creating special cry-room reservations at the back of the church when they dare show their faces at liturgies.
My father on his graduation from Hendrix College in 1951:
Benjamin Dennis Lindsey, recquiescat in pace.
