Nicole Sotelo's blog

February 2010

Last week, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement that claimed that New Ways Ministry, a pastoral organization for lesbian and gay Catholics, could not speak on behalf of the faithful in the United States. The statement not only raises the question, “Who speaks for Catholics today?” but even more pressing is this question: “Is anyone listening?” According to some recent studies, Catholics are listening, but not always to the bishops.

As a young woman studying religion in college, my friend and I traveled to hear Mary Daly speak in the late 1990s. After the lecture, I took a picture of my friend leaping high and holding a bumper sticker touting Mary’s memorable phrase: “Sin Big.” I don’t recall much of the specific words that I heard that evening beyond those, but I remember the idea: women mattered.

In a culture where ideas often encourage women’s soul-shrinking, Mary Daly called women to live large. Her famous phrase “sin big” came from her study of the word “sin” whose etymology has roots in the word “to be.” As such, Mary’s theology called women to be big; to sin against or break through patriarchal ideological and material barriers that do not support women’s -- or men’s -- lives.

The beauty of a brilliant idea is that it does not remain one. It is transformed into flesh and bone and breath. People try on an idea and, if it does them justice, will wear it forever. It becomes part of them and their living.

Certain bishops are contributing money to defeat the potential for all families to have equal protections under law, many Catholic laity are exemplary in their espousal of equality. In fact, of all Christian denominations, Catholics are the most favorable toward LGBT acceptance in the U.S. with 58% of Catholics believing that homosexuality should be accepted by society (Public Religion Research, 2008).

And while Catholics overall are evenly divided on the question of marriage equality with a provision for religious exemptions, in a few short years that is certain to change. The youngest generation of Catholics between 18 and 29 years of age are 60 percent in favor of full marriage equality (Public Religion Research, 2008). And the corresponding numbers across other generations are also growing.

The bishops know this and are struggling to promote their narrow vision of marriage. Last week the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a “pastoral letter” on marriage that was anything but pastoral.

Sosan's husband tried to electrocute her. He tried to poison her. She escaped to one of the six shelters in Afghanistan. But in a country where women are not allowed to live without a male, she could not leave the shelter until she married again, according to a recent United Nations report. Shelters are full and the rise in domestic violence cases is not solely due to cultural beliefs and governmental policies but is also tied to U.S. aggression.

Jesus was perhaps one of the world’s first health care reformers. During a time in history when Greeks and Romans often traveled to a temple with offerings in exchange for healing, Jesus and his early followers healed free of charge wherever they encountered the sick, often at great peril to themselves.

A simple sling, used skillfully in biblical times, was known to take down a giant. Two weeks ago, a 39-year old modern-day David used a microphone at a news conference, instead of a sling, and helped to bring down a colossal silence about sexual abuse that had stood over him for 25 years.

It is estimated that by 2011, parishes around the English-speaking world will be rolling out a new way of praying Mass that more closely resembles the former Tridentine rite. This summer, the U.S. bishops announced their approval of another section of these re-translated liturgical texts. While I believe in the power of liturgical prayer to lead us closer to God and am open to new ways of praying, what happens when that prayer is shaped by human power plays over pastoral concerns?

In 1875 Pauline and Henry Durant opened a Christian college for women. Years later, Pauline was dismayed to know that the women were breaking an inordinate number of dishes during washing duties. But the women were breaking more than fine china. They were breaking long-held beliefs and boundaries around women.

Pope Benedict has declared June 19 as the beginning of the Year of the Priest. He has proclaimed that “without priestly ministry, there would be no Eucharist, no mission and even no church.” I hate to be the one to inform him, but Eucharist, mission and church existed long before the rise of priesthood.

According to the Gospels, Jesus was not a priest, nor were his disciples. We do see reference to Jesus as a priest in the Letter to the Hebrews. The author uses the word to refer to Jesus as the new and last “High Priest,” ending a long line of Jewish leaders. The author claims that priests are no longer necessary because no more sacrifices are needed. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice and is our final high priest.

In Catholic thought, limbo was the state of those who had died but, because they were not yet baptized, were denied entrance to heaven. While the Vatican put the traditional theory of limbo to rest in 2007 with a document declaring that “unbaptized infants who die will be saved,” it continues to consign large swathes of the faithful to their own terrible wilderness: lay ministers in the church today live in an earthly limbo, suspended between the promises of church teaching for worker justice and the reality of injustice within church structures.

There are three simple words that have the power to heal wounds. We teach them to our children. We share them with the ones we have hurt. We say: “I am sorry.”

In the last year church officials have said “I am sorry” a number of times and in various ways; more apologies for current wrongs than I have ever heard in one year from an institution that has traditionally prided itself on certitude and even infallibility. The words “I am sorry” may have the power to reconcile, but they are meaningless without a corresponding conversion of heart. While I welcome the recent apologies, I worry they are just covering the wounds. The real change in behavior has yet to come.

Home foreclosures are up. Stocks are down. And many countries around the globe have begun to see a rise in prostitution, domestic violence and other systemic abuses against women. People may talk about their retirement portfolios suffering, but the real distressed assets are women who carry some of the greatest wounds in this global recession.

"That's all behind us," Cardinal Roger Mahony assured Catholics in Los Angeles on a radio station last month. It was the day after news broke that the archdiocese was under federal investigation regarding its response to sexual abuse. The archdiocese had settled with more than 500 sexual abuse survivors in 2007. The cardinal offered an apology. So the sexual abuse crisis is behind us, but only if we think that is the whole story. It's not.

I was part of the 54 percent of Catholics in this country who voted for Barack Obama and this week I rejoice in the inauguration of our new president. However, I must be honest: I was an early Hillary Clinton supporter.

Recently I picked up a time management book and it asked me to make two lists: the first, a list of what I would like to accomplish by the time I reach the last decade of my life; the second, a list of what I would like to accomplish if I were given six months to live. Two days later, I visited my doctor for my three-month cancer check. How timely.

Even though I haven’t had cancer for more than three years, I still think of the potential lethal consequences every now and then if my doctor were to discover some cancerous cells at an advanced stage. I joked with my doctor after he took a biopsy, saying that I would expect my usual “It’s atypical cells” call in two weeks. Although not happy with atypical cells, I was always happier with these results rather than with more ominous ones. He looked at me and said, “Well, it could be something else, but probably not.” He normally doesn’t raise the specter of that “something else.”

"I asked God to kill me,” said the 29-year old rape survivor. Her brother, children and parents had been murdered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s decade-long war. What hope was left? But she saw a baby, alive, on the ground near her slain parents. She carried the child to safety and now is raising the child as her own. “Maybe God didn’t want me to lose my life.”

This story and hundreds more like them have been heard and shared by Eve Ensler, director of V-Day, an international organization working to stop violence against women. Ensler, known internationally for her play “The Vagina Monologues,” has worked tirelessly to make the world aware of what has been called “Africa’s World War.” Over the last decade there has been fighting among various factions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC. The war has taken the lives of more than 5 million people due to the conflict or war-related starvation and disease -- the most war-related deaths since World War II. One of the most common and most brutal weapons of choice has been the rape of women and children.

The bishops in California and Florida are asking Catholic voters to preserve marriage at the polls this November. Both states have constitutional amendment proposals on their ballots that, if passed, would restrict marriage and its privileges to relationships between a man and a woman. These changes in the state constitutions would preserve “traditional marriage” according to a bulletin insert being distributed by California bishops.