Eric Stoner December 18. 2009
In Oslo last week, President Barack Obama ironically used his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize to deliver a lengthy defense of the "just war" theory and dismiss the idea that nonviolence is capable of addressing the world's most pressing problems.
After quoting Martin Luther King Jr. and giving his respects to Gandhi — two figures that Obama has repeatedly called personal heroes — the new peace laureate argued that he "cannot be guided by their examples alone" in his role as a head of state.
"I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people," he continued. "For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."
Unfortunately, this key part of Obama's speech, which the media widely quoted in its coverage of the award ceremony, contains several logical inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies that tragically reveal Obama's profound ignorance of nonviolent alternatives to the use of military force.
The Power of Nonviolence
Almost immediately after acknowledging that there is "nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King," Obama equated nonviolence with doing nothing.
To live and act nonviolently, however, never involves standing "idle in the face of threats." Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, Dave Dellinger, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, and countless other genuine peacemakers have put their lives on the line in the struggle for a more just world. Advocates of nonviolence, like Gandhi, simply believe that means and ends are inseparable – that responding in kind to an aggressor will only continue the cycle of violence.
"Destructive means cannot bring constructive ends, because the means represent the ideal-in-the-making and the end-in-progress," Martin Luther King explains in his book Strength to Love. "Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are pre-existent in the means."
Therefore, to put it bluntly, it's impossible to create a world that truly respects life with fists, guns, and bombs. As A.J. Muste, a longtime leader of the labor, civil rights, and antiwar movements, famously said: "There is no way to peace — peace is the way."
Using a broad array of tactics — including strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, and protests — nonviolent movements have not only gained important rights for millions of oppressed people around the world, they have confronted, and successfully brought down, some of the most ruthless regimes of the last 100 years.
The courageous, everyday citizens who spoke out and took to the streets to stop the murderous reigns of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, to name only a few examples from recent decades, were anything but passive in the face of evil.
Moreover, these incredible victories for nonviolence were not flukes. After analyzing 323 resistance campaigns over the last century, one important study published last year in the journal International Security, found that "major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns."
Victories Against Hitler
Contrary to Obama's speech and the dominant narrative about World War II, nonviolent movements in several different European countries were also remarkably successful in thwarting the Nazis.
In 1943, for instance, when the order finally came to round up the nearly 8,000 Jews in Denmark, Danes spontaneously hid them in their homes, hospitals, and other public institutions over the span of one night. Then, at great personal risk to those involved, a secret network of fishing vessels successfully ferried almost their entire Jewish population to neutral Sweden. The Nazis captures only 481 Jews, and thanks to continued Danish pressure, nearly 90% of those deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp survived the war.
In Bulgaria, important leaders of the Orthodox Church, along with farmers in the northern stretches of the country, threatened to lie across railroad tracks to prevent Jews from being deported. This popular pressure emboldened the Bulgarian parliament to resist the Nazis, who eventually rescinded the deportation order, saving almost all of the country's 48,000 Jews.
Even in Norway, where Obama accepted the peace prize, there was significant nonviolent resistance during the Second World War. When the Nazi-appointed Prime Minister Vidkun Quisling ordered teachers to teach fascism, an estimated 10,000 of the country's 12,000 teachers refused. A campaign of intimidation — which included sending over 1,000 male teachers to jails, concentration camps, and forced labor camps north of the Arctic Circle — failed to break the will of the teachers and sparked growing resentment throughout the country. After eight months, Quisling backed down and the teachers came home victorious.
Alternatives to the War on Terror
Obama's rejection of negotiations as a possible solution to terrorism also doesn't square with the evidence. After analyzing hundreds of terrorist groups that have operated over the last 40 years, a RAND corporation study published last year concluded that military force is almost never successful at stopping terrorism. The vast majority of terrorist groups that ended during that period "were penetrated and eliminated by local police and intelligence agencies (40%), or they reached a peaceful political accommodation with their government (43%)." In other words, negotiation is clearly possible.
For his book, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, University of Chicago professor Robert Pape created a database on every suicide bombing from 1980 to 2004. Pape found that, rather than being driven by religion, the vast majority of suicide bombers — responsible for over 95% of all incidents on record — were primarily motivated by a desire to compel a democratic government to withdraw its military forces from land they saw as their homeland.
"Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation and not Islamic fundamentalism," Pape said in an interview with The American Conservative, "the use of heavy military force to transform Muslim societies over there, if you would, is only likely to increase the number of suicide terrorists coming at us."
Apart from pulling U.S. troops out of the Middle East, calling off the deadly campaign of drone attacks, and ending military, economic, and diplomatic support for repressive regimes in the region, how can the threat of terrorism be best minimized? A recent article in the Independent by Johann Hari may provide an answer.
Through interviews with 17 radical Islamic ex-jihadis over the course of a year, Hari discovered that they all told strikingly similar stories about what drew them to extremism, and what eventually got them out. They all felt alienated growing up in Britain, and connected their personal experiences to the persecution of Muslims around the world. In most cases, however, coming into contact with Westerners who took the values of democracy and human rights seriously, opposed the wars against Muslim countries, and engaged in ordinary acts of kindness first made them question whether they were on the right path.
As I silently carried a cardboard coffin from the UN headquarters in New York to the military recruiting center in Times Square during a protest on the day of Obama's speech, I couldn't help but cringe to think of the president justifying the deployment of 30,000 more troops to the "graveyard of empires." Every nonviolent alternative has not been exhausted. In reality, they have yet to be tried.
Eric Stoner is a freelance writer based in New York and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. His articles have appeared in The Nation, NACLA Report on the Americas, and the Indypendent.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Our New War President: On the Road to Peace
John Dear, SJ December 8, 2009
Last week at West Point, President Obama cited his reasons for sending more troops to Afghanistan. Obama spoke eloquently. He insisted our cause is just. It is necessary, it is crucial. Killing Afghanis is the way to peace. The oxymorons rolled off his tongue.
Apparently, it does not matter that wars are bankrupting us. Or sending our young to die. Or leaving them psychologically impaired. Or degrading the environment. Or, bitterest of ironies, breeding a new generation of terrorists.
It doesn’t seem to matter that most Americans want the war to stop, that most Afghanis want us out. It doesn’t even matter that only a hundred Al Qaeda members remain in Afghanistan. The rest have taken refuge in Pakistan. Our new war president says the war must continue.
“You would think that we don’t have enough to do here at home,” Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich said this week.
You would think that we don’t have 47 million Americans who go to bed hungry, 47 million Americans who don’t have any health care, 15 million Americans who are out of work, another 10 million Americans whose homes are threatened with foreclosure, people going bankrupt, and business failures. All these things are happening in our country and we’re acting like a latter-day version of the Roman Empire, reaching for empire while inside we rot. We have to challenge this because our future as a nation is at stake. If we continue to militarize, we lose our civil liberties, we lose our capacity to meet our needs here at home.
We have money for Wall Street and money for war, but we don’t have money for work. We have money for Wall Street and money for war, but we don’t have money for health care. We have to start asking ourselves, why is it that war is a priority, but the basic needs of the people of this country are not? And how are we getting the money to pay for the war? We’re borrowing it. We’re going deeper into debt. We’re mortgaging our future. We’re creating conditions where we will become less democratic because we can’t meet the most essential needs of our people. This needs to be challenged. And it needs to be challenged in a forthright way. The issue is the war; the issue is America’s reach for empire. The issue is our inability to meet the needs of people here at home.
Obama and his generals are dead wrong -- this I insist with so many others. The war is illegal, immoral, impractical and plain foolish. It will further divide us. It will lead us into debt beyond our means. It will sow the seeds of terrorist attacks to come.
And one thing more, for the record. We are engaging here in mortal sin. I say this with confidence. War is not the will of God. Bombing sisters and brothers is not the way of the Gospel. This, despite our president and his generals, is not the method of Christ the peacemaker. His way? “Love your enemies. Do not violently resist those who do evil. Put down the sword. Blessed are the peacemakers.” Jesus would have us pursue nonviolent methods of resolving conflict.
“The way forward is for the U.S. to press for all party negotiations within Afghanistan to create a new Afghan social contract,” Joseph Gerson of American Friends Service Committee wrote this week.
This would need to be reinforced by an international conference and actions on the part of all major states involved in the war to help build and support that social contract. This, of course, also means dealing with the source of Indian-Pakistani tensions, and the geostrategic ambitions of the major powers who have insisted on playing, and losing, the ‘Great Game.’
In this holy season of Advent, let me offer a few points. First, we have to stop making an idol out of Obama. He is not a messiah; he is not, as Cindy Sheehan jokes, “The Pope of Hope.” He, like every president before him, is the spokesperson for the empire. He’s increased our military budget beyond that of George W. Bush. No, our hope lies elsewhere. We have a messiah already -- one who is nonpartisan, non-ideological, and most important, decidedly nonviolent. To follow this nonviolent messiah, we must be more than liberals, (or conservatives). We need to be mature disciples. We must place our hope in the nonviolent Jesus and practice his way of nonviolent resistance.
Second, we must direct our resistance toward our nation’s imperial aspirations. When Obama spoke of “protecting our national interests,” he spoke like the Bushes and Reagan, like Johnson and Truman. It’s the age-old logic of empire -- mass murder to protect the powerful elite. This is what we must name and resist: the anti-way of empire.
Third, we have to be suspect of “top-down” thinking. We must reclaim instead “bottom-up” grassroots movement building. Empires require their populations to be docile and obedient, to worship their leaders, to surrender their money and to kill for their elite. They instill in the masses a sense of powerlessness, a sense that nothing can be done. It’s a dream come true when millions upon millions shrug and give up and shake their heads. Or better yet, buy into the myths of empire for their own aggrandizement.
Jesus, on the other hand, calls us into citizenship of the reign of God -- and to resist, nonviolently, every tradition and polity that opposes it. The change comes from the bottom up, as the Gospels show us. And Advent is a time to learn the lesson again.
Too many of us think that Obama will bring the change we want. He won’t, he can’t. Ours is a time of empire, addicted to injustice, violence and war. He hasn’t the power to rein in entrenched bureaucracies, corporate interests, warlike traditions. What might a leader of an empire have to do with Jesus’ campaign of nonviolent resistance? All he can offer is lip service.That leaves change in the hands of the rest of us, those building the movement of nonviolence from the bottom. Recall how small it all started, in a crib, in what amounted to a homeless shelter. And from there the movement grows, in the hinterlands of Galilee, gathering steam as it approached the great warlike city. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem. If you had only known what makes for peace.”There, in the warlike city, he dies. The movement is crushed. But then, against all odds, it rises and begins again. This is how change happens, and that’s what we need to remember and reclaim and relive.And so, fourth, we need to keep rebuilding a grass-roots movement to end the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need to speak out locally, help our parishes to discuss the questions, and organize public vigils against the war. We need to study and practice the methods of nonviolent resistance.
As my friend David Hartsough, a long time movement activist, told me this week: “We are on the brink of global transformation, of a true global movement of nonviolence, which means, every one of us has to be Rosa Parks. We are all Rosa Parks. We all have to take a stand for peace and justice, resist the wars and build a peace movement."
This will be a long-term project, perhaps many, many years, perhaps the rest of our lives. So we have to be rooted in prayer, patience, and love. We will need to use the three tools of every social movement: education, lobbying, public witness. But we need to base all our public work for peace in God, in the Gospels, in the Holy Spirit.
Fifth, we need to take care of ourselves. And one another. We need to say our prayers, love one another, be merciful toward ourselves, practice interpersonal nonviolence, and quietly intercede on behalf of the world’s poor for the coming of God’s reign of justice and peace.
We must be careful not to engage in the language of results, effectiveness or success. This is not the way of the Gospel. This is the language of empire. We heard it last week. “We have had some success,” Obama said, “killing some Al Qaeda officials.”
In one way or another, success is tied to violence. We are not to speak in this way or think in those terms. We are not to abide by the rules of the imperial game. Ours is a long-haul project of nonviolent resistance that recognizes the ends within the means we use. We will face defeat and appear to the world as failures. But pressing on brings nonviolent transformation.
Finally, let’s put our hopes in the nonviolent Jesus, not on Obama. In these holy Advent days summon images of God’s nonviolent reign, of our nonviolent messiah, of his great speeches. Let’s prepare ourselves anew to become Jesus’ campaigners of nonviolence. As we pray for “peace on earth,” let us lament the latest push that leads to “death to Afghanis,” and do what we can to welcome that greatest of Christmas gifts.
****
John Dear’s latest books, Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings; A Persistent Peace; Put Down the Sword, and Patricia Normile’s John Dear On Peace, are available from www.amazon.com. www.johndear.org. John Dear SJ's blog
Last week at West Point, President Obama cited his reasons for sending more troops to Afghanistan. Obama spoke eloquently. He insisted our cause is just. It is necessary, it is crucial. Killing Afghanis is the way to peace. The oxymorons rolled off his tongue.
Apparently, it does not matter that wars are bankrupting us. Or sending our young to die. Or leaving them psychologically impaired. Or degrading the environment. Or, bitterest of ironies, breeding a new generation of terrorists.
It doesn’t seem to matter that most Americans want the war to stop, that most Afghanis want us out. It doesn’t even matter that only a hundred Al Qaeda members remain in Afghanistan. The rest have taken refuge in Pakistan. Our new war president says the war must continue.
“You would think that we don’t have enough to do here at home,” Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich said this week.
You would think that we don’t have 47 million Americans who go to bed hungry, 47 million Americans who don’t have any health care, 15 million Americans who are out of work, another 10 million Americans whose homes are threatened with foreclosure, people going bankrupt, and business failures. All these things are happening in our country and we’re acting like a latter-day version of the Roman Empire, reaching for empire while inside we rot. We have to challenge this because our future as a nation is at stake. If we continue to militarize, we lose our civil liberties, we lose our capacity to meet our needs here at home.
We have money for Wall Street and money for war, but we don’t have money for work. We have money for Wall Street and money for war, but we don’t have money for health care. We have to start asking ourselves, why is it that war is a priority, but the basic needs of the people of this country are not? And how are we getting the money to pay for the war? We’re borrowing it. We’re going deeper into debt. We’re mortgaging our future. We’re creating conditions where we will become less democratic because we can’t meet the most essential needs of our people. This needs to be challenged. And it needs to be challenged in a forthright way. The issue is the war; the issue is America’s reach for empire. The issue is our inability to meet the needs of people here at home.
Obama and his generals are dead wrong -- this I insist with so many others. The war is illegal, immoral, impractical and plain foolish. It will further divide us. It will lead us into debt beyond our means. It will sow the seeds of terrorist attacks to come.
And one thing more, for the record. We are engaging here in mortal sin. I say this with confidence. War is not the will of God. Bombing sisters and brothers is not the way of the Gospel. This, despite our president and his generals, is not the method of Christ the peacemaker. His way? “Love your enemies. Do not violently resist those who do evil. Put down the sword. Blessed are the peacemakers.” Jesus would have us pursue nonviolent methods of resolving conflict.
“The way forward is for the U.S. to press for all party negotiations within Afghanistan to create a new Afghan social contract,” Joseph Gerson of American Friends Service Committee wrote this week.
This would need to be reinforced by an international conference and actions on the part of all major states involved in the war to help build and support that social contract. This, of course, also means dealing with the source of Indian-Pakistani tensions, and the geostrategic ambitions of the major powers who have insisted on playing, and losing, the ‘Great Game.’
In this holy season of Advent, let me offer a few points. First, we have to stop making an idol out of Obama. He is not a messiah; he is not, as Cindy Sheehan jokes, “The Pope of Hope.” He, like every president before him, is the spokesperson for the empire. He’s increased our military budget beyond that of George W. Bush. No, our hope lies elsewhere. We have a messiah already -- one who is nonpartisan, non-ideological, and most important, decidedly nonviolent. To follow this nonviolent messiah, we must be more than liberals, (or conservatives). We need to be mature disciples. We must place our hope in the nonviolent Jesus and practice his way of nonviolent resistance.
Second, we must direct our resistance toward our nation’s imperial aspirations. When Obama spoke of “protecting our national interests,” he spoke like the Bushes and Reagan, like Johnson and Truman. It’s the age-old logic of empire -- mass murder to protect the powerful elite. This is what we must name and resist: the anti-way of empire.
Third, we have to be suspect of “top-down” thinking. We must reclaim instead “bottom-up” grassroots movement building. Empires require their populations to be docile and obedient, to worship their leaders, to surrender their money and to kill for their elite. They instill in the masses a sense of powerlessness, a sense that nothing can be done. It’s a dream come true when millions upon millions shrug and give up and shake their heads. Or better yet, buy into the myths of empire for their own aggrandizement.
Jesus, on the other hand, calls us into citizenship of the reign of God -- and to resist, nonviolently, every tradition and polity that opposes it. The change comes from the bottom up, as the Gospels show us. And Advent is a time to learn the lesson again.
Too many of us think that Obama will bring the change we want. He won’t, he can’t. Ours is a time of empire, addicted to injustice, violence and war. He hasn’t the power to rein in entrenched bureaucracies, corporate interests, warlike traditions. What might a leader of an empire have to do with Jesus’ campaign of nonviolent resistance? All he can offer is lip service.That leaves change in the hands of the rest of us, those building the movement of nonviolence from the bottom. Recall how small it all started, in a crib, in what amounted to a homeless shelter. And from there the movement grows, in the hinterlands of Galilee, gathering steam as it approached the great warlike city. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem. If you had only known what makes for peace.”There, in the warlike city, he dies. The movement is crushed. But then, against all odds, it rises and begins again. This is how change happens, and that’s what we need to remember and reclaim and relive.And so, fourth, we need to keep rebuilding a grass-roots movement to end the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need to speak out locally, help our parishes to discuss the questions, and organize public vigils against the war. We need to study and practice the methods of nonviolent resistance.
As my friend David Hartsough, a long time movement activist, told me this week: “We are on the brink of global transformation, of a true global movement of nonviolence, which means, every one of us has to be Rosa Parks. We are all Rosa Parks. We all have to take a stand for peace and justice, resist the wars and build a peace movement."
This will be a long-term project, perhaps many, many years, perhaps the rest of our lives. So we have to be rooted in prayer, patience, and love. We will need to use the three tools of every social movement: education, lobbying, public witness. But we need to base all our public work for peace in God, in the Gospels, in the Holy Spirit.
Fifth, we need to take care of ourselves. And one another. We need to say our prayers, love one another, be merciful toward ourselves, practice interpersonal nonviolence, and quietly intercede on behalf of the world’s poor for the coming of God’s reign of justice and peace.
We must be careful not to engage in the language of results, effectiveness or success. This is not the way of the Gospel. This is the language of empire. We heard it last week. “We have had some success,” Obama said, “killing some Al Qaeda officials.”
In one way or another, success is tied to violence. We are not to speak in this way or think in those terms. We are not to abide by the rules of the imperial game. Ours is a long-haul project of nonviolent resistance that recognizes the ends within the means we use. We will face defeat and appear to the world as failures. But pressing on brings nonviolent transformation.
Finally, let’s put our hopes in the nonviolent Jesus, not on Obama. In these holy Advent days summon images of God’s nonviolent reign, of our nonviolent messiah, of his great speeches. Let’s prepare ourselves anew to become Jesus’ campaigners of nonviolence. As we pray for “peace on earth,” let us lament the latest push that leads to “death to Afghanis,” and do what we can to welcome that greatest of Christmas gifts.
****
John Dear’s latest books, Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings; A Persistent Peace; Put Down the Sword, and Patricia Normile’s John Dear On Peace, are available from www.amazon.com. www.johndear.org. John Dear SJ's blog
Monday, December 7, 2009
The state of the Catholic Church
by Richard McBrien on Dec. 07, 2009
[Remember him from the old Church World?]
If anyone wonders why the Catholic church presents such a different face to the world and to the Body of Christ today in comparison with the world and the church of the 1960s and 1970s, we need look no further than the extraordinarily abbreviated pontificate of John Paul I.
To appreciate the significance of that brief pontificate, the eleventh shortest in the history of the church, one must have some sense of the mark left by John Paul I's predecessor, Paul VI.
Although Humanae Vitae, the birth-control encyclical, cast a dark shadow over his entire 15-year pontificate, the pope had many other pastoral achievements to his credit before and after the release of that document in July 1968.
In that year, he instituted the annual observance of the World Day of Peace, which is still celebrated on Jan. 1, and in 1970 elevated both St. Teresa of Ávila and St. Catherine of Siena to the status of Doctors of the Church, the first women to be so recognized.
He fixed the retirement age for priests and bishops at 75 and decreed that cardinals over the age of 80 should not participate in papal elections, and he also determined that the maximum number of cardinal-electors could not exceed 120.
Pope Paul VI convened and presided over four international synods of bishops and continued John XXIII's example of enlarging and internationalizing the College of Cardinals.
In the last year of his life, he was profoundly shaken by the kidnapping and murder of his close friend, Aldo Moro, former prime minister of Italy. Indeed, Paul VI's last public appearance was to preside at Moro's funeral in the basilica of St. John Lateran, the pope's cathedral church.
Paul VI died of a heart attack at Castel Gandolfo Aug. 6, 1978, the feast of the Transfiguration. He had planned his own funeral. His coffin was at ground level, surmounted not by the papal tiara nor even by a miter or stole, but by the open book of the Gospels that fluttered in the light breeze across St. Peter's Square.
His successor was the Patriarch of Venice, Albino Luciani, who was the first pope to take a double name, to honor, he said, the pope (John XXIII) who had ordained him a bishop and who preceded him as Patriarch of Venice, and the pope (Paul VI) who had named him a cardinal.
In his remarks just before he gave the traditional Sunday blessing from the window of the Apostolic Palace (it was Aug. 27, the day after his election), he pointed out to the enthusiastic crowds below in St. Peter's Square, "Be sure of this: I do not have the wisdom of heart of Pope John. I do not have the preparation and culture of Pope Paul."
John Paul I was not only the first pope to take a double name; he was also the first pope in more than a thousand years to refuse to be crowned with the triple tiara.
Late in the evening of Sept. 28, John Paul I died of a heart attack while reading in bed. The Romans had taken such a liking to this humble, smiling pope that they reacted more emotionally to his death than they had to Pope Paul VI's only two months earlier.
The cardinal-electors rushed back to Rome in virtual shock, determined to elect someone with the necessary physical vigor to bear the burdens of the office.
The assumption was that the new pope would be another Italian, as had been the case for the past four centuries and a half. The leading candidate, Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, archbishop of Florence, had spent many years in the Roman Curia and, in the process, had made some enemies. There was also some resentment of the key part he had played in the election of John Paul I.
Although Cardinal Benelli received the most votes on the early ballots, he could not reach the required two-thirds necessary for election and his support began to wane. The cardinals then turned to the 76-year-old Cardinal Carlo Columbo, archbishop of Milan, but he announced that he would not accept election.
This left the Italians without a viable candidate, and so for the first time since 1522 they elected a non-Italian, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland, who took the name John Paul II.
Although he would do many good things in the 26 and a half years he occupied the office, John Paul II's appointments to, and within, the hierarchy were not among them.
And that is the main reason why the Catholic church is experiencing such difficulty today.
© 2009 Richard P. McBrien. All rights reserved. Fr. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
[Remember him from the old Church World?]
If anyone wonders why the Catholic church presents such a different face to the world and to the Body of Christ today in comparison with the world and the church of the 1960s and 1970s, we need look no further than the extraordinarily abbreviated pontificate of John Paul I.
To appreciate the significance of that brief pontificate, the eleventh shortest in the history of the church, one must have some sense of the mark left by John Paul I's predecessor, Paul VI.
Although Humanae Vitae, the birth-control encyclical, cast a dark shadow over his entire 15-year pontificate, the pope had many other pastoral achievements to his credit before and after the release of that document in July 1968.
In that year, he instituted the annual observance of the World Day of Peace, which is still celebrated on Jan. 1, and in 1970 elevated both St. Teresa of Ávila and St. Catherine of Siena to the status of Doctors of the Church, the first women to be so recognized.
He fixed the retirement age for priests and bishops at 75 and decreed that cardinals over the age of 80 should not participate in papal elections, and he also determined that the maximum number of cardinal-electors could not exceed 120.
Pope Paul VI convened and presided over four international synods of bishops and continued John XXIII's example of enlarging and internationalizing the College of Cardinals.
In the last year of his life, he was profoundly shaken by the kidnapping and murder of his close friend, Aldo Moro, former prime minister of Italy. Indeed, Paul VI's last public appearance was to preside at Moro's funeral in the basilica of St. John Lateran, the pope's cathedral church.
Paul VI died of a heart attack at Castel Gandolfo Aug. 6, 1978, the feast of the Transfiguration. He had planned his own funeral. His coffin was at ground level, surmounted not by the papal tiara nor even by a miter or stole, but by the open book of the Gospels that fluttered in the light breeze across St. Peter's Square.
His successor was the Patriarch of Venice, Albino Luciani, who was the first pope to take a double name, to honor, he said, the pope (John XXIII) who had ordained him a bishop and who preceded him as Patriarch of Venice, and the pope (Paul VI) who had named him a cardinal.
In his remarks just before he gave the traditional Sunday blessing from the window of the Apostolic Palace (it was Aug. 27, the day after his election), he pointed out to the enthusiastic crowds below in St. Peter's Square, "Be sure of this: I do not have the wisdom of heart of Pope John. I do not have the preparation and culture of Pope Paul."
John Paul I was not only the first pope to take a double name; he was also the first pope in more than a thousand years to refuse to be crowned with the triple tiara.
Late in the evening of Sept. 28, John Paul I died of a heart attack while reading in bed. The Romans had taken such a liking to this humble, smiling pope that they reacted more emotionally to his death than they had to Pope Paul VI's only two months earlier.
The cardinal-electors rushed back to Rome in virtual shock, determined to elect someone with the necessary physical vigor to bear the burdens of the office.
The assumption was that the new pope would be another Italian, as had been the case for the past four centuries and a half. The leading candidate, Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, archbishop of Florence, had spent many years in the Roman Curia and, in the process, had made some enemies. There was also some resentment of the key part he had played in the election of John Paul I.
Although Cardinal Benelli received the most votes on the early ballots, he could not reach the required two-thirds necessary for election and his support began to wane. The cardinals then turned to the 76-year-old Cardinal Carlo Columbo, archbishop of Milan, but he announced that he would not accept election.
This left the Italians without a viable candidate, and so for the first time since 1522 they elected a non-Italian, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland, who took the name John Paul II.
Although he would do many good things in the 26 and a half years he occupied the office, John Paul II's appointments to, and within, the hierarchy were not among them.
And that is the main reason why the Catholic church is experiencing such difficulty today.
© 2009 Richard P. McBrien. All rights reserved. Fr. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
The Church's View of Sex: The Root Cause of Its Trouble
Maureen Gaffney
{The Irish Times]
AFTER THE first wave of revelations over a decade ago, the sexual abuse of children by the clergy was explained away by the Roman Catholic Church by the bad apple theory – that these isolated “sexual acts” were transgressions by a minority of weak priests. In the wake of the Dublin diocesan report, that explanation has been amplified to include institutional failures of decision-making in dealing with offenders and victims, and a culture of secrecy and cover-up, writes MAUREEN GAFFNEY
But tidying up corporate governance and instituting a more transparent culture is not going to resolve the scandal of clerical sexual abuse. That will require the church to face up to a much more profound problem – the church’s own teaching on sexuality.
Consider the list of issues the church has failed to deal with credibly since the 1960s: premarital and extramarital sex; remarriage; contraception; divorce; homosexuality; the role of women in ministry and women’s ordination; and the celibacy of the clergy. All have to do with sexuality.
Very few Catholics are looking to the church for moral guidelines in relation to any of these questions anymore. And why would they? After all, the church’s teaching on sexuality continues to insist that all intentionally sought sexual pleasure outside marriage is gravely sinful, and that every act of sexual intercourse within marriage must remain open to the
transmission of life. The last pope, and most probably the present, took the view that intercourse, even in marriage, is not only “incomplete”, but even ceases to be an act of love, if contraception is used. Such pronouncements are so much at variance with the lived experience of most people as to undermine terminally the church’s credibility in the area of intimate
relationships.
The sexual revolution, particularly the development of effective contraception, and the growth of the women’s and gay rights movements, has left the church stranded with an archaic psychology of sexuality. The world has moved decisively away from a view of sex as simply procreation. What preoccupies men and women in the modern world is trying to understand the psychological roots of their own sexuality: how it is formed; how central it is to their identity and sense of self; and probably most essentially, how it can make or break their relationships. Even the clergy cannot put up a credible defence for the insistence on priestly celibacy in the face of the almost complete collapse in vocations and the mounting evidence that many
priests have ignored teachings on this matter.
Richard Sipe is a former priest and a recognised authority on celibacy. On the basis of his research in the US and other countries, he estimates between 45 and 50 per cent of Catholic clergy are sexually active. A study in Spain found that of those clergy who were sexually active, 53 per cent were having sex with an adult woman; 21 per cent with adult men; 14 per cent
with minor boys and 12 per cent with minor girls. His own research showed 20 per cent of priests were involved in a more or less stable sexual relationship with a woman, or with sequential women in identifiable patterns. Another 10 per cent were in exploratory “dating” relationships that might include sexual contact.
Some of the remaining 70 per cent tried to solve the problems of their loneliness by having a close friendship with a woman that excluded sex. But, predictably, many priests discovered how dependent their celibacy was on the traditional all-male clerical structure of their lives that was no longer available to them as they increasingly worked in a more isolated way in
communities.
Sipe estimates the proportion of gay men in the priesthood as between 30 per cent and 50 per cent, significantly greater than the proportion in the general population. About 10 per cent of clergy in the US were involved in homosexual activity. A further 12 per cent identified themselves as homosexual or as having serious questions about their sexual orientation, although not all were sexually active. These men find themselves in a church which views a homosexual orientation as “an objective disorder”, “a more or less strong tendency towards evil”. How can gay men and women in religious life, or those troubled by their orientation, work out their sexual identity in such an environment, let alone minister to their gay and lesbian flock?
All of those issues are institutionally denied or shrouded in secrecy. Hardly surprising, then, that paedophilia can flourish in such an environment. It is important to stress here that homosexuality and paedophilia are two quite separate phenomena. A 2004 study for the American bishops found the percentage of clergy accused of child sexual abuse was consistently between 3 and 6 per cent, and the overall average is 5 per cent.
As the institutional structures of the church have weakened in the wake of successive scandals, it is likely that the proportions of priests who are actively engaged in sexuality of one kind or another may have increased.
Yet, the church has remained unmoved in the face of the mounting evidence of defection from its sexual teachings by both laity and clergy, although in the case of the offending clergy, they seem entirely capable of keeping their doctrinal orthodoxy psychologically separate from their actual behaviour.
It is predictable what will now happen. The church’s “learning curve” will crank up temporarily and its corporate governance on child sexual abuse may improve. And then, it will be business as usual. But no amount of improved decision-making and transparency will enable senior clergy to respond effectively to the church’s crisis of sexuality.
To do that, they must confront the root cause of the problem – that the Catholic Church is a powerful homo-social institution, where men are submissive to a hierarchical authority and where women are incidental and dispensable. It’s the purest form of a male hierarchy, reflected in the striking fact that we all collectively refer it to as “the Hierarchy”.
It has all the characteristics of the worst kind of such an institution, rigid in social structure; preoccupied by power; ruthless in suppressing internal dissent; in thrall to status, titles, and insignia, with an accompanying culture of narcissism and entitlement; and at a great psychological distance from human intimacy and suffering.
Most strikingly, it is a culture which is fearful and disdainful of women. As theologian William M Shea observes, “fear of women, and perhaps hatred of them, may well be just what we have to work out of the Catholic system”. Until that institutional misogyny is confronted, the church will be unable to confront the unresolved issue of its teaching on sexuality and the sexuality of the clergy. Instead, celibacy will continue to be used as a prop to the dysfunctional homo-social hierarchy. The hierarchy will continue to project its fear of women on to an obsessive effort to exert control over their wombs, their fertility and their unruly sexual desires. That is the psychology of exclusion.
It is to be hoped that the Catholic Church in Ireland will resolve this issue. Not just because many of us don’t want to lose the reassuring moral presence of the church, nor because we cannot easily do without the intelligent altruism of devoted religious, but because the great joy and hope of the Christian message was never more badly needed.
_____
Maureen Gaffney is a clinical psychologist. She is chairwoman of the
National Economic and Social Forum, which advises the Government on economic
and social issues, and is a member of the board of the HSE
{The Irish Times]
AFTER THE first wave of revelations over a decade ago, the sexual abuse of children by the clergy was explained away by the Roman Catholic Church by the bad apple theory – that these isolated “sexual acts” were transgressions by a minority of weak priests. In the wake of the Dublin diocesan report, that explanation has been amplified to include institutional failures of decision-making in dealing with offenders and victims, and a culture of secrecy and cover-up, writes MAUREEN GAFFNEY
But tidying up corporate governance and instituting a more transparent culture is not going to resolve the scandal of clerical sexual abuse. That will require the church to face up to a much more profound problem – the church’s own teaching on sexuality.
Consider the list of issues the church has failed to deal with credibly since the 1960s: premarital and extramarital sex; remarriage; contraception; divorce; homosexuality; the role of women in ministry and women’s ordination; and the celibacy of the clergy. All have to do with sexuality.
Very few Catholics are looking to the church for moral guidelines in relation to any of these questions anymore. And why would they? After all, the church’s teaching on sexuality continues to insist that all intentionally sought sexual pleasure outside marriage is gravely sinful, and that every act of sexual intercourse within marriage must remain open to the
transmission of life. The last pope, and most probably the present, took the view that intercourse, even in marriage, is not only “incomplete”, but even ceases to be an act of love, if contraception is used. Such pronouncements are so much at variance with the lived experience of most people as to undermine terminally the church’s credibility in the area of intimate
relationships.
The sexual revolution, particularly the development of effective contraception, and the growth of the women’s and gay rights movements, has left the church stranded with an archaic psychology of sexuality. The world has moved decisively away from a view of sex as simply procreation. What preoccupies men and women in the modern world is trying to understand the psychological roots of their own sexuality: how it is formed; how central it is to their identity and sense of self; and probably most essentially, how it can make or break their relationships. Even the clergy cannot put up a credible defence for the insistence on priestly celibacy in the face of the almost complete collapse in vocations and the mounting evidence that many
priests have ignored teachings on this matter.
Richard Sipe is a former priest and a recognised authority on celibacy. On the basis of his research in the US and other countries, he estimates between 45 and 50 per cent of Catholic clergy are sexually active. A study in Spain found that of those clergy who were sexually active, 53 per cent were having sex with an adult woman; 21 per cent with adult men; 14 per cent
with minor boys and 12 per cent with minor girls. His own research showed 20 per cent of priests were involved in a more or less stable sexual relationship with a woman, or with sequential women in identifiable patterns. Another 10 per cent were in exploratory “dating” relationships that might include sexual contact.
Some of the remaining 70 per cent tried to solve the problems of their loneliness by having a close friendship with a woman that excluded sex. But, predictably, many priests discovered how dependent their celibacy was on the traditional all-male clerical structure of their lives that was no longer available to them as they increasingly worked in a more isolated way in
communities.
Sipe estimates the proportion of gay men in the priesthood as between 30 per cent and 50 per cent, significantly greater than the proportion in the general population. About 10 per cent of clergy in the US were involved in homosexual activity. A further 12 per cent identified themselves as homosexual or as having serious questions about their sexual orientation, although not all were sexually active. These men find themselves in a church which views a homosexual orientation as “an objective disorder”, “a more or less strong tendency towards evil”. How can gay men and women in religious life, or those troubled by their orientation, work out their sexual identity in such an environment, let alone minister to their gay and lesbian flock?
All of those issues are institutionally denied or shrouded in secrecy. Hardly surprising, then, that paedophilia can flourish in such an environment. It is important to stress here that homosexuality and paedophilia are two quite separate phenomena. A 2004 study for the American bishops found the percentage of clergy accused of child sexual abuse was consistently between 3 and 6 per cent, and the overall average is 5 per cent.
As the institutional structures of the church have weakened in the wake of successive scandals, it is likely that the proportions of priests who are actively engaged in sexuality of one kind or another may have increased.
Yet, the church has remained unmoved in the face of the mounting evidence of defection from its sexual teachings by both laity and clergy, although in the case of the offending clergy, they seem entirely capable of keeping their doctrinal orthodoxy psychologically separate from their actual behaviour.
It is predictable what will now happen. The church’s “learning curve” will crank up temporarily and its corporate governance on child sexual abuse may improve. And then, it will be business as usual. But no amount of improved decision-making and transparency will enable senior clergy to respond effectively to the church’s crisis of sexuality.
To do that, they must confront the root cause of the problem – that the Catholic Church is a powerful homo-social institution, where men are submissive to a hierarchical authority and where women are incidental and dispensable. It’s the purest form of a male hierarchy, reflected in the striking fact that we all collectively refer it to as “the Hierarchy”.
It has all the characteristics of the worst kind of such an institution, rigid in social structure; preoccupied by power; ruthless in suppressing internal dissent; in thrall to status, titles, and insignia, with an accompanying culture of narcissism and entitlement; and at a great psychological distance from human intimacy and suffering.
Most strikingly, it is a culture which is fearful and disdainful of women. As theologian William M Shea observes, “fear of women, and perhaps hatred of them, may well be just what we have to work out of the Catholic system”. Until that institutional misogyny is confronted, the church will be unable to confront the unresolved issue of its teaching on sexuality and the sexuality of the clergy. Instead, celibacy will continue to be used as a prop to the dysfunctional homo-social hierarchy. The hierarchy will continue to project its fear of women on to an obsessive effort to exert control over their wombs, their fertility and their unruly sexual desires. That is the psychology of exclusion.
It is to be hoped that the Catholic Church in Ireland will resolve this issue. Not just because many of us don’t want to lose the reassuring moral presence of the church, nor because we cannot easily do without the intelligent altruism of devoted religious, but because the great joy and hope of the Christian message was never more badly needed.
_____
Maureen Gaffney is a clinical psychologist. She is chairwoman of the
National Economic and Social Forum, which advises the Government on economic
and social issues, and is a member of the board of the HSE
Maximus's Mary: a Minister, Not Just an Icon
Sally Cunneen
[Commonweal Blog]
Could the Mother of Jesus have had a greater role in the mission, Passion, and Resurrection of her son than the evangelists tell us? Could women have been important church leaders in early Christianity? The earliest complete biography of the Virgin, by the Byzantine theologian St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662), takes such things for granted. After centuries of neglect, his seventh-century Life of the Virgin became available in a 1986 French translation by Michel van Esbroeck. Its effect is to radically change our understanding of Mary’s earthly role.
Maximus portrays Mary as a lifelong companion in her son’s mission, a leader of the early Jewish-Christian church, and the source of many gospel stories about Jesus’ life. He has carefully constructed his material from canonical biblical texts and known apocryphal material, as well as from sources unknown to us, particularly those related to the Passion and to Mary’s Dormition and Assumption. Above all, his Life of the Virgin assumes that Mary and other women were significant actors in the early church at a time when Latin church fathers were sharply separating the one perfect woman from the rest of womankind, urging these daughters of Eve to imitate Mary’s purity and obedience.
Maximus is hardly a household name among Western Catholics. An aristocrat from Constantinople who left the service of the Emperor Heraclius to become a monk, he created a bridge between East and West through his firm defense of the Chalcedonian decree that Christ had two wills, divine and human. Bitter wars over heresies were endemic at this time; because Maximus opposed the monothelite heresy and supported the view that Christ was fully human and fully divine, he was brutally tortured and ultimately died for his belief. His position accurately represented the faith of Christian Byzantium with its emphasis on the Incarnation and the intimate connection of the divine and human in Mary’s body. To Eastern believers, the Word became flesh, and the flesh was hers, graceful, truthful, and earthy. Feast days and elaborate prayers to Mary abounded in Constantinople, after she was declared God-Bearer in 431, and veneration of the Theotokos was at its peak in the reign of Justinian, builder of the great Hagia Sofia, not long before Maximus was born. The emperors and their families chose Mary as their patron and clothed her in imperial dress in the mosaics and paintings of her new churches. But devotion to the Theotokos was not confined to the nobility; it was as widespread as the icons of the time, treasured in particular in Constantinople where Eastern believers saw this mother as their protector against the constant invasions of the period.
The language Maximus uses in his Life of the Virgin recalls the elaborate praises of Mary in the poetic hymns of the sixth-century Romanos the Melodist, originally Syrian, but later a cantor of the Theotokos Church in Constantinople. At the opening of Maximus’s narrative biography (121 pages in the French translation), he asks people of all nations to listen as he celebrates the “immaculate and fully blessed Theotokos, the ever virgin Mary.” Fusing scholarship and personal devotion, he makes us feel Mary’s living presence with him as he composed the Life.
The biography begins with a record of Mary’s birth and childhood. It neatly combines material from the apocryphal Protevangelium of James with references to the canonical Gospels. Maximus insists that in using the former material he is following the example of great bishops-Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Athanasius of Alexandria. The reader’s first surprise comes when the Archangel Gabriel delivers an unexpected message during the Annunciation, telling Mary that this divine invitation reveals God’s intention that women should no longer be subordinated to men. Through the Incarnation, the curse of Eve will be lifted, and women can be independent. But this independence comes only to virgins, Gabriel goes on to explain. He points out that this life choice, which Mary has made possible, gives women the chance to escape from the pains of childbirth, obviously an appeal to later women. In this totally patriarchal society, Mary’s virginity could be seen as a positive affirmation of humanity in relation to the divine.
Mary’s perpetual virginity was not only universally accepted within Christianity at this time, but it had been confirmed over a century earlier at the Council of Chalcedon (451). In Byzantine eyes, it glorified the physical body and character of the woman who had made the mystery of Christianity possible.
More surprises follow. Maximus reports that “the incorruptible mother never separated herself from her gracious son and king,” knowing even in his infancy that he was the Lord. She was a warm, supportive mother who expressed her feelings, and it was later “the desire of her heart” to see her son perform the miracle John’s Gospel records at the marriage in Cana. Though reprimanding her gently, Jesus fulfills her desire and begins his mission. From then on, she follows him and listens to his words, says Maximus, “all the days of his stay on earth.”
What is most unusual in this Life is not just Mary’s close companionship with Jesus, but the leading role she and other women take in his mission. She constantly stands beside him, always understanding his messages. Joseph, portrayed in the Protevangelium as a widower with children when he married Mary, stays at home because of his advanced age, according to Maximus, but his sons James and Jude are said to follow Christ as his disciples, while his daughters become disciples of Mary.
Maximus says that many women followed Jesus as disciples, and the “holy mother of the Lord” guided and advised them, acting as their mediator with her son. The Byzantine scholar Stephen J. Shoemaker, who wrote an excellent article on Mary’s ministry in the Maximus biography (Harvard Theological Review, October 2005), suggests that although the origins of such traditions are not entirely clear, it is quite possible that they reflect lost apocryphal traditions that once circulated in late antiquity. The important contributions of women reflected in these writings give a sense of women’s role in the early Byzantine church. Because of the total seclusion and segregation of the sexes in that Eastern Mediterranean society, women needed other women for many pastoral services. Orders of widows and women deacons were formally assigned to provide these. Byzantine scholar Valerie Karras says that these early female deacons shared the sacramental duties connected with baptism and the Eucharist. Despite their exclusion from the ordained priesthood and episcopate because of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden, a position forcefully argued by St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407), archbishop of Constantinople, Karras says that “women continued to play active and ecclesiastically recognized roles in the Byzantine church even during and after the decline of the ordained female diaconate by the late twelfth century.”
Chief among the women working with “the holy Theotokos,” according to Maximus, was her good companion Mary of Magdala. Magdala’s extraordinary position and missionary travels made her an apostle who ultimately received the crown of martyrdom in Rome. As Peter was zealous among the men, says Maximus admiringly, so was she among the women.
Most striking in this Life is Mary’s central presence throughout her son’s Passion, beginning at the Last Supper. Maximus says that she is in fact the source of most of the information in the Gospels about her son’s last day, the only person who remained with him at all times from his arrest to his Resurrection. She saw and heard everything. When the guards prevented her from watching his appearance before Annas and Caiphas, the biography tells us, she questioned witnesses going in and out, gathering a complete account of what happened.
Maximus’s Mary is a deeply grieving mother during Jesus’ final trials. She overcomes her fear of crowds and armed soldiers to accompany her son on his way of the cross, and stands beneath it at the end with the beloved disciple. Maximus makes the extraordinary claim that the majority of words and actions accomplished before and after Jesus’ death were recounted to the apostles and the other disciples by his mother. “And so, O Mother of the Lord, the sword penetrated your heart as Simeon had predicted.... The nails penetrated your hands too, you suffered even more than he.”
Lamenting first at a distance with Mary of Magdala and other women followers of Jesus, Mary holds out her hands and beats her breast. When the crowd finally disperses, she approaches the cross and speaks to her dying son. Their talk is filled with the intense emotion characteristic of late medieval Europe, unlike anything in earlier Western writing or art. “Show me,” she cries, “the Resurrection and the glory as you often promised.” His response is to speak his dying words to her and the beloved disciple as recorded in John’s Gospel.
When Jesus finally gives up his spirit, Mary reveals her strength and ingenuity. She searches for a suitable tomb and finds it surrounded by a garden near Golgotha. Learning that it belongs to Joseph of Arimathea, she begs him to give it to her. When he graciously agrees, she and her women companions accompany him to ask Pilate for the Lord’s body. In doing so, they are rewarded for their “audacity and intelligence.” Joseph and Mary remove Jesus from the cross, and the mother embraces her son’s broken body, crying out in this verbal Pieta: “O death more admirable than Incarnation! Now reveal your force.... I know you will revive and talk again, for you are clearly God and Lord of the living and the dead.”
Joseph and Mary place Jesus in the tomb and roll the stone before it, and eventually all the others leave Mary alone to pray, making her the first witness to the Resurrection. Recognizing that his account differs from the gospel stories, Maximus explains that this strategy was adopted by the apostles “so that no one would disbelieve because the vision of the Resurrection was reported by the mother.” Then as now, such maternal testimony might well be considered unreliable.
Controversy regarding the first witnesses to the Resurrection was active in the early church. While the evangelists cited the myrrh-bearing women who came to the empty tomb, Paul reported that Jesus appeared first to Peter and the twelve apostles. These different traditions hardened in the following centuries, with those in leadership backing Paul. Theologian Shoemaker points out that a similar split occurs in early Marian literature, in which the first report by a female witness to the events of Mary’s death is replaced by a later emphasis on the additional presence of male apostles. Although only a vestige of female leaders remained in the diaconate at the time Maximus was writing, his biography stresses women’s key role, even after Christ’s Ascension. He implies that leadership status for women in the early community was not at all exceptional.
Mary, says Maximus, “prescribed the fasting and prayer for the holy apostles until Pentecost.” He cites Acts 1:14 regarding her presence in the upper room at Pentecost, but adds something not found in Luke. When, afterward, Mary tries to travel with John (like the apostles), taking Mary of Magdala and other women, she is told by Jesus in a vision to turn back and let the others go without her. He wants her instead to head the church in Jerusalem along with James. She obeys his wish and becomes a teacher of the apostles, the one to whom they report, the one who maintains the unity, order, and doctrine of the early church.
Living in Jerusalem, her mercy extends to strangers and to enemies, and the faith of many is fortified by her. She works hard till she is nearly eighty, when the Archangel Gabriel appears to her again. Handing her a palm, he announces her forthcoming death as he had announced her son’s birth. In response, completing the pattern, she replies: “Be it done to me according to your word.” This indefatigable woman then walks to the Garden of Olives to pray, selects her tomb at Gethsemane, and prepares the house for the ceremonies to come. From her couch she receives crowds of disciples and apostles arriving from the ends of the earth. Prayer, grief, and blessings abound, a heavenly odor permeates the room, and at last her Son appears, flanked by angels, and takes her soul to heaven. The pattern of the Nativity is reversed in icons of the Dormition, in which Christ holds his mother’s tiny soul.
Three days after the burial, Thomas the apostle arrives all the way from India, but when they open the tomb for him, Mary’s body is gone. Maximus tells us that it was the will of her son that “the always glorious Theotokos” be taken up so she can be available to all; she is in heaven “before us to give us hope of a common resurrection.”
Mary’s biography continues, however, with a carefully composed synthesis of ancient accounts related to her Dormition. Some of these remind us that we have yet to fully face up to the frightening hostility to Jews that early on became a strong undercurrent in Christian tradition.
The mix of political and ecclesiastical power in the Byzantine Empire made Mary central to its identity; she was considered the protector of Constantinople as well as the guarantee of orthodoxy. Thus she also became the focus of heated encounters between Jews and Christians. By the fifth century, a Jewish version of the Gospels had appeared that called Jesus a magician and repeated the old accusation that his birth was the product of fornication. Maximus passes on the legend that Jews attacked Mary’s house with stones. He includes among other legends the widespread story of Jews attacking Mary’s funeral, then being forced by angels to convert. Maximus also retells the wide accepted story of two Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land and piously stealing Mary’s robe from a holy Jewish virgin. This was especially significant since the robe was then placed in the Blachernae Chapel as part of the empire’s attempt to make Constantinople, not Jerusalem, the holy center of Christian life. As historical theologian Gary Macy advises, “The universality that is ‘catholic’ should allow all the Christians of the past to counsel, comfort, illuminate, disquiet, upset, and most importantly, liberate us.”
Although Maximus’s biography was influential among later Byzantine biographers of Mary, notably George of Nicomedia (end of the ninth century) and John the Geometrician (the tenth century), it was the much shorter biography by the late tenth-century Simeon the Metaphrast (“The Reteller”) that was passed on to the West. He retained material giving Mary a central role during the Passion, but eliminated almost all references to the active work she and other women disciples performed in the early church. The tradition of Mary as central to her son’s mission and as a leader of the early church along with other women seems at the end of the first millennium of Christianity to be preserved, ironically enough, only in monasteries. Shoemaker suggests that was the case because there “the absence of actual women may have made this representation considerably less threatening than it would have been in a mixed, urban setting” in the tenth century.
As a layman in a setting populated with women, Simeon would have been aware of the potentially subversive nature of the material in Maximus’s Life and perhaps felt the need to trim it accordingly. His carefully edited version prevailed, dominant even in monasteries during the second millennium of Christianity. It became the biography the medieval era passed on to European Catholicism, while that of Maximus was hardly remembered. The recovery of Maximus’s long-neglected work suggests how self-censorship in conformity to changing political and institutional opinions has limited our awareness of the great diversity of Catholic tradition. It also reveals how that tradition has changed since those early centuries.
Today the church would officially reject the tone of the legends about Jewish “impiety,” as well as women’s need to be virgins if they are to gain the human equality God desires. But we might well be receptive to a view of Mary as an active, competent woman carrying out her son’s mission of mercy in the world alongside other women and men. Long considered the model of faith all believers should follow, Maximus’s Mary seems singularly appropriate today. Perhaps the early sources that led him to present her and other women in leadership roles can be traced. In any case, this portrait of Mary, held for centuries by Byzantine believers, helps us appreciate the power of the Eastern Catholic belief that in her son, Jesus, God joined humanity so that humanity can join God.
[Commonweal Blog]
Could the Mother of Jesus have had a greater role in the mission, Passion, and Resurrection of her son than the evangelists tell us? Could women have been important church leaders in early Christianity? The earliest complete biography of the Virgin, by the Byzantine theologian St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662), takes such things for granted. After centuries of neglect, his seventh-century Life of the Virgin became available in a 1986 French translation by Michel van Esbroeck. Its effect is to radically change our understanding of Mary’s earthly role.
Maximus portrays Mary as a lifelong companion in her son’s mission, a leader of the early Jewish-Christian church, and the source of many gospel stories about Jesus’ life. He has carefully constructed his material from canonical biblical texts and known apocryphal material, as well as from sources unknown to us, particularly those related to the Passion and to Mary’s Dormition and Assumption. Above all, his Life of the Virgin assumes that Mary and other women were significant actors in the early church at a time when Latin church fathers were sharply separating the one perfect woman from the rest of womankind, urging these daughters of Eve to imitate Mary’s purity and obedience.
Maximus is hardly a household name among Western Catholics. An aristocrat from Constantinople who left the service of the Emperor Heraclius to become a monk, he created a bridge between East and West through his firm defense of the Chalcedonian decree that Christ had two wills, divine and human. Bitter wars over heresies were endemic at this time; because Maximus opposed the monothelite heresy and supported the view that Christ was fully human and fully divine, he was brutally tortured and ultimately died for his belief. His position accurately represented the faith of Christian Byzantium with its emphasis on the Incarnation and the intimate connection of the divine and human in Mary’s body. To Eastern believers, the Word became flesh, and the flesh was hers, graceful, truthful, and earthy. Feast days and elaborate prayers to Mary abounded in Constantinople, after she was declared God-Bearer in 431, and veneration of the Theotokos was at its peak in the reign of Justinian, builder of the great Hagia Sofia, not long before Maximus was born. The emperors and their families chose Mary as their patron and clothed her in imperial dress in the mosaics and paintings of her new churches. But devotion to the Theotokos was not confined to the nobility; it was as widespread as the icons of the time, treasured in particular in Constantinople where Eastern believers saw this mother as their protector against the constant invasions of the period.
The language Maximus uses in his Life of the Virgin recalls the elaborate praises of Mary in the poetic hymns of the sixth-century Romanos the Melodist, originally Syrian, but later a cantor of the Theotokos Church in Constantinople. At the opening of Maximus’s narrative biography (121 pages in the French translation), he asks people of all nations to listen as he celebrates the “immaculate and fully blessed Theotokos, the ever virgin Mary.” Fusing scholarship and personal devotion, he makes us feel Mary’s living presence with him as he composed the Life.
The biography begins with a record of Mary’s birth and childhood. It neatly combines material from the apocryphal Protevangelium of James with references to the canonical Gospels. Maximus insists that in using the former material he is following the example of great bishops-Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Athanasius of Alexandria. The reader’s first surprise comes when the Archangel Gabriel delivers an unexpected message during the Annunciation, telling Mary that this divine invitation reveals God’s intention that women should no longer be subordinated to men. Through the Incarnation, the curse of Eve will be lifted, and women can be independent. But this independence comes only to virgins, Gabriel goes on to explain. He points out that this life choice, which Mary has made possible, gives women the chance to escape from the pains of childbirth, obviously an appeal to later women. In this totally patriarchal society, Mary’s virginity could be seen as a positive affirmation of humanity in relation to the divine.
Mary’s perpetual virginity was not only universally accepted within Christianity at this time, but it had been confirmed over a century earlier at the Council of Chalcedon (451). In Byzantine eyes, it glorified the physical body and character of the woman who had made the mystery of Christianity possible.
More surprises follow. Maximus reports that “the incorruptible mother never separated herself from her gracious son and king,” knowing even in his infancy that he was the Lord. She was a warm, supportive mother who expressed her feelings, and it was later “the desire of her heart” to see her son perform the miracle John’s Gospel records at the marriage in Cana. Though reprimanding her gently, Jesus fulfills her desire and begins his mission. From then on, she follows him and listens to his words, says Maximus, “all the days of his stay on earth.”
What is most unusual in this Life is not just Mary’s close companionship with Jesus, but the leading role she and other women take in his mission. She constantly stands beside him, always understanding his messages. Joseph, portrayed in the Protevangelium as a widower with children when he married Mary, stays at home because of his advanced age, according to Maximus, but his sons James and Jude are said to follow Christ as his disciples, while his daughters become disciples of Mary.
Maximus says that many women followed Jesus as disciples, and the “holy mother of the Lord” guided and advised them, acting as their mediator with her son. The Byzantine scholar Stephen J. Shoemaker, who wrote an excellent article on Mary’s ministry in the Maximus biography (Harvard Theological Review, October 2005), suggests that although the origins of such traditions are not entirely clear, it is quite possible that they reflect lost apocryphal traditions that once circulated in late antiquity. The important contributions of women reflected in these writings give a sense of women’s role in the early Byzantine church. Because of the total seclusion and segregation of the sexes in that Eastern Mediterranean society, women needed other women for many pastoral services. Orders of widows and women deacons were formally assigned to provide these. Byzantine scholar Valerie Karras says that these early female deacons shared the sacramental duties connected with baptism and the Eucharist. Despite their exclusion from the ordained priesthood and episcopate because of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden, a position forcefully argued by St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407), archbishop of Constantinople, Karras says that “women continued to play active and ecclesiastically recognized roles in the Byzantine church even during and after the decline of the ordained female diaconate by the late twelfth century.”
Chief among the women working with “the holy Theotokos,” according to Maximus, was her good companion Mary of Magdala. Magdala’s extraordinary position and missionary travels made her an apostle who ultimately received the crown of martyrdom in Rome. As Peter was zealous among the men, says Maximus admiringly, so was she among the women.
Most striking in this Life is Mary’s central presence throughout her son’s Passion, beginning at the Last Supper. Maximus says that she is in fact the source of most of the information in the Gospels about her son’s last day, the only person who remained with him at all times from his arrest to his Resurrection. She saw and heard everything. When the guards prevented her from watching his appearance before Annas and Caiphas, the biography tells us, she questioned witnesses going in and out, gathering a complete account of what happened.
Maximus’s Mary is a deeply grieving mother during Jesus’ final trials. She overcomes her fear of crowds and armed soldiers to accompany her son on his way of the cross, and stands beneath it at the end with the beloved disciple. Maximus makes the extraordinary claim that the majority of words and actions accomplished before and after Jesus’ death were recounted to the apostles and the other disciples by his mother. “And so, O Mother of the Lord, the sword penetrated your heart as Simeon had predicted.... The nails penetrated your hands too, you suffered even more than he.”
Lamenting first at a distance with Mary of Magdala and other women followers of Jesus, Mary holds out her hands and beats her breast. When the crowd finally disperses, she approaches the cross and speaks to her dying son. Their talk is filled with the intense emotion characteristic of late medieval Europe, unlike anything in earlier Western writing or art. “Show me,” she cries, “the Resurrection and the glory as you often promised.” His response is to speak his dying words to her and the beloved disciple as recorded in John’s Gospel.
When Jesus finally gives up his spirit, Mary reveals her strength and ingenuity. She searches for a suitable tomb and finds it surrounded by a garden near Golgotha. Learning that it belongs to Joseph of Arimathea, she begs him to give it to her. When he graciously agrees, she and her women companions accompany him to ask Pilate for the Lord’s body. In doing so, they are rewarded for their “audacity and intelligence.” Joseph and Mary remove Jesus from the cross, and the mother embraces her son’s broken body, crying out in this verbal Pieta: “O death more admirable than Incarnation! Now reveal your force.... I know you will revive and talk again, for you are clearly God and Lord of the living and the dead.”
Joseph and Mary place Jesus in the tomb and roll the stone before it, and eventually all the others leave Mary alone to pray, making her the first witness to the Resurrection. Recognizing that his account differs from the gospel stories, Maximus explains that this strategy was adopted by the apostles “so that no one would disbelieve because the vision of the Resurrection was reported by the mother.” Then as now, such maternal testimony might well be considered unreliable.
Controversy regarding the first witnesses to the Resurrection was active in the early church. While the evangelists cited the myrrh-bearing women who came to the empty tomb, Paul reported that Jesus appeared first to Peter and the twelve apostles. These different traditions hardened in the following centuries, with those in leadership backing Paul. Theologian Shoemaker points out that a similar split occurs in early Marian literature, in which the first report by a female witness to the events of Mary’s death is replaced by a later emphasis on the additional presence of male apostles. Although only a vestige of female leaders remained in the diaconate at the time Maximus was writing, his biography stresses women’s key role, even after Christ’s Ascension. He implies that leadership status for women in the early community was not at all exceptional.
Mary, says Maximus, “prescribed the fasting and prayer for the holy apostles until Pentecost.” He cites Acts 1:14 regarding her presence in the upper room at Pentecost, but adds something not found in Luke. When, afterward, Mary tries to travel with John (like the apostles), taking Mary of Magdala and other women, she is told by Jesus in a vision to turn back and let the others go without her. He wants her instead to head the church in Jerusalem along with James. She obeys his wish and becomes a teacher of the apostles, the one to whom they report, the one who maintains the unity, order, and doctrine of the early church.
Living in Jerusalem, her mercy extends to strangers and to enemies, and the faith of many is fortified by her. She works hard till she is nearly eighty, when the Archangel Gabriel appears to her again. Handing her a palm, he announces her forthcoming death as he had announced her son’s birth. In response, completing the pattern, she replies: “Be it done to me according to your word.” This indefatigable woman then walks to the Garden of Olives to pray, selects her tomb at Gethsemane, and prepares the house for the ceremonies to come. From her couch she receives crowds of disciples and apostles arriving from the ends of the earth. Prayer, grief, and blessings abound, a heavenly odor permeates the room, and at last her Son appears, flanked by angels, and takes her soul to heaven. The pattern of the Nativity is reversed in icons of the Dormition, in which Christ holds his mother’s tiny soul.
Three days after the burial, Thomas the apostle arrives all the way from India, but when they open the tomb for him, Mary’s body is gone. Maximus tells us that it was the will of her son that “the always glorious Theotokos” be taken up so she can be available to all; she is in heaven “before us to give us hope of a common resurrection.”
Mary’s biography continues, however, with a carefully composed synthesis of ancient accounts related to her Dormition. Some of these remind us that we have yet to fully face up to the frightening hostility to Jews that early on became a strong undercurrent in Christian tradition.
The mix of political and ecclesiastical power in the Byzantine Empire made Mary central to its identity; she was considered the protector of Constantinople as well as the guarantee of orthodoxy. Thus she also became the focus of heated encounters between Jews and Christians. By the fifth century, a Jewish version of the Gospels had appeared that called Jesus a magician and repeated the old accusation that his birth was the product of fornication. Maximus passes on the legend that Jews attacked Mary’s house with stones. He includes among other legends the widespread story of Jews attacking Mary’s funeral, then being forced by angels to convert. Maximus also retells the wide accepted story of two Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land and piously stealing Mary’s robe from a holy Jewish virgin. This was especially significant since the robe was then placed in the Blachernae Chapel as part of the empire’s attempt to make Constantinople, not Jerusalem, the holy center of Christian life. As historical theologian Gary Macy advises, “The universality that is ‘catholic’ should allow all the Christians of the past to counsel, comfort, illuminate, disquiet, upset, and most importantly, liberate us.”
Although Maximus’s biography was influential among later Byzantine biographers of Mary, notably George of Nicomedia (end of the ninth century) and John the Geometrician (the tenth century), it was the much shorter biography by the late tenth-century Simeon the Metaphrast (“The Reteller”) that was passed on to the West. He retained material giving Mary a central role during the Passion, but eliminated almost all references to the active work she and other women disciples performed in the early church. The tradition of Mary as central to her son’s mission and as a leader of the early church along with other women seems at the end of the first millennium of Christianity to be preserved, ironically enough, only in monasteries. Shoemaker suggests that was the case because there “the absence of actual women may have made this representation considerably less threatening than it would have been in a mixed, urban setting” in the tenth century.
As a layman in a setting populated with women, Simeon would have been aware of the potentially subversive nature of the material in Maximus’s Life and perhaps felt the need to trim it accordingly. His carefully edited version prevailed, dominant even in monasteries during the second millennium of Christianity. It became the biography the medieval era passed on to European Catholicism, while that of Maximus was hardly remembered. The recovery of Maximus’s long-neglected work suggests how self-censorship in conformity to changing political and institutional opinions has limited our awareness of the great diversity of Catholic tradition. It also reveals how that tradition has changed since those early centuries.
Today the church would officially reject the tone of the legends about Jewish “impiety,” as well as women’s need to be virgins if they are to gain the human equality God desires. But we might well be receptive to a view of Mary as an active, competent woman carrying out her son’s mission of mercy in the world alongside other women and men. Long considered the model of faith all believers should follow, Maximus’s Mary seems singularly appropriate today. Perhaps the early sources that led him to present her and other women in leadership roles can be traced. In any case, this portrait of Mary, held for centuries by Byzantine believers, helps us appreciate the power of the Eastern Catholic belief that in her son, Jesus, God joined humanity so that humanity can join God.
Friday, November 27, 2009
The Catholic Church's Greatest Assets
by Richard McBrien on Nov. 16, 2009
Last week, I began a look at one of the Catholic church's greatest assets, namely, the extraordinary contributions over so many years of religious women to the church's missionary, ministerial, and spiritual life.
Sr. Sandra Schneiders' excellent article on ministerial religious life in the Oct. 2 issue of the National Catholic Reporter situates that contribution in its proper biblical and historical contexts.
As she points out, it was not until 1900 that noncloistered apostolic congregations of women were formally recognized as an authentic form of religious life. Pope Leo XIII did this.
However, Schneiders is emphatic in her insistence that this papal decision did not create a new form of religious life.
"It was," she writes, "the public recognition of a fait accompli, namely, that over the course of nearly 400 years a new form of women's religious life had emerged and its validity, already long recognized by the people of God and by civil governments...[only] required acknowledgment by the institutional church."
However, for 50 years thereafter women religious actually lived a kind of hybrid life; that is, they maintained "virtually the whole of monastic life at home and a full-time ministerial life in their apostolates."
Some Catholics were at least vaguely familiar with that hybrid life; most were completely unaware of it.
The typical nonstop 17-hour-day (from 5 a.m. until 10 at night) in the pre-Vatican II convent required the nuns, "dressed at all times in the restrictive fluting and pleats, floor-length gowns, starched wimples and veiled headdresses of 17th- or 18th-century peasants or nobles," to struggle to fit in daily Mass (sometimes followed by Benediction), meditation, devotional exercises (such as the Rosary and Stations of the Cross), some form of the Divine Office, spiritual reading from assigned books, daily manual work assignments inside the convent, three meals in common, often in silence, and an hour of "recreation," which usually included handwork or mending, schoolwork, or parish and community tasks.
On the same day, the nuns prepared classes and carried a full day's professional schedule in school, hospital, or other Catholic institutions.
"In short," Sandra Schneiders points out, "they carried all the burdens of monastic life with none of the leisure for personal prayer, lectio divina [meditative reading of Sacred Scripture], genuine community life, or ordinary recreation of monastics, and all the burdens of the apostolate without the professional preparation or privileges enjoyed by the clergy."
She puts that double-life in a formula: "'monastics at home' and 'apostles abroad'."
It was Pope Pius XII who launched the process of renewal that would be taken up by the Second Vatican Council more than a decade later.
As Catholic educational institutions staffed by sisters multiplied rapidly in the 1950s, the Pope urged religious superiors to begin the modernization of their congregations, including the abolition of outmoded customs, the modification of habits, and increased attention to the professional education of the sisters.
At the subsequent ecumenical council Cardinal Leo-Jozef Suenens of Belgium vigorously promoted the renewal of women's religious life. Vatican II itself urged these communities to return to their biblical roots and their founding charisms, and to develop a greater measure of engagement with the modern world.
Women religious responded with energy and enthusiasm. In a period of "barely 40 years they fairly well bridged the historical gap between their early modern European origins and postmod-ern American ecclesial and cultural reality."
Some Catholics were taken aback by what they interpreted as the speed of the renewal, but in actuality the development of non-monastic ministerial religious life for women had been underway for nearly four centuries.
The council mandated a renewal chapter (or assembly) for virtually all congregations, at which their constitutions were revised and subsequently approved by the Vatican.
Where the old constitutions had placed primary emphasis on the monastic side of religious life and only secondary emphasis on the ministerial, the revised constitutions defined religious life as having "a single, integrated end."
The most immediately visible, though hardly the most important, change was in the habit. After a period of experimentation, most renewed congregations successfully made the transition to simple contemporary dress appropriate to the now quite varied situations in their ministerial lives.
"If the habit was the emotional flash point of renewal," Schneiders writes, "the broadening and full commitment to ministry" was the "spiritual substance at the heart of renewal."
We should not trust the judgment of anyone for whom the habit issue is more important than the issue of ministry.
© 2009 Richard P. McBrien. All rights reserved. Fr. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
Last week, I began a look at one of the Catholic church's greatest assets, namely, the extraordinary contributions over so many years of religious women to the church's missionary, ministerial, and spiritual life.
Sr. Sandra Schneiders' excellent article on ministerial religious life in the Oct. 2 issue of the National Catholic Reporter situates that contribution in its proper biblical and historical contexts.
As she points out, it was not until 1900 that noncloistered apostolic congregations of women were formally recognized as an authentic form of religious life. Pope Leo XIII did this.
However, Schneiders is emphatic in her insistence that this papal decision did not create a new form of religious life.
"It was," she writes, "the public recognition of a fait accompli, namely, that over the course of nearly 400 years a new form of women's religious life had emerged and its validity, already long recognized by the people of God and by civil governments...[only] required acknowledgment by the institutional church."
However, for 50 years thereafter women religious actually lived a kind of hybrid life; that is, they maintained "virtually the whole of monastic life at home and a full-time ministerial life in their apostolates."
Some Catholics were at least vaguely familiar with that hybrid life; most were completely unaware of it.
The typical nonstop 17-hour-day (from 5 a.m. until 10 at night) in the pre-Vatican II convent required the nuns, "dressed at all times in the restrictive fluting and pleats, floor-length gowns, starched wimples and veiled headdresses of 17th- or 18th-century peasants or nobles," to struggle to fit in daily Mass (sometimes followed by Benediction), meditation, devotional exercises (such as the Rosary and Stations of the Cross), some form of the Divine Office, spiritual reading from assigned books, daily manual work assignments inside the convent, three meals in common, often in silence, and an hour of "recreation," which usually included handwork or mending, schoolwork, or parish and community tasks.
On the same day, the nuns prepared classes and carried a full day's professional schedule in school, hospital, or other Catholic institutions.
"In short," Sandra Schneiders points out, "they carried all the burdens of monastic life with none of the leisure for personal prayer, lectio divina [meditative reading of Sacred Scripture], genuine community life, or ordinary recreation of monastics, and all the burdens of the apostolate without the professional preparation or privileges enjoyed by the clergy."
She puts that double-life in a formula: "'monastics at home' and 'apostles abroad'."
It was Pope Pius XII who launched the process of renewal that would be taken up by the Second Vatican Council more than a decade later.
As Catholic educational institutions staffed by sisters multiplied rapidly in the 1950s, the Pope urged religious superiors to begin the modernization of their congregations, including the abolition of outmoded customs, the modification of habits, and increased attention to the professional education of the sisters.
At the subsequent ecumenical council Cardinal Leo-Jozef Suenens of Belgium vigorously promoted the renewal of women's religious life. Vatican II itself urged these communities to return to their biblical roots and their founding charisms, and to develop a greater measure of engagement with the modern world.
Women religious responded with energy and enthusiasm. In a period of "barely 40 years they fairly well bridged the historical gap between their early modern European origins and postmod-ern American ecclesial and cultural reality."
Some Catholics were taken aback by what they interpreted as the speed of the renewal, but in actuality the development of non-monastic ministerial religious life for women had been underway for nearly four centuries.
The council mandated a renewal chapter (or assembly) for virtually all congregations, at which their constitutions were revised and subsequently approved by the Vatican.
Where the old constitutions had placed primary emphasis on the monastic side of religious life and only secondary emphasis on the ministerial, the revised constitutions defined religious life as having "a single, integrated end."
The most immediately visible, though hardly the most important, change was in the habit. After a period of experimentation, most renewed congregations successfully made the transition to simple contemporary dress appropriate to the now quite varied situations in their ministerial lives.
"If the habit was the emotional flash point of renewal," Schneiders writes, "the broadening and full commitment to ministry" was the "spiritual substance at the heart of renewal."
We should not trust the judgment of anyone for whom the habit issue is more important than the issue of ministry.
© 2009 Richard P. McBrien. All rights reserved. Fr. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
The Archbishop's Blog
[The following comment by Leonard Swidler, editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies and author of Toward a Catholic Constitution, among many others, is in reply to a piece in the November 8 New York Times by Clark Hoyt, “The Archbishop’s Blog.”]
Clark Hoyt notes that the American Catholic Church is "a spiritual home to a quarter of the American population." True, there are, according to the Pew survey on religion in America last year, 65 million U.S. Catholics. However, it also reports that there are 30 million FORMER Catholics! Archbishop Dolan and the rest of the bishops and the Vatican should focus much more on that disastrous figure than on some (appropriate) criticism of public flaws of the Catholic leadership.
The archbishop said, "“We welcome criticism of the Catholic Church,” but is that true? Not only does his very blog give the lie to that astonishing claim, but since the beginning of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II there has been a veritable drum-beat of silencing, firings, and excommunications precisely because Catholics have voiced opinions other than those blessed by the hierarchy. For example, according to the Vatican, Catholics are forbidden even to speak in favor of the ordination of women to the priesthood; Catholic church workers have been fired for doing so!
In the first issue of the "Journal of Ecumenical Studies," which my wife Arlene Anderson Swidler and I (dialogue@temple.edu)founded in 1964, there appears an article - painstakingly translated from the German by us - in favor of ecumenism by one Professor Joseph Ratzinger. This is the same Professor Ratzinger, then Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Holy Office ("of the Sacred Inquisition" part of the name dropped earlier in the 20th century), who wrote the vehement attack on ecumenism "Dominus Jesus," and continues in that vein as Pope Benedict XVI.
Sadly, totally gone is the open spirit of Vatican Council II (1962-65), which led to this startling Vatican statement: "Doctrinal discussion requires recognizing the truth everywhere, even if truth demolishes one so that one is forced to reconsider one’s own position, in theory and in practice, at least in part....in discussion the truth will prevail by no other means than by the truth itself. Therefore the liberty of the participants must be ensured by law and reverenced in practice."
But that was before Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I never thought I would be hankering for "the good old days"!
Clark Hoyt notes that the American Catholic Church is "a spiritual home to a quarter of the American population." True, there are, according to the Pew survey on religion in America last year, 65 million U.S. Catholics. However, it also reports that there are 30 million FORMER Catholics! Archbishop Dolan and the rest of the bishops and the Vatican should focus much more on that disastrous figure than on some (appropriate) criticism of public flaws of the Catholic leadership.
The archbishop said, "“We welcome criticism of the Catholic Church,” but is that true? Not only does his very blog give the lie to that astonishing claim, but since the beginning of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II there has been a veritable drum-beat of silencing, firings, and excommunications precisely because Catholics have voiced opinions other than those blessed by the hierarchy. For example, according to the Vatican, Catholics are forbidden even to speak in favor of the ordination of women to the priesthood; Catholic church workers have been fired for doing so!
In the first issue of the "Journal of Ecumenical Studies," which my wife Arlene Anderson Swidler and I (dialogue@temple.edu)founded in 1964, there appears an article - painstakingly translated from the German by us - in favor of ecumenism by one Professor Joseph Ratzinger. This is the same Professor Ratzinger, then Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Holy Office ("of the Sacred Inquisition" part of the name dropped earlier in the 20th century), who wrote the vehement attack on ecumenism "Dominus Jesus," and continues in that vein as Pope Benedict XVI.
Sadly, totally gone is the open spirit of Vatican Council II (1962-65), which led to this startling Vatican statement: "Doctrinal discussion requires recognizing the truth everywhere, even if truth demolishes one so that one is forced to reconsider one’s own position, in theory and in practice, at least in part....in discussion the truth will prevail by no other means than by the truth itself. Therefore the liberty of the participants must be ensured by law and reverenced in practice."
But that was before Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I never thought I would be hankering for "the good old days"!
Monday, November 9, 2009
2000 at CTA back nuns
In anticipation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops meeting in Baltimore, the largest annual gathering of progressive Catholics issued a statement of support to nuns during this time of investigation by the Vatican and called the bishops to do the same.
The bishops' meeting takes place next week, the same week that women religious are asked to submit their responses to the Vatican-issued questionnaire that is part of the investigation. The deadline for the questionnaire is November 20th.
More than 2,000 Catholics gathered in Milwaukee as part of the Call To Action conference and on Sunday morning unanimously affirmed a statement of support for women religious:
"Since January of 2009, the Vatican has investigated and sought to silence Catholic sisters in the United States. They have set a deadline of November 20th for the women religious' communities to respond to its probing questionnaire. Now more than ever we must speak out against the few bishops who continue to wield the sword of division, rather than extend the hand of unity.
To our fellow Catholics in the United States and around the globe, women religious have taught us how to live the gospel and open our arms until they embraced all of God's people. It is now our responsibility to put into action the lessons we have learned and ensure that our sisters in faith are not ripped from the church's embrace,
To our courageous sisters, you who have been the bedrock of our church and country, know that the people you have faithfully served stand beside you as you have stood with us.
To those who are doing the investigation, your actions do not reflect the welcoming and embracing love that Jesus demonstrated in the gospels. We invite you to have a conversion of heart and join us in standing with the women religious.
In every generation God raises up prophets to point the way towards the gospel vision of inclusion. Women religious are these prophets. Today we stand not with those who cling to the gates of exclusion but with the prophets who open the gates and call us to live as one."
###
Call To Action (CTA) is a Catholic movement working for equality and justice in the Church and society. An independent national organization of over 25,000 people and 50 local chapters, CTA believes that the Spirit of God is at work in the whole church, not just its appointed leaders.
The bishops' meeting takes place next week, the same week that women religious are asked to submit their responses to the Vatican-issued questionnaire that is part of the investigation. The deadline for the questionnaire is November 20th.
More than 2,000 Catholics gathered in Milwaukee as part of the Call To Action conference and on Sunday morning unanimously affirmed a statement of support for women religious:
"Since January of 2009, the Vatican has investigated and sought to silence Catholic sisters in the United States. They have set a deadline of November 20th for the women religious' communities to respond to its probing questionnaire. Now more than ever we must speak out against the few bishops who continue to wield the sword of division, rather than extend the hand of unity.
To our fellow Catholics in the United States and around the globe, women religious have taught us how to live the gospel and open our arms until they embraced all of God's people. It is now our responsibility to put into action the lessons we have learned and ensure that our sisters in faith are not ripped from the church's embrace,
To our courageous sisters, you who have been the bedrock of our church and country, know that the people you have faithfully served stand beside you as you have stood with us.
To those who are doing the investigation, your actions do not reflect the welcoming and embracing love that Jesus demonstrated in the gospels. We invite you to have a conversion of heart and join us in standing with the women religious.
In every generation God raises up prophets to point the way towards the gospel vision of inclusion. Women religious are these prophets. Today we stand not with those who cling to the gates of exclusion but with the prophets who open the gates and call us to live as one."
###
Call To Action (CTA) is a Catholic movement working for equality and justice in the Church and society. An independent national organization of over 25,000 people and 50 local chapters, CTA believes that the Spirit of God is at work in the whole church, not just its appointed leaders.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
In Maine, same-sex marriage is a Catholic issue
By Chuck Colbert
Published on National Catholic Reporter (http://ncronline.org)
Commentary
Several hundred Catholics in Maine have publicly declared themselves supporters of same-sex marriage, in direct opposition to their bishop, Richard J. Malone of Portland, who they say has gone overboard with a no-holds-barred campaign to roll back same-sex marriage in the Pine Tree State.
Maine voters are to decide Nov. 3 whether to keep or reject a bill extending civil marriage to gay and lesbian couples that the state legislature passed and the governor signed in May.
"Question One," on the ballot reads, "Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?"
If passed, it would be the first time -- in more than two dozen tries -- that same-sex marriage would be approved by a majority vote of the people.
Stakes are high. Advocates for marriage equality, still smarting from a referendum last year in California that repealed same-sex marriages in that state, have marshaled forces in the state. Groups opposed to gay marriage hope that victories in California and Maine will give the cause momentum nationally.
Catholics have taken prominent roles in the campaigns on both sides of the issue.
Expressing a sense of urgency, more than 140 of the state's high-profile business, legal, and civil leaders have placed newspaper ads, giving voice to a Catholic case for same-sex civil marriage.
"We are Catholics who are concerned that the current political campaign to repeal Maine's civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity, and with vital American traditions of separation of church and state," they write in an extraordinary eight-paragraph statement (Click to see a pdf file), which ran as a paid advertisement in Maine's leading daily newspapers the two Sundays before the vote.
"We believe that the church has a right and often the responsibility to speak out on moral and social issues, to present its views, to seek to educate its member and others," the signatories say, continuing, "But we also believe that the church should continue to recognize that Catholics are free, indeed obligated to follow their own informed consciences on such issues."
More than 500 Catholics signed a declaration of support for same-sex marriage being circulated by the Portland-based Catholics for Marriage Equality, the group announced Oct. 28.
However, Bishop Malone is a primary leader in a highly visible and vocal campaign to stop any reformulation of civil marriage to include of same-sex couples.
Besides spearheading a parish-based petition signature drive, assisted by local and national socially conservative groups, Malone also padded church bulletins with anti-gay marriage messages — on six consecutive Sundays. He required that pastors throughout the diocese preach on traditional marriage.
Bishop Richard J. Malone has produced a DVD, in which he stars, explaining why marriage matters, and directed that it be shown in all parishes.
Last month, Malone called for a second collection to be taken up during Sunday Masses, with proceeds going to Stand for Marriage, the organization leading the repeal effort.
The second collection netted $86,000. In total, the Portland diocese has given $550,000 to the effort to repeal the same-sex marriage legislation. The Catholic fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus, has given another $50,000 to the cause.
While the church's view of sacramental marriage — with its sacred rites — is one thing, civil marriage, which is a basic human and civil right, is quite another. Lay Catholics are well aware of these nuances in their advocacy for pro marriage-equality.
The bishop has missed the point.
Particularly irksome for some Maine Catholics -- estimated at 15 to 16 percent of the population — is Malone's insistence "that it is the doctrine of the Catholic church -- not my personal opinion — that all Catholics are obligated to oppose legal recognition of same-sex marriage." He said that in a September pastoral letter, quoting Pope Benedict XVI.
"Where does that come from?" asked William H. Slavick of Portland, a retired college professor. "It's my duty to follow my informed conscience" and respecting "pluralistic considerations in the United States."
Slavick, a long-time coordinator of the Pax Christi Maine chapter, favors keeping the civil marriage law, saying that the church is wrong to try to impose a Catholic view of marriage on society.
Sharing those sentiments is attorney Anne Underwood of Topsham, Maine, co-founder of a new grass-roots organization. "Our organization —Catholics for Marriage Equality — agrees 100 percent with the [bishop and the] church's theological teaching on marriage as a sacrament," she told NCR.
But Underwood takes strong exception to Malone's "political opinion" on civil marriage. "We urge Catholics to vote no on question one," she said. After all, "God is love."
Catholics for Marriage Equality is speaking out publicly to raise awareness and is asking Catholics to increase their visibility in opposing the referendum. The group provides bumper stickers and buttons to those who want them. Underwood urges Catholics to wear something red to Mass, as a sartorial sign of support for the cause.
Jack Dougherty wears his Catholics for Marriage Equality button each Sunday. "I am a person who thinks the law is correct and the bishop is wrong," he said. Dougherty of Eliot, 72, is a parishioner at St. Raphael Parish.
"I think there's a clear distinction between the Catholic church's requirements for marriage and the state and its requirements," said Bob McAteer of Ellsworth who believes the current law should stand.
Church funds going to the referendum campaign has angered "No on 1" Catholics.
"I am apoplectic," said Karen Saum of Belfast, who identifies as a lesbian. "I am appalled at the bishop."
"I am furious that my church is spending money to oppose legislation," said David Meuse of Portland, a widower and father of two. "I cannot believe it -- it's infuriating that our money is being spent that way," he said. That money should be used to"feed a family or clothe somebody."
Only a few more days are left for the battle over same-sex marriage. It will be played out in television ads, door-to-door canvassing, yard signs, buttons, and bumper stickers. Money and volunteers on both sides of the question continue to pour into the state.
The group "No on 1," or Protect Maine Equality, said in its campaign finance report to the state, filed at the end of last week, that it has raised $4 million, according to the Associated Press. That figure overshadows the $2.5 million raised by Stand for Marriage Maine, which forced the referendum through a petition drive.
In addition, the Princeton, N.J.-based National Organization for Marriage has donated $1.5 million to repealing the same-sex marriage law, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Public opinion polling indicates a tight race. The most recent public opinion poll, released Oct. 26, showed marriage equality backers with a slight lead: 53 percent of those survey support same-sex marriage and 42 percent oppose it. For this poll, the Pan Atlantic SMS Group of Portland interviewed 400 Maine residents between Oct. 20 and Oct. 22. It has a margin of error of 5 percent.
A poll released last week by Public Policy Polling of North Carolina showed a 48 percent to 48 percent tie on the same-sex marriage bill. That survey polled 1,130 likely voters.
It is safe to say this one is too close to call.
Perhaps it is now clearer why several hundred Catholics have taken their bishop to task in such a public manner. As the signatories have so eloquently stated, "The current political campaign to repeal Maine's civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity."
Such clarity -- the voice of these faithful, resounding a profoundly simple yet painfully embarrassing Catholic truth.
[A frequent contributor to NCR, Chuck Colbert freelance journalist from Cambridge, Mass.]
Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company
115 E. Armour Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111
Published on National Catholic Reporter (http://ncronline.org)
Commentary
Several hundred Catholics in Maine have publicly declared themselves supporters of same-sex marriage, in direct opposition to their bishop, Richard J. Malone of Portland, who they say has gone overboard with a no-holds-barred campaign to roll back same-sex marriage in the Pine Tree State.
Maine voters are to decide Nov. 3 whether to keep or reject a bill extending civil marriage to gay and lesbian couples that the state legislature passed and the governor signed in May.
"Question One," on the ballot reads, "Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?"
If passed, it would be the first time -- in more than two dozen tries -- that same-sex marriage would be approved by a majority vote of the people.
Stakes are high. Advocates for marriage equality, still smarting from a referendum last year in California that repealed same-sex marriages in that state, have marshaled forces in the state. Groups opposed to gay marriage hope that victories in California and Maine will give the cause momentum nationally.
Catholics have taken prominent roles in the campaigns on both sides of the issue.
Expressing a sense of urgency, more than 140 of the state's high-profile business, legal, and civil leaders have placed newspaper ads, giving voice to a Catholic case for same-sex civil marriage.
"We are Catholics who are concerned that the current political campaign to repeal Maine's civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity, and with vital American traditions of separation of church and state," they write in an extraordinary eight-paragraph statement (Click to see a pdf file), which ran as a paid advertisement in Maine's leading daily newspapers the two Sundays before the vote.
"We believe that the church has a right and often the responsibility to speak out on moral and social issues, to present its views, to seek to educate its member and others," the signatories say, continuing, "But we also believe that the church should continue to recognize that Catholics are free, indeed obligated to follow their own informed consciences on such issues."
More than 500 Catholics signed a declaration of support for same-sex marriage being circulated by the Portland-based Catholics for Marriage Equality, the group announced Oct. 28.
However, Bishop Malone is a primary leader in a highly visible and vocal campaign to stop any reformulation of civil marriage to include of same-sex couples.
Besides spearheading a parish-based petition signature drive, assisted by local and national socially conservative groups, Malone also padded church bulletins with anti-gay marriage messages — on six consecutive Sundays. He required that pastors throughout the diocese preach on traditional marriage.
Bishop Richard J. Malone has produced a DVD, in which he stars, explaining why marriage matters, and directed that it be shown in all parishes.
Last month, Malone called for a second collection to be taken up during Sunday Masses, with proceeds going to Stand for Marriage, the organization leading the repeal effort.
The second collection netted $86,000. In total, the Portland diocese has given $550,000 to the effort to repeal the same-sex marriage legislation. The Catholic fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus, has given another $50,000 to the cause.
While the church's view of sacramental marriage — with its sacred rites — is one thing, civil marriage, which is a basic human and civil right, is quite another. Lay Catholics are well aware of these nuances in their advocacy for pro marriage-equality.
The bishop has missed the point.
Particularly irksome for some Maine Catholics -- estimated at 15 to 16 percent of the population — is Malone's insistence "that it is the doctrine of the Catholic church -- not my personal opinion — that all Catholics are obligated to oppose legal recognition of same-sex marriage." He said that in a September pastoral letter, quoting Pope Benedict XVI.
"Where does that come from?" asked William H. Slavick of Portland, a retired college professor. "It's my duty to follow my informed conscience" and respecting "pluralistic considerations in the United States."
Slavick, a long-time coordinator of the Pax Christi Maine chapter, favors keeping the civil marriage law, saying that the church is wrong to try to impose a Catholic view of marriage on society.
Sharing those sentiments is attorney Anne Underwood of Topsham, Maine, co-founder of a new grass-roots organization. "Our organization —Catholics for Marriage Equality — agrees 100 percent with the [bishop and the] church's theological teaching on marriage as a sacrament," she told NCR.
But Underwood takes strong exception to Malone's "political opinion" on civil marriage. "We urge Catholics to vote no on question one," she said. After all, "God is love."
Catholics for Marriage Equality is speaking out publicly to raise awareness and is asking Catholics to increase their visibility in opposing the referendum. The group provides bumper stickers and buttons to those who want them. Underwood urges Catholics to wear something red to Mass, as a sartorial sign of support for the cause.
Jack Dougherty wears his Catholics for Marriage Equality button each Sunday. "I am a person who thinks the law is correct and the bishop is wrong," he said. Dougherty of Eliot, 72, is a parishioner at St. Raphael Parish.
"I think there's a clear distinction between the Catholic church's requirements for marriage and the state and its requirements," said Bob McAteer of Ellsworth who believes the current law should stand.
Church funds going to the referendum campaign has angered "No on 1" Catholics.
"I am apoplectic," said Karen Saum of Belfast, who identifies as a lesbian. "I am appalled at the bishop."
"I am furious that my church is spending money to oppose legislation," said David Meuse of Portland, a widower and father of two. "I cannot believe it -- it's infuriating that our money is being spent that way," he said. That money should be used to"feed a family or clothe somebody."
Only a few more days are left for the battle over same-sex marriage. It will be played out in television ads, door-to-door canvassing, yard signs, buttons, and bumper stickers. Money and volunteers on both sides of the question continue to pour into the state.
The group "No on 1," or Protect Maine Equality, said in its campaign finance report to the state, filed at the end of last week, that it has raised $4 million, according to the Associated Press. That figure overshadows the $2.5 million raised by Stand for Marriage Maine, which forced the referendum through a petition drive.
In addition, the Princeton, N.J.-based National Organization for Marriage has donated $1.5 million to repealing the same-sex marriage law, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Public opinion polling indicates a tight race. The most recent public opinion poll, released Oct. 26, showed marriage equality backers with a slight lead: 53 percent of those survey support same-sex marriage and 42 percent oppose it. For this poll, the Pan Atlantic SMS Group of Portland interviewed 400 Maine residents between Oct. 20 and Oct. 22. It has a margin of error of 5 percent.
A poll released last week by Public Policy Polling of North Carolina showed a 48 percent to 48 percent tie on the same-sex marriage bill. That survey polled 1,130 likely voters.
It is safe to say this one is too close to call.
Perhaps it is now clearer why several hundred Catholics have taken their bishop to task in such a public manner. As the signatories have so eloquently stated, "The current political campaign to repeal Maine's civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity."
Such clarity -- the voice of these faithful, resounding a profoundly simple yet painfully embarrassing Catholic truth.
[A frequent contributor to NCR, Chuck Colbert freelance journalist from Cambridge, Mass.]
Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company
115 E. Armour Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
A Letter to Bishop Malone
P.O. Box 637
North Berwick, ME 03906
October 26, 2009
Bishop Richard Malone
Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Maine
510 Ocean Avenue
P.O. Box 11559
Portland, ME 04104
Dear Bishop Malone,
It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to you. Be assured that I have put this to prayer over these last several weeks. I am now writing to you about the diocese’s and your position on Maine Question 1.
Three weeks ago at Mass, I was most disturbed to have the sacred liturgy interrupted by your political infomercial. I have always believed that it is our sacred liturgy that binds our faith community together. However, three weeks ago I saw our faith community torn apart by your “homily”. Many in the assembly left the church during your infomercial, only to return after it was over. Most were appalled at the half-truths promulgated in your speech; and some, even though they may have agreed with you, were upset because it caused many uncomfortable questions from their children who were attending Mass with their parents as a family - - the true “domestic church”.
I never in my life thought that I would live to see the day when a member of the Catholic episcopacy would actually encourage Catholics to vote for discrimination against a minority. As a junior in college in the spring of 1965, at the age of 18, I spent a month in Selma, Alabama. I have always taken the Church’s attitudes about peace and social justice seriously. I have been a proud and faithful Catholic for my entire life, now over 62 years, and I am appalled at your stance about civil marriage equality. I am sure that in the past, there were bishops who spoke out for slavery, against civil rights, and against women’s suffrage, but I thought that we, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, had moved beyond such misguided ideas as “God’s will”. I have attended Catholic schools throughout most of my life and have completed post graduate work in Catholic theology. And, as a result, I must vote my conscience on all matters: peace, social justice and rights for minorities and the oppressed.
As for your claim, as stated in your “homily”, that it is all about “protecting the children”, I find that a little hard to accept. If children are raised in a loving home with parents who love and care for them, regardless of the parents’ sexuality, they will have all they need to succeed in life and grow up to be loving, caring individuals. After all, the members of the Catholic episcopacy have very little high moral ground on which to stand about protecting children, given recent events.
I firmly believe that one’s sexuality is not a choice, it is the way we, each one of us, were created; and God, She doesn’t make mistakes. I, personally, did not wake up one morning in my teens, and choose to be heterosexual, any more than any gay or lesbian person made the choice about their own sexuality.
God is Love, Lover and Beloved. Since all love is God, what difference does the form of that love make? I do believe that all love should be celebrated and blessed.
I remain a proud Catholic for marriage equality and encourage my Catholic sisters and brothers to support equal rights for all of us, no matter what their created sexuality.
With peace and love I remain
Sincerely yours,
Pamela Murphy Ewers
North Berwick, ME 03906
October 26, 2009
Bishop Richard Malone
Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Maine
510 Ocean Avenue
P.O. Box 11559
Portland, ME 04104
Dear Bishop Malone,
It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to you. Be assured that I have put this to prayer over these last several weeks. I am now writing to you about the diocese’s and your position on Maine Question 1.
Three weeks ago at Mass, I was most disturbed to have the sacred liturgy interrupted by your political infomercial. I have always believed that it is our sacred liturgy that binds our faith community together. However, three weeks ago I saw our faith community torn apart by your “homily”. Many in the assembly left the church during your infomercial, only to return after it was over. Most were appalled at the half-truths promulgated in your speech; and some, even though they may have agreed with you, were upset because it caused many uncomfortable questions from their children who were attending Mass with their parents as a family - - the true “domestic church”.
I never in my life thought that I would live to see the day when a member of the Catholic episcopacy would actually encourage Catholics to vote for discrimination against a minority. As a junior in college in the spring of 1965, at the age of 18, I spent a month in Selma, Alabama. I have always taken the Church’s attitudes about peace and social justice seriously. I have been a proud and faithful Catholic for my entire life, now over 62 years, and I am appalled at your stance about civil marriage equality. I am sure that in the past, there were bishops who spoke out for slavery, against civil rights, and against women’s suffrage, but I thought that we, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, had moved beyond such misguided ideas as “God’s will”. I have attended Catholic schools throughout most of my life and have completed post graduate work in Catholic theology. And, as a result, I must vote my conscience on all matters: peace, social justice and rights for minorities and the oppressed.
As for your claim, as stated in your “homily”, that it is all about “protecting the children”, I find that a little hard to accept. If children are raised in a loving home with parents who love and care for them, regardless of the parents’ sexuality, they will have all they need to succeed in life and grow up to be loving, caring individuals. After all, the members of the Catholic episcopacy have very little high moral ground on which to stand about protecting children, given recent events.
I firmly believe that one’s sexuality is not a choice, it is the way we, each one of us, were created; and God, She doesn’t make mistakes. I, personally, did not wake up one morning in my teens, and choose to be heterosexual, any more than any gay or lesbian person made the choice about their own sexuality.
God is Love, Lover and Beloved. Since all love is God, what difference does the form of that love make? I do believe that all love should be celebrated and blessed.
I remain a proud Catholic for marriage equality and encourage my Catholic sisters and brothers to support equal rights for all of us, no matter what their created sexuality.
With peace and love I remain
Sincerely yours,
Pamela Murphy Ewers
Catholics for Marriage Equality Announces Support for Same-Sex Marriage Declaration
Contact: Anne Underwood, Catholics for Marriage Equality, (207) 650-1588
Portland, October 28- Catholics for Marriage Equality announced today that more than 500 Maine Catholics from Madawaska to Kittery have signed its declaration of support for same-sex marriage. According to Catholics for Marriage Equality co-founder, Anne Underwood, the signatures were obtained solely by word-of-mouth.
The statement reads in part:
“As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the State of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual. Without that guarantee, the danger of one religious tradition or doctrine dominating another threatens all and protects none.”
“The bishop has exercised his religious freedom and constitutional right to prohibit any communication from or about our group on church property or in church publications," said Underwood. "This has severely limited our ability to fully inform Catholics who want get the facts and to learn more about voting NO on 1."
Catholics for Marriage Equality [C4ME] is comprised of practicing Catholics who support civil marriage for same-sex couples as affirmation of the scriptural and social justice teaching of their church.
“The declaration is our way to assure other Catholics and our gay and lesbian family members and friends that many Catholics believe the God of Love calls them to support families of same-sex couples by permitting civil marriage,” Underwood added.
Catholics supporting No on 1 may sign the declaration at www.religiouscoalition.org
The full text of the declaration:
As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the State of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual. Without that guarantee, the danger of one religious tradition or doctrine dominating another threatens all and protects none. Making the equality of citizens not only an ideal but a living truth, we affirm the May 6, 2009 act of the Maine Legislature to end marriage discrimination by granting civil marriage for same-sex couples. Our declaration of conscience is based on the following:
The American principle of the separation of Church and State was enshrined in the Constitution to ensure that no particular religious perspective would be imposed on our pluralistic society.
Catholic teaching on social justice has been central to the building of a just society, creating awareness of diversity in the human family, calling us to lives of respect for one another, and not only tolerance.
We remember that Roman Catholics were once denied civil rights, treated with suspicion, ridiculed because of our sacred rituals, and questioned as to our allegiance to “foreign authorities.” Memory challenges us to remain vigilant whenever bigotry and injustice enters into public discourse.
Same-sex civil marriage does not in any way coerce any religious faith or tradition to change its beliefs or doctrine or alter its traditional marriage practices.
We know that God is a most gracious and wonderful Creator. Many of us have gay and lesbian relatives and friends. We value the love and commitment we witness in their relationships; their devotion to each other and their children. Civil marriage bestows the dignity and equality called for in our nation’s highest ideals, “the inherent natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
As Roman Catholics, we differentiate between sacramental marriage and civil marriage. Therefore, we perceive that same-sex civil marriage poses no threat to our Church. While we respect the authority and integrity of the Church in matters of faith, our prayers and discernment have brought us to a new openness on this issue. We do not ask the Church to perform same-sex marriages. We do implore the Church to honor the State’s prerogative to authorize civil marriages for our gay and lesbian family and friends.
Grateful for the gift of our faith and the ways that we have been nourished by faith throughout our lives, and also grateful for our citizenship in America and in this State, we sign this statement as Roman Catholic citizens of Maine.
Portland, October 28- Catholics for Marriage Equality announced today that more than 500 Maine Catholics from Madawaska to Kittery have signed its declaration of support for same-sex marriage. According to Catholics for Marriage Equality co-founder, Anne Underwood, the signatures were obtained solely by word-of-mouth.
The statement reads in part:
“As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the State of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual. Without that guarantee, the danger of one religious tradition or doctrine dominating another threatens all and protects none.”
“The bishop has exercised his religious freedom and constitutional right to prohibit any communication from or about our group on church property or in church publications," said Underwood. "This has severely limited our ability to fully inform Catholics who want get the facts and to learn more about voting NO on 1."
Catholics for Marriage Equality [C4ME] is comprised of practicing Catholics who support civil marriage for same-sex couples as affirmation of the scriptural and social justice teaching of their church.
“The declaration is our way to assure other Catholics and our gay and lesbian family members and friends that many Catholics believe the God of Love calls them to support families of same-sex couples by permitting civil marriage,” Underwood added.
Catholics supporting No on 1 may sign the declaration at www.religiouscoalition.org
The full text of the declaration:
As faithful Roman Catholics and citizens of the State of Maine, we believe that the right of every citizen to practice freedom of religion is based on the principle of respect for the dignity of each individual. Without that guarantee, the danger of one religious tradition or doctrine dominating another threatens all and protects none. Making the equality of citizens not only an ideal but a living truth, we affirm the May 6, 2009 act of the Maine Legislature to end marriage discrimination by granting civil marriage for same-sex couples. Our declaration of conscience is based on the following:
The American principle of the separation of Church and State was enshrined in the Constitution to ensure that no particular religious perspective would be imposed on our pluralistic society.
Catholic teaching on social justice has been central to the building of a just society, creating awareness of diversity in the human family, calling us to lives of respect for one another, and not only tolerance.
We remember that Roman Catholics were once denied civil rights, treated with suspicion, ridiculed because of our sacred rituals, and questioned as to our allegiance to “foreign authorities.” Memory challenges us to remain vigilant whenever bigotry and injustice enters into public discourse.
Same-sex civil marriage does not in any way coerce any religious faith or tradition to change its beliefs or doctrine or alter its traditional marriage practices.
We know that God is a most gracious and wonderful Creator. Many of us have gay and lesbian relatives and friends. We value the love and commitment we witness in their relationships; their devotion to each other and their children. Civil marriage bestows the dignity and equality called for in our nation’s highest ideals, “the inherent natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
As Roman Catholics, we differentiate between sacramental marriage and civil marriage. Therefore, we perceive that same-sex civil marriage poses no threat to our Church. While we respect the authority and integrity of the Church in matters of faith, our prayers and discernment have brought us to a new openness on this issue. We do not ask the Church to perform same-sex marriages. We do implore the Church to honor the State’s prerogative to authorize civil marriages for our gay and lesbian family and friends.
Grateful for the gift of our faith and the ways that we have been nourished by faith throughout our lives, and also grateful for our citizenship in America and in this State, we sign this statement as Roman Catholic citizens of Maine.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!
Bishop John Shelby Spong
Retired Episcopalian Bishop Spong of Newark, NJ has been an articulate and outspoken voice for many years. His writings are featured on the CORPUS blog, Mirabile Dictu. A long but powerful statement. –Ed.
I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.
I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.
In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.
I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.
I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.
I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.
The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.
I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.
Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.
This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.
Retired Episcopalian Bishop Spong of Newark, NJ has been an articulate and outspoken voice for many years. His writings are featured on the CORPUS blog, Mirabile Dictu. A long but powerful statement. –Ed.
I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.
I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.
In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.
I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.
I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.
I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.
The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.
I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.
Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.
This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Marc Mutty's Hysteria and Myopia
In an op ed in the Maine Sunday Telegram October 25th, "Question 1 protects marriage, people's rights," Marc Mutty, spokesman for Bishop Richard Malone and chair of the Stand for Marriage Maine Committee, revealed anew the campaign's inability to make a case against the Maine Marriage Equality Act.
Mutty promises "factual evidence of the negative consequences sure to follow this so-called experiment where 'any two will do' when it comes to marriage." Apart from this insulting characterization of same-sex couples who would make commitments to one another, Mutty offers no factual evidence for what are dubiously negative consequences.
His next paragraph contradicts that one by insisting that Question 1 "is not about allowing same-sex couples to marry in equal measure to the way and man and woman marry" when opposing legalizing same-sex marriages is the central thrust of the Stand for Marriage campaign.
Then Mutty argues that if LD 1020 takes effect, "the institution of marriage as it has been known for centuries will be completely obliterated. . . ." Hyperbole is exaggeration for effect but Mutty's reflects, instead, hysteria. No one else so far has expressed fear that existing heterosexual marriages will be threatened or undone or fear that any heterosexual couples will cease to be married and raise families. And, of course, there is the evidence of Massachusetts where "traditional marriage" appears hale and hearty despite more than a year of same-sex marriages there.
Mutty argues with LD 1020's changed definition of marriage so that it does not refer exclusively to heterosexual couples and their progeny and ceases to "promote the unique institution of traditional monogamous marriage. . . .". But the state continues to exercise the same responsibility regarding a couple's legal relationship and responsibility for their children--born or adopted. Promoting marriage has always--and properly--been far more the responsibility of churches, synagogues, and communities than the state's.
Mutty then turns to the supposed negative consequences.
First is a series of conjectures about resulting legal conflicts. But the examples cited in the series of Sunday bulletin inserts report the conflicts only in part to appear to appear to support opposition to same-sex marriage. The cases where courts have come down on the side of same-sex couples are where public accommodations and licensed services are concerned, for example, a park or event facility available for rent to anyone. Here the Maine public accommodation law supported by Bishop Malone applies: public accommodations may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Malone and Mutty would now allow public accommodation and services discrimination where homosexual couples are concerned.
Then Mutty turns to the campaign's primary bugaboo: homosexuality will be taught in the schools. But the law makes no such provision and Maine school law reserves curriculum decisions to local boards. Mutty's "factual evidence" is identification of the Gay Straight Alliance, Gay Lesbian School Education Network, and the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Questioning Youth Commission as "advancing gay issues in the schools."
But whether the law passes or not, these groups will continue pursuing their objectives. Their objectives are not, as Mutty implies, to promote homosexuality but to win understanding for those who are homosexual and the respect for them due all human beings--as Rome explicitly directs regarding homosexuals.
Mutty's primary fear, of course, is that teaching respect for homosexuals will occasion respect for same-sex relationships which the Vatican, Bishop Malone, and Marc Mutty abhor and judge morally evil. Here is the crux of Bishop Malone's and Marc Mutty's campaign against legalizing same-sex relationships:
they oppose the state licensing something they judge morally evil.
Since millions upon millions of Americans do not find committed same-sex relationships morally evil, that makes their effort a campaign to impose Vatican-Malone-Mutty moral norms on all Maine citizens. This is directly counter to the Second Vatican Council's teaching, long promoted by Rev. John Courtney Murray, SJ, of pluralist respect for the rights of others who do not share one's beliefs. As a consequence of a pluralist maturity that was lacking when I was a boy in Tennessee, consumption of alcohol, gambling, Sunday sports, and fornication are not now prohibited by law, as Southern Baptists and their allies then dictated.
The striking of laws prohibiting homosexual conduct, here and in other countries, should be a signal to the Vatican, Bishop Malone, and Marc Mutty that theirs is a sectarian view not to be imposed by law. But the Catholic patriarchy, which as Chicago Loyola University psychologist Eugene Kennedy has observed, "has never gotten sex right," persists in efforts to legislate sexual morality, as church efforts to outlaw contraception, even where the danger of AIDS is great, and divorce illustrate.
So, despite the Catholic patriachy’s lack of appreciation of homosexual orientation as a given and substitution of a moral characterization--objectively disordered--for the knowledge and understanding the Vatican lacks or rejects--and despite the charity it denies homosexuals in stigmatizing their love, the patriarchy would have the state endorse its sectarian view.
Mutty ends with a reminder that "traditional marriage" has "served us well over the centuries." That is a rosy view given the high percentage of divorces, extramarital relationships, and instances of spousal abuse. But the fact he not only avoids mentioning but denies in claiming that the institution of traditional marriage will be "completely obliterated" is that "traditional marriage" will continue, unaffected, by the Maine Marriage Equality Act. And, Mutty's hysteria notwithstanding, we all know it.
--Bill Slavick, a long-time contributor to Church World and other Catholic publications.
Mutty promises "factual evidence of the negative consequences sure to follow this so-called experiment where 'any two will do' when it comes to marriage." Apart from this insulting characterization of same-sex couples who would make commitments to one another, Mutty offers no factual evidence for what are dubiously negative consequences.
His next paragraph contradicts that one by insisting that Question 1 "is not about allowing same-sex couples to marry in equal measure to the way and man and woman marry" when opposing legalizing same-sex marriages is the central thrust of the Stand for Marriage campaign.
Then Mutty argues that if LD 1020 takes effect, "the institution of marriage as it has been known for centuries will be completely obliterated. . . ." Hyperbole is exaggeration for effect but Mutty's reflects, instead, hysteria. No one else so far has expressed fear that existing heterosexual marriages will be threatened or undone or fear that any heterosexual couples will cease to be married and raise families. And, of course, there is the evidence of Massachusetts where "traditional marriage" appears hale and hearty despite more than a year of same-sex marriages there.
Mutty argues with LD 1020's changed definition of marriage so that it does not refer exclusively to heterosexual couples and their progeny and ceases to "promote the unique institution of traditional monogamous marriage. . . .". But the state continues to exercise the same responsibility regarding a couple's legal relationship and responsibility for their children--born or adopted. Promoting marriage has always--and properly--been far more the responsibility of churches, synagogues, and communities than the state's.
Mutty then turns to the supposed negative consequences.
First is a series of conjectures about resulting legal conflicts. But the examples cited in the series of Sunday bulletin inserts report the conflicts only in part to appear to appear to support opposition to same-sex marriage. The cases where courts have come down on the side of same-sex couples are where public accommodations and licensed services are concerned, for example, a park or event facility available for rent to anyone. Here the Maine public accommodation law supported by Bishop Malone applies: public accommodations may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Malone and Mutty would now allow public accommodation and services discrimination where homosexual couples are concerned.
Then Mutty turns to the campaign's primary bugaboo: homosexuality will be taught in the schools. But the law makes no such provision and Maine school law reserves curriculum decisions to local boards. Mutty's "factual evidence" is identification of the Gay Straight Alliance, Gay Lesbian School Education Network, and the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Questioning Youth Commission as "advancing gay issues in the schools."
But whether the law passes or not, these groups will continue pursuing their objectives. Their objectives are not, as Mutty implies, to promote homosexuality but to win understanding for those who are homosexual and the respect for them due all human beings--as Rome explicitly directs regarding homosexuals.
Mutty's primary fear, of course, is that teaching respect for homosexuals will occasion respect for same-sex relationships which the Vatican, Bishop Malone, and Marc Mutty abhor and judge morally evil. Here is the crux of Bishop Malone's and Marc Mutty's campaign against legalizing same-sex relationships:
they oppose the state licensing something they judge morally evil.
Since millions upon millions of Americans do not find committed same-sex relationships morally evil, that makes their effort a campaign to impose Vatican-Malone-Mutty moral norms on all Maine citizens. This is directly counter to the Second Vatican Council's teaching, long promoted by Rev. John Courtney Murray, SJ, of pluralist respect for the rights of others who do not share one's beliefs. As a consequence of a pluralist maturity that was lacking when I was a boy in Tennessee, consumption of alcohol, gambling, Sunday sports, and fornication are not now prohibited by law, as Southern Baptists and their allies then dictated.
The striking of laws prohibiting homosexual conduct, here and in other countries, should be a signal to the Vatican, Bishop Malone, and Marc Mutty that theirs is a sectarian view not to be imposed by law. But the Catholic patriarchy, which as Chicago Loyola University psychologist Eugene Kennedy has observed, "has never gotten sex right," persists in efforts to legislate sexual morality, as church efforts to outlaw contraception, even where the danger of AIDS is great, and divorce illustrate.
So, despite the Catholic patriachy’s lack of appreciation of homosexual orientation as a given and substitution of a moral characterization--objectively disordered--for the knowledge and understanding the Vatican lacks or rejects--and despite the charity it denies homosexuals in stigmatizing their love, the patriarchy would have the state endorse its sectarian view.
Mutty ends with a reminder that "traditional marriage" has "served us well over the centuries." That is a rosy view given the high percentage of divorces, extramarital relationships, and instances of spousal abuse. But the fact he not only avoids mentioning but denies in claiming that the institution of traditional marriage will be "completely obliterated" is that "traditional marriage" will continue, unaffected, by the Maine Marriage Equality Act. And, Mutty's hysteria notwithstanding, we all know it.
--Bill Slavick, a long-time contributor to Church World and other Catholic publications.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Statement of Conscience by Maine Catholics
Statement of Conscience by Maine Catholics
Regarding Marriage Equality
Published in Maine Sunday Telegram, October 18, 2009
We are Catholics who are concerned that the current political campaign to repeal Maine’s civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity, and with vital American traditions of separation of church and state.
The Maine Legislature has determined that the societal sanctions of marriage should be available to two adult humans regardless of their sex. This reflects the sincere and justified belief that two people of the same sex can and do fall in love, feel deeply the natural human impulse toward lifelong commitment, and yearn for the societal recognition of their commitment that is marriage. This belief is not dishonor of marriage; it is reverence for it.
Maine’s new marriage equality law was carefully and intentionally drafted to protect the Church’s right to set its own requirements for the sacrament of matrimony. No one can suggest that the Church’s independence is at risk in this regard. Rather, the repeal effort appears to be more about denying secular, civil marriage and the civil rights that accompany marriage. As we debate this, the real issue, we must keep in mind the Second Vatican Council’s call for respect for the rights of others.
We are also concerned that Diocesan leaders may have allowed the Church to appear to join with others who engage in the kind of misleading media attacks used in California when it appeared that those4 opposed to same-sex marriage could prevail otherwise. There is, for example, no valid legal basis for the TV ad that the law will require teaching “homosexual marriage” in school. Nor is there any credible evidence that same sex couples are lesser parents than heterosexual couples. Weeks after these statements have been exposed as baseless, no corrections have been forthcoming. Because the Diocese’s position has become associated with these misstatements, some Catholics may not feel free to challenge them.
We believe that the Church has the right and often the responsibility to speak out on moral and social issues, to present its views, to seek to educate its members and others. But we also believe that the Church should continue to recognize that Catholics are free, indeed obligated, to follow their informed consciences on such issues. In this regard, we find disturbing any suggestion that formal Church teaching obligates all Catholics to oppose marriage equality.
While churches are closing and it is ever harder for the Church to meet human needs, we see Church funds, including parishioners’ contributions solicited during Mass, fueling a consultant-driven campaign that is conducted in a manner inconsistent with our shared Catholic views.
We fear the inclusion of explicit politics into the Sunday Mass and urge the Church to promote the presentation of good faith debat3e and dialogue in appropriate settings.
We must speak out now because the day cannot come soon enough for our leaders to give life to the belief that truth, charity, and freedom are the birthright of all of humankind.
Kurt W. Adams, Esq.
Rosemary and Robert Babcock
Jane Skelton, Edq. & Edmond Bearor, Esq.
Bethany K. Beausang, Esq.
Jane Begert
Severin Beliveau, Esq.
Michael R. Bosse, Esq.
Claire & Joseph Brannigan
Michael Brennan
Paul Bulger, Esq.
George F. Burns, Esq.
Jouleyanne Capbell
Beth and David Caputi
Linda & Peter Caradonna
Michael Carey
Jonathan A. Cashman
Mary & Arthur Cerullo, Esq.
Irene Coady
Gerard Conley, Esq.
Walter Corey, Esq.
Ann M. Courtney, Esq.
Pat Cross
Margaret Cruikshank
Bill Curran
Frank D’Allensandro, Esq.
