Come Out to Save Lives - Megachurch Pastor Jim Swilley

There are many sound religious reason for coming out (which I summarise below).  The Georgia megachurch pastor Jim Swilley, of  "Church in the Now", by his own example has presented another. He has come out to save lives.

Swilley has hidden his sexuality from his congregation for years, through two marriages (although he was at least honest with his second wife, who in turn encouraged him to be open more publicly). Unlike so many other closeted preachers (Bishop Long, George Rekers and Ted Swaggart, for instance) however, he has never fallen into the trap of preaching against homosexuality to hide his own orientation.

Coming Soon: John McNeill & “Taking a Chance on God”, On Film, On-Line.

For some time, I have been reading reports of a documentary film on the life and ministry of the pioneer gay theologian, John McNeill, in production by Brendan Fay, one of the producers of "Saint of 9/11", on the life and death at the World Trade Towers of Father Mychal Judge, the gay Franciscan chaplain to the NYC fire department,By way of a comment he has placed here today, I can now pass on the good news that a trailer for the film, which takes it title from one of John McNeill's books, will shortly be available on-line:

Just wanted to inform all that in a few days a trailer to the documentary on my life and ministry will go on-line, at (http://www.TakingaChanceonGod.com.) The complete documentary will be premiered in December.

McNeill's Book of the Same Title

All Souls Reflection: On Burying Our Queer Dead

In Catholic tradition, the Feast of All Souls (Nov 2nd) is the day on which we remember the souls in Purgatory. Fresh from my mother’s funeral, this is a topic much on my mind. I find, however, my thoughts are not so much on those starting their new lives in Christ, as on those nearing the end of their present lives on earth. In particular, I am led to the difficult question: for those lesbian or gay Catholics who attempt to live fully within the guidelines of the CDF, who will bury our dead?

My mother’s attempt to live scrupulously according to Church teaching, and the Natural Family Planning it recommends and she in turn commended to her daughters, was witnessed by her seven children. Her reward was that even though I now live in the UK, and one of my sisters in Cape Town, and after the death earlier this year of one son, during her last months she still had living in close proximity four daughters, nine of her sixteen grandchildren, and two of six great-grandchildren, all of whom were with her on her final day. She clearly knew she was going, and was able to make peaceful goodbyes. We all contributed to the funeral planning, while the pall-bearers included myself, three sons-in-law, and two grandsons.

During my two bereavements this year, I have been greatly helped by the prayers and support of the congregation of the Soho LGBT Masses, and of my readers here at QTC. Similarly, the congregation has frequently lent its prayers and support to others in their own bereavements. I am increasingly aware though, that the day is approaching when we will be praying not for our departed relatives, but for our own deceased congregants. How will we respond? In some cases, those who live alone, will we even know they have passed away?

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith insists that it condemns all forms of unjust discrimination against persons of a homosexual disposition. However, it goes on to insist that the best way for us to avoid any discrimination is to remain firmly closeted, to avoid any self-disclosure of our sexual identity. In practice, this means that the Church frequently makes the assumption that where self-identified gay men or lesbians are living together as couples, their relationships are not celibate, and so in contravention of Church teaching. We are condemned by CDF doctrine to lives not only celibate, but also solitary. We are further denied Church approval as adoptive parents.

And so the question arises: if we do indeed order our lives as recommended in Homosexualitatis Problema – without loving spouses or children to survive us, who will bury our dead?

Related Articles

• Activists: Mormon beliefs factor in LGBT struggles (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• "LGBT Jewish congregation may have been target of Yemen terror package" and related posts (gay.americablog.com)
• Court Rules Against Catholic Church In Case Over San Francisco's Criticism Of Vatican (lezgetreal.com)
• Homosexuals As "Victim Souls" (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Belgian bishops question whether priests need be celibate (telegraph.co.uk)

Religious Leaders Argue "Religious Freedom" Requires that Prop 8 Must Go

Catholic Bishops are fond of arguing that "religious freedom" should require that they be granted exemptions from complying with laws on inclusion and equality with which they (but not most lay Catholics) disagree. However, some bishops conveniently ignore this principle when dealing with their own members who apply it to the right to dissent from Vatican doctrine on sexual ethics - or to the formulation of legislation in the first place. The Catholic  and Mormon churches made vigorous efforts in support of Proposition 8 to deny marriage equality. However, this is not a simple issue of civil rights in a tussle with religious principle.  People of faith disagree among themselves, and so some religious leaders argue that "as a matter of faith",  Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling that struck down Proposition 8 must stand.

