Priests: Male, Female, Gay, Straight, Married, Unmarried
From my friend John Shuster in the great state of Washington.
This opinion piece first appeared as a comment to a recent posting on this blog.
If society hadn’t decided to treat gay men so badly, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
The RC priesthood/hierarchy is a gay profession, a safe haven, a well-monied enclave. They don’t want women priests, they don’t want married priests, they just want more men who are happy to live the good life together under the cloak of celibate purity.
When the people in the pews move beyond trained codependency and spiritual addiction, things might change as they decide to withhold their money and resources. Perhaps the terrorism of parish closures will help them mobilize and act sooner than later. Some threatened parishes might even rise to the level of valor to invite a woman priest or a married priest to be their new spiritual resource. The gay clergy is working to minimize their growing workload by selling churches out from underneath the good people who built them and have generations of family history invested in them. Priests who have to work too hard during the day don’t have much energy left to play at night.
Other mainline religions have a variety of clergy who successfully and holistically minister to their adherents. The early church had married clergy, women priests, and a few celibates. In fact, Paul’s 2nd Letter to Timothy Chapter 3 provides a scriptural basis that requires that clergy be married. Despite the Vatican’s crass and strident efforts to the contrary, we are achieving our origins as a church – one woman priest at a time.
In trying to excommunicate women called to priesthood, the men who love each other at the Vatican are only further excommunicating themselves from everybody else in the universal church.
In the long run, their actions are destructive and futile. They only alienate people and destroy true communion.
That’s not what true Roman Catholicism is about.
2 Responses to “Priests: Male, Female, Gay, Straight, Married, Unmarried”
June 2, 2008 at 12:45 am
The only thing I know for sure about Roman Catholicism is that I do not fit by their definition. It became impossible for me to enable them any longer. So, my question is: What is true Roman Catholicism about?
June 2, 2008 at 1:43 am
I don’t think that mainstream America believes that every Roman Catholic priest is gay, or that they are child abusers, or that they even have the potential to abuse, or that they even believe in their minds 100 percent that heirarchy is always right. But what I do believe is that a priest can be gay, straight, bisexual, married, unmarried, and both male and/or female. To be all of these things is to be fully human. Civilizations become extinct without adaptation and our Church is no exception.
They say that those that disagree with dogma, mouth off, think unlike them, or question authority and current practice excommunicate themselves. Even this cannot be the truth because if it were, the excommunicant would say so, and the legal arm of the Church would have nothing more to say than goodbye. It doesn’t take a legislative body to tell you why you have excommunicated yourself…if one excommunicates the self, they known why and have stated the reasons! So, if those that are excommunicated have not agreed to be excommunicated…it is invalid…and they have been verbally cast off and in writing because someone felt that they were a threat to the community’s status quo…and those person’s are biased! Excommunication does not change who one is internally But physically, if excommunication prevents community…other communities will spring forth and may be similiar but unlike the original parent.
So yes, we all have ideas about why things are now failing in this system called the Roman Catholic Church. One theory may be that it has become a closed system that is not interracting with the other components. When this happens, the entire Church will need to either change post haste…or die. So, do what you will to glorify God…so that the Church of believers, and His Son Jesus Christ will not die! When your efforts are halted and you face excommunication…do what Jesus did—keep going, and do it your way…until the end!