Frank DeSerro
Mary Beth DiMarco
Joseph G. Donahue Esq.
Sandra Donovan
Rose & Jack Dougherty
Julie & Rene Dumont
Asha Echeverria, Esq.
Sue Ewing
Julie Finn, Esq.
Rep. Sean Flaherty
Elizabeth & Jeffrey Fortin
Joseph Francis, P.A., C.
Donna Galluzzo
Lori Garon
Michael J. Gentile, Esq.
Louise Haggett
Evan M. Hansen Esq.
Rosie Harris
Ann & Erik Johnson
Patricia & Robert Kiley
Georgia Kosciusko
Ann & Arthur LaSelva
Gloria Leach
Ann Marie Memire, M.D.
Susan E. LoGuidice, Esq.
Virginia Smith & Ed Macomber
Cynthia L. Marsden
Katherine M. McCarthy, Esq.
Michelle McDonough
Nancy & Karl Miller, D.O.
Frances & Edward Minderlein
James Morse, Ph.D.
Winifred Murray-Higgins, R.N.C.
Mary O‘Brien & Stephen Naculich
Linda Nelson
Cathy Newell
Kathleen O’Connor, Ph.D.
Frank O’Hara
Peg Olson, P.T.
Carmela M. Palanda
Dawn Pelletier, Esq.
Daniel Perry, Esq.
Claudia Picone, M.D.
Jonathan S. Piper, Esq.
Patricia Plante, F.N.P., C.
Patricia Porter-Rood
Joan Fortin, Esq. & Chet Randall, Esq.
Mary Redstone
Patricia R. Regan
Dawn Rider, M.D.
Jina, Rick, Sadie, Gabe, Zoe & Rosa Romano
Alexander Saksen, Esq.
Maria Padian & Conrad Schneider
Lorrie Ferrari & Tony Scucci
Rene & Victor Serio
Bryan J. Shumway
Donald J. Sipe, Esq.
Peter Sirois
Ursula & William Slavick
Harriet Conlin Smith
Mary & Christopher Stevens
Mary McCann, Ph.D. & Sidney St. F. Thaxter, Esq.
Kathy Tosney
Anne Underwood, Esq.
Margaret Zillioux & Robert Vilas
Lisa Wahlstrom
David Webbert, Esq.
Donna Yellen, M.S.W.
Regarding Marriage Equality
Published in Maine Sunday Telegram, October 18, 2009
We are Catholics who are concerned that the current political campaign to repeal Maine’s civil marriage equality law is at odds with fundamental principles of truth and charity, and with vital American traditions of separation of church and state.
The Maine Legislature has determined that the societal sanctions of marriage should be available to two adult humans regardless of their sex. This reflects the sincere and justified belief that two people of the same sex can and do fall in love, feel deeply the natural human impulse toward lifelong commitment, and yearn for the societal recognition of their commitment that is marriage. This belief is not dishonor of marriage; it is reverence for it.
Maine’s new marriage equality law was carefully and intentionally drafted to protect the Church’s right to set its own requirements for the sacrament of matrimony. No one can suggest that the Church’s independence is at risk in this regard. Rather, the repeal effort appears to be more about denying secular, civil marriage and the civil rights that accompany marriage. As we debate this, the real issue, we must keep in mind the Second Vatican Council’s call for respect for the rights of others.
We are also concerned that Diocesan leaders may have allowed the Church to appear to join with others who engage in the kind of misleading media attacks used in California when it appeared that those4 opposed to same-sex marriage could prevail otherwise. There is, for example, no valid legal basis for the TV ad that the law will require teaching “homosexual marriage” in school. Nor is there any credible evidence that same sex couples are lesser parents than heterosexual couples. Weeks after these statements have been exposed as baseless, no corrections have been forthcoming. Because the Diocese’s position has become associated with these misstatements, some Catholics may not feel free to challenge them.
We believe that the Church has the right and often the responsibility to speak out on moral and social issues, to present its views, to seek to educate its members and others. But we also believe that the Church should continue to recognize that Catholics are free, indeed obligated, to follow their informed consciences on such issues. In this regard, we find disturbing any suggestion that formal Church teaching obligates all Catholics to oppose marriage equality.
While churches are closing and it is ever harder for the Church to meet human needs, we see Church funds, including parishioners’ contributions solicited during Mass, fueling a consultant-driven campaign that is conducted in a manner inconsistent with our shared Catholic views.
We fear the inclusion of explicit politics into the Sunday Mass and urge the Church to promote the presentation of good faith debat3e and dialogue in appropriate settings.
We must speak out now because the day cannot come soon enough for our leaders to give life to the belief that truth, charity, and freedom are the birthright of all of humankind.
Kurt W. Adams, Esq.
Rosemary and Robert Babcock
Jane Skelton, Edq. & Edmond Bearor, Esq.
Bethany K. Beausang, Esq.
Jane Begert
Severin Beliveau, Esq.
Michael R. Bosse, Esq.
Claire & Joseph Brannigan
Michael Brennan
Paul Bulger, Esq.
George F. Burns, Esq.
Jouleyanne Capbell
Beth and David Caputi
Linda & Peter Caradonna
Michael Carey
Jonathan A. Cashman
Mary & Arthur Cerullo, Esq.
Irene Coady
Gerard Conley, Esq.
Walter Corey, Esq.
Ann M. Courtney, Esq.
Pat Cross
Margaret Cruikshank
Bill Curran
Frank D’Allensandro, Esq.
Frank DeSerro
Mary Beth DiMarco
Joseph G. Donahue Esq.
Sandra Donovan
Rose & Jack Dougherty
Julie & Rene Dumont
Asha Echeverria, Esq.
Sue Ewing
Julie Finn, Esq.
Rep. Sean Flaherty
Elizabeth & Jeffrey Fortin
Joseph Francis, P.A., C.
Donna Galluzzo
Lori Garon
Michael J. Gentile, Esq.
Louise Haggett
Evan M. Hansen Esq.
Rosie Harris
Ann & Erik Johnson
Patricia & Robert Kiley
Georgia Kosciusko
Ann & Arthur LaSelva
Gloria Leach
Ann Marie Memire, M.D.
Susan E. LoGuidice, Esq.
Virginia Smith & Ed Macomber
Cynthia L. Marsden
Katherine M. McCarthy, Esq.
Michelle McDonough
Nancy & Karl Miller, D.O.
Frances & Edward Minderlein
James Morse, Ph.D.
Winifred Murray-Higgins, R.N.C.
Mary O‘Brien & Stephen Naculich
Linda Nelson
Cathy Newell
Kathleen O’Connor, Ph.D.
Frank O’Hara
Peg Olson, P.T.
Carmela M. Palanda
Dawn Pelletier, Esq.
Daniel Perry, Esq.
Claudia Picone, M.D.
Jonathan S. Piper, Esq.
Patricia Plante, F.N.P., C.
Patricia Porter-Rood
Joan Fortin, Esq. & Chet Randall, Esq.
Mary Redstone
Patricia R. Regan
Dawn Rider, M.D.
Jina, Rick, Sadie, Gabe, Zoe & Rosa Romano
Alexander Saksen, Esq.
Maria Padian & Conrad Schneider
Lorrie Ferrari & Tony Scucci
Rene & Victor Serio
Bryan J. Shumway
Donald J. Sipe, Esq.
Peter Sirois
Ursula & William Slavick
Harriet Conlin Smith
Mary & Christopher Stevens
Mary McCann, Ph.D. & Sidney St. F. Thaxter, Esq.
Kathy Tosney
Anne Underwood, Esq.
Margaret Zillioux & Robert Vilas
Lisa Wahlstrom
David Webbert, Esq.
Donna Yellen, M.S.W.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Same-Sex Unions Will Enhance the Traditions of Marriage
Published on Friday, September 25, 2009 by the Portland Press Herald (Maine)
Gay couples deserve the benefits of marriage as a matter of civil rights and social justice.
by Chris Queally
CommonDreams.org Editor's Note: This year, the Maine State Legislature and Governor Baldacci - with the rousing support of Maine residents - passed one of the most comprehensive Marriage Equality laws in the country. Opponents of equality have now forced a statewide vote to challenge the new law. The Vote No on #1 Campaign - which supports marriage equality - is fighting bravely against the misleading and hateful campaign lead by those who would deny equal rights to our gay, lesbian, and transgendered neighbors. The following was written (full disclosure) by this editor's father, but it appears here as testimony to the dignity and strength of those who fight, think, and activate on behalf of those who are denied the rights that others enjoy. Let Maine's battle against those standing in the way of equality not go the way of California's. In the end, this battle will be national and then global. But for now, we must fight it where the lines are drawn.
SCARBOROUGH, Maine — The headline of the Sept. 14 Maine Voices commentary by Tim Russell – co-founder of The Maine Marriage Alliance – reads: "There's lots of proof same-sex marriage will harm the rights of others." We read the column to find there is no proof whatsoever and lots of opinion based on religion.
Without the rule of law – remembering that laws change and evolve – there would have been no advances in civil rights, and the "Rights of Man" would have never given rise to freedom in France and America by limiting the power of kings and nobles.
Without the rule of law – remembering that laws change and evolve – there would have been no freedom from slavery, no women's suffrage and no civil rights movement. And, of course, those changes in the law, and in society, always followed great struggle.
So over time and with struggle, we reinterpret what is right and become more inclusive as we discover that the changes sought in the name of social justice are good for the larger society – even when they are at first very difficult for those who have had to accommodate change against their will, like the nobility of Europe, the king of England and white men everywhere.
Mr. Russell begins his column by asserting that: "Traditional marriage is more substantial and profound than can be contained in our society's current conception of 'love' and 'equality.'"
That is absolutely true. That is why it is so important for all people to have access to traditional marriage. That is the very point. Gay couples don't want to eliminate the "substantial and profound" traditions of marriage. As a matter of civil rights and social justice, they want access to these traditions – just like every other citizen.
Mr. Russell goes on to assert that there would be "no logical, philosophical or legally rational basis for prohibiting people who want multiple wives, multiple husbands, or any combination thereof from marrying."
Nonsense! This is an obfuscation designed to help you take your eye off the ball. The law as passed has nothing to do with any of the traditional impediments such as bigamy and incest. Hundreds, indeed, thousands of people worked very hard to get the current law passed.
Logically, philosophically and legally, you need a large constituency of people to change or pass a law. Russell creates a straw man or straw menage. There is no constituency for multiple, underage or incestuous marriage.
Russell then goes on to define who can get married. But he distorts the list to serve his own purpose. He adds to the traditional impediments of bigamy, incest and majority, a fourth: You "must marry someone of the opposite sex."
In the Old South it was: You must marry someone of the same race. But we changed that tradition by changing the laws. Did that benefit society? Yes. Did it make some folks angry? Yes! But society was evolving.
Russell then asserts – with no citation, so it is impossible to check his facts – that "Social science shows conclusively that children do best when raised by their married biological mother and father."
I challenge that statement. Is it fact or opinion? What was the methodology? Who funded the study? (The scientific standard when using data to support an argument is to cite the source so the reader can examine the science underlying the data.)
What an insult to anyone raised by a granny, an aunt or uncle or an adoptive parent and to all the good men and women – gay and straight – who have successfully and lovingly raised children not biologically their own!
Finally – in a kind of reverse logic – Russell asserts that: "In states where same-sex marriage is legal, we are already seeing the threat it poses to religious liberties and personal right of conscience."
It is more the case that religious license seeks to suppress civil liberties and individual conscience.
That is why our Founding Fathers in their wisdom and experience – having seen the bloody religious wars of Europe – put into our Constitution a separation clause and a free-exercise clause, in order to achieve the delicate balance between freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
It is a balance that the same-sex marriage law brilliantly achieves and why it was passed into law by both houses of our Legislature with bipartisan support and signed by our governor to begin with.
My final claim in support of the law is the 14th Amendment. It is a matter of due process and equality before the law.
Mr. Russell says marriage is a substantial and profound tradition. I say you cannot bar a substantial and profound minority from it. Unless, of course, you'd like to bring back separate (but equal) drinking fountains, classrooms and seats on the bus.
© 2009 Portland Press Herald
Chris Queally is a retired high school teacher, wonderful grandfather, and resident of Scarborough, Maine.
Gay couples deserve the benefits of marriage as a matter of civil rights and social justice.
by Chris Queally
CommonDreams.org Editor's Note: This year, the Maine State Legislature and Governor Baldacci - with the rousing support of Maine residents - passed one of the most comprehensive Marriage Equality laws in the country. Opponents of equality have now forced a statewide vote to challenge the new law. The Vote No on #1 Campaign - which supports marriage equality - is fighting bravely against the misleading and hateful campaign lead by those who would deny equal rights to our gay, lesbian, and transgendered neighbors. The following was written (full disclosure) by this editor's father, but it appears here as testimony to the dignity and strength of those who fight, think, and activate on behalf of those who are denied the rights that others enjoy. Let Maine's battle against those standing in the way of equality not go the way of California's. In the end, this battle will be national and then global. But for now, we must fight it where the lines are drawn.
SCARBOROUGH, Maine — The headline of the Sept. 14 Maine Voices commentary by Tim Russell – co-founder of The Maine Marriage Alliance – reads: "There's lots of proof same-sex marriage will harm the rights of others." We read the column to find there is no proof whatsoever and lots of opinion based on religion.
Without the rule of law – remembering that laws change and evolve – there would have been no advances in civil rights, and the "Rights of Man" would have never given rise to freedom in France and America by limiting the power of kings and nobles.
Without the rule of law – remembering that laws change and evolve – there would have been no freedom from slavery, no women's suffrage and no civil rights movement. And, of course, those changes in the law, and in society, always followed great struggle.
So over time and with struggle, we reinterpret what is right and become more inclusive as we discover that the changes sought in the name of social justice are good for the larger society – even when they are at first very difficult for those who have had to accommodate change against their will, like the nobility of Europe, the king of England and white men everywhere.
Mr. Russell begins his column by asserting that: "Traditional marriage is more substantial and profound than can be contained in our society's current conception of 'love' and 'equality.'"
That is absolutely true. That is why it is so important for all people to have access to traditional marriage. That is the very point. Gay couples don't want to eliminate the "substantial and profound" traditions of marriage. As a matter of civil rights and social justice, they want access to these traditions – just like every other citizen.
Mr. Russell goes on to assert that there would be "no logical, philosophical or legally rational basis for prohibiting people who want multiple wives, multiple husbands, or any combination thereof from marrying."
Nonsense! This is an obfuscation designed to help you take your eye off the ball. The law as passed has nothing to do with any of the traditional impediments such as bigamy and incest. Hundreds, indeed, thousands of people worked very hard to get the current law passed.
Logically, philosophically and legally, you need a large constituency of people to change or pass a law. Russell creates a straw man or straw menage. There is no constituency for multiple, underage or incestuous marriage.
Russell then goes on to define who can get married. But he distorts the list to serve his own purpose. He adds to the traditional impediments of bigamy, incest and majority, a fourth: You "must marry someone of the opposite sex."
In the Old South it was: You must marry someone of the same race. But we changed that tradition by changing the laws. Did that benefit society? Yes. Did it make some folks angry? Yes! But society was evolving.
Russell then asserts – with no citation, so it is impossible to check his facts – that "Social science shows conclusively that children do best when raised by their married biological mother and father."
I challenge that statement. Is it fact or opinion? What was the methodology? Who funded the study? (The scientific standard when using data to support an argument is to cite the source so the reader can examine the science underlying the data.)
What an insult to anyone raised by a granny, an aunt or uncle or an adoptive parent and to all the good men and women – gay and straight – who have successfully and lovingly raised children not biologically their own!
Finally – in a kind of reverse logic – Russell asserts that: "In states where same-sex marriage is legal, we are already seeing the threat it poses to religious liberties and personal right of conscience."
It is more the case that religious license seeks to suppress civil liberties and individual conscience.
That is why our Founding Fathers in their wisdom and experience – having seen the bloody religious wars of Europe – put into our Constitution a separation clause and a free-exercise clause, in order to achieve the delicate balance between freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
It is a balance that the same-sex marriage law brilliantly achieves and why it was passed into law by both houses of our Legislature with bipartisan support and signed by our governor to begin with.
My final claim in support of the law is the 14th Amendment. It is a matter of due process and equality before the law.
Mr. Russell says marriage is a substantial and profound tradition. I say you cannot bar a substantial and profound minority from it. Unless, of course, you'd like to bring back separate (but equal) drinking fountains, classrooms and seats on the bus.
© 2009 Portland Press Herald
Chris Queally is a retired high school teacher, wonderful grandfather, and resident of Scarborough, Maine.
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