Christian and Jewish clergy voice support for gay-marriage ruling

A dozen Christian and Jewish clergy offered support Wednesday for a U.S. District Court ruling in August that found California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. The case is now before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

At a Los Angeles news conference, the group said it planned to file an amicus brief in support of Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to strike down Proposition 8, the 2008 initiative that banned gay marriage.  The judge said the measure violated due process and equal protection for gays and lesbians.

Representatives from the Los Angeles Episcopal diocese, the United Church of Christ, the Progressive Jewish Alliance and other liberal religious groups spoke of marriage equality as part of religious freedom Wednesday in the gathering at the St. Paul Cathedral Center, the Episcopal diocese headquarters.

“It is not an issue of legal matters, it’s an issue of faith,” said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, the Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles.

The Rev. Fernando Santillana, pastor of Norwalk United Methodist Church, called it a Christian responsibility to speak up for equality.

“We are all divine creations. Some are heterosexual and some are not.  But we are all God’s creatures,” Santillana said. “We have to be the voice that speaks for God in a society that is divided.”

-- Rick Rojas, LA Times

 

 

Catholic Sexual Ethics, Social Ethics, and Reality-Based Theology

One of the key points in Salzmann & Lawler's exposition of Catholic sexual ethics ("The Sexual Person") is the importance of  considering theology in the context of history. Explaining this idea, they describe two approaches to theology,a "classical" view, which sees all moral standards as static and fixed   for all time, and an "empirical" view, in which we recognize that circumstances and human understanding (for  example,of science), is constantly changing, and which implies that we must be constantly ready to refine our expression of those standards.

In its classicist mode, theology is a static, permanent achievement... In its empirical mode, it is a dynamic, ongoing process....... The classical understanding sees the human person as a series of created, static and definitively ordered temporal facts. The empirical understanding sees the person as a subject in the process of "self-realization in accordance with a project that develops in God-given autonomy, carried out in the present with a view to the future".  Classical theology sees moral norms coming from the Magisterium as once and for all definitive; sexual norms enunciated in the fifth or sixteenth century continue to apply absolutely in the twenty-first. Empirical theology sees the moral norms of the past not as facts for uncritical and passive acceptance but as partial insights that are the bases for critical attention, understanding, evaluation, judgement and decisions in the present sociohistorical situation. What Augustine and his medieval sources knew about sexuality cannot be the exclusive basis for a moral judgement about sexuality today.

The empirical approach, they say, was endorsed by by Vatican II. Later, this view was clearly articulated by Pope John Paul II, in Sollicitudo rei socialis (1987).

Pope John Paul II, Progressive Theologian?

"The Sexual Person": Bishops, Theologians Clash on Sexual Ethics

In 2008 two Catholic academic theologians at a reputable Jesuit university published a book, "The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology (Moral Traditions)",  on the Church's sexual theology which represented a fundamental critique of its entire foundations. The United States Catholic Bishops have now launched a strong counter-attack, concentrating their fire especially on the authors' section on homosexuality.

I am grateful to the Bishops for this attack: it has brought to my close attention a book that I was previously aware of, but had not considered too seriously. After reading some reviews and the extracts available at Google Books, I will now most certainly read it in full - and will later discuss its conclusions with my readers. As I have not yet had this opportunity to read the book for myself, I will not attempt in this post  to evaluate the content or conclusions. However, I have read the authors' intent and methods as presented in the prologue, and can contrast these with the bishops' disappointing response, which I have read and re-read in full.

Blessed John Henry and Ambrose: Newman's Last Sermon

The media caravanserai has moved on, but Cardinal John Henry Newman is now and will remain known as Blessed John Henry. He remains also a significant, if complex, figure for gay and lesbian Catholics in his relationship with his beloved Ambrose St John, and in his theology for progressive Catholics more generally. The theology is subtle, and has been too easily misappropriated by people on both sides of the Church ideological divide. I do not (yet) want to enter that territory. About the relationship with Ambrose, I feel more secure.

Inscription for a grave in which both John Henry and Ambrose were buried

Alan Bray ("The Friend") has written extensively about this relationship, showing how it fits into an ancient tradition of close, even passionate friendship between male couples in the Church: