Unexpected Quarters

Sometimes there’s help from unexpected quarters. Take the USCCB draft document on communion for politicians who do not oppose abortion. Please. 

Who decided to help with this? Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria, S.J., head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In a May 7 letter to Archbishop José H. Gomez, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, he says the proposed document is premature at best. I like the three kinds of “extensive and serene dialogue” that he suggests should occur first, according to Gerard O’Connell in America: “such dialogue should take place first among the bishops with the aim of reaching agreement on the doctrinal issues so as ‘to maintain unity’ in the conference and in the church in the United States.” This is not surprising.

But the next dialogue he recommends is unexpected. It suggests that the laity might have some appropriate input: “the bishops should conduct a similar dialogue with the Catholic politicians ‘within their jurisdiction who adopt a pro-choice position regarding abortion legislation, euthanasia, or other moral evils, as a means of understanding the nature of their positions and their comprehension of Catholic teaching.’” What a concept!

Then Ladaria sends dialogue back to the bishops with cautions to arrive at a “true consensus,” which is more than a majority vote. They must consider the whole of the faithful, not just politicians, and talk about it with bishops’ conferences in other countries. Finally, “it would be misleading if such a statement were to give the impression that abortion and euthanasia alone constitute the only grave matters of Catholic moral and social teaching that demand the fullest accountability on the part of Catholics.” Yes! So glad to have it in writing from an unexpected source.

The Catholic press I read has lots of commentary about this. Scorn for the USCCB from Michael Sean Winters, as well as the overt denial in the conservative Catholic press. Cindy Wooten explains why Ladaria finds inappropriate the USCCB’s request for Vatican documents from prior papal administrations. Sam Sawyer, SJ, sketches out many scenarios that might result, none of which are good for the bishops or the church, but they are amusing.

And the final paragraph by WATER’s Mary Hunt in Religion Dispatches makes the transition I want to make now: 

A fool’s errand like opposing same sex marriage and dissing a manifestly moral Catholic president shows a willingness to take one for the team with the expectation of rich rewards. The most vociferous bishops on these questions tend to be the ones who’ve had their heads measured for new regalia because they’re banking on being named cardinals, especially after Pope Francis is conveniently, for them, out of the picture. With this kind of episcopal leadership, I predict that Joe Biden will be receiving communion in good conscience with his rosary in his pocket for decades to come.

Mary Hunt is not an unexpected source for these comments, especially for bringing in same sex marriage. But it seems as if every Catholic nook and cranny is appalled at the March directive forbidding blessing LGBTQ unions, and they are taking action about it. Kirsten Grieshaber reports that “over 100 different churches” in Germany conducted such blessings last week. New Ways Ministry quotes many of these clergy in Bondings. America finds another. La Croix International has the most complete description of how the event was organized and the date chosen. Think Noah and the Rainbow Sign! DignityUSA is organizing a similar event June 1, the Catholic Pride Blessing. Even the Washington Post weighs in on the German rituals, not unexpectedly with pros and cons. The articles in America do the same.

Coincidentally, the Wijngaards Institute has issued a paper by theologians and ethicists that finds, for example, that “The Bible never condemns consensual, faithful same-sex relationships.” Signer Todd Salzman, a professor of Catholic theology at Creighton University, noted their good timing, just after the Vatican decree, saying “it was incredibly irresponsible and hurtful for the CDF to issue that statement.” Madeline Davidson summarizes other “inconsistencies in the Vatican’s arguments,” including “the fact that the church allows infertile straight couples to marry” and the widespread scientific consensus “that non-heterosexual orientations occur naturally.”

You may question my frequent focus on the bishops and the Vatican. Sometimes I do, too, as I agonize over COVID in India or the drums of war in Israel/Palestine and similar tragedies.

You may question my frequent reporting on LGBTQ issues. People of all genders are objects of an exclusionary ideology promulgated by culture warriors in the Vatican and the American church. The disunity they are fomenting affects us all. 

As this is posted to you, the witness of SEPA WOC on Ordination Day in Philadelphia will be concluding. We know that even if any heirarch from the newly-ordained to the Archbishop came out of the Cathedral and said, “Oh, yes, you’re right,” nothing would happen here within the institutional church. Not much would happen in the USCCB. But the strong presence of WOC and RCWP and FutureChurch and WATER and Catholics for Choice here, along with the many groups rising up around the world articulating strong positions on many issues, makes a difference in the Vatican. We must continue the pressure and RESIST the kinds of non-dialogic leadership coming from the USCCB if our church is to ordain people of all genders.  I hope we better understand the tactics and politics of those who oppose equality and learn from the resistance to them from expected and unexpected quarters.