Gay marriage in Latin America, and a breakaway church in Uganda

The problems the RCC faces are numerous and challenging in all parts of the world. I have little confidence that the Eurocentric leaders at the Vatican-- the ones who wear twenty foot capes--are capable of addressing them successfully.

Steve

Mr. Allen provides this synopsis of the second of his three "families:"

"Catholic teaching expresses the truth about the human condition, so the challenge is to proclaim that truth boldly, creatively, and without fear. The hallmark of vibrant Catholicism is not tinkering with structures, but rather transforming the world in light of the gospel. One prerequisite is to foster a strong sense of Catholic identity inside the church"

How do we express infinite and eternal Truth (i.e., "God is Love," "Love thy enemy," etc.) in terms even I can understand, far from European discourse and traditional cultural expressions?

Through a stifled liturgy which so "literally" translates an ancient and dead tongue that NO ONE can understand it, let alone pray it truthfully, spontaneously, organically, as liberation?

If "Catholic teaching expresses the truth about the human condition" how can we "proclaim that truth boldly, creatively, and without fear" to all peoples dwelling within this human condition?

Is proclaiming "creatively" actually permitted within this second family? If you proclaim howsoever boldly in words and stage gestures and dress which I cannot comprehend, your boldness is merely another fearful hollow gong.

True proclamation is Love beyond words, without words, in being that which cannot be expressed: Love. Love without definition. Love which acts, clearly.

When this second family insists: "One prerequisite is to foster a strong sense of Catholic identity inside the church" we find this Love limited, stifled, even killed, upon a new cross, as what may be a strongly prerequisite Catholic identity for a certain few of northern European heritage has nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

To proclaim truthfully the liberating Gospel we must speak, and act, in ways which people anywhere may perceive as Love, really, within this painful reality of our human condition.

Thus when Mr. Allen ascribes to this particular, second, family this aspect: "The hallmark of vibrant Catholicism is not tinkering with structures, but rather transforming the world in light of the gospel." I hear the Gospel call to revolutionary liberation of the oppressed, freedom for the captive, healing all the sick, the absolute overthrow of the wealthy power structures and world banks announced by Mary in the Magnificat, and the Love of Enemy.

Love
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)

Which of these three families embraces, not rejects out of hand, the wonderful writings of the late lamented and Reverend Father Anthony de Mello, S.J.?

I need a family I can call my own, which calls me their own, which knows its sheep and whose sheep know the Voice, and that one might be it, at last . . .

Dude.
Where's my Church?
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)

That "Apostolic Succession" concept seems to have been developed by Irenaeus to bolster his authority in contrast to the Gnostic group of his time. But it is rather simplistic to view it as a successive "laying on of hands" idea. The real argument of Iraenaeus was that a body of teaching had been passed down from the Apostles.

Beyond that the concept becomes a bit ridiculous.

Secularism in the West is a reaction to over a thousand years of Christian Theocracy, the results of which were: widespread ignorance and superstition; disease; suppression of science and free inquiry in general; heresy trials, inquisitions, torture, burnings at the stake; widespread corruption of religious institutions typified by the selling of indulgences. And after the Reformation, Europe was treated to a couple centures of bloody religious warfare. All of this resulted in complete disgust amongst a signficant portion of the intelligensia which in turn led to that era known as the
Enlightenment. In short, when it comes to theocracy, the West has been there and done that and doesn't want anymore of it. Secularism is the continued unfolding of the ideas and the spirit of the Enlightenment.

As to Latin America, I don't now where the idea comes from that it is not part of the West. As far as I am concerned, it has been a part of the West since the Spanish conquest. Most leading Latin American intellectuals and artists are influenced by Marxism, and Karl Marx was a very Western thinker.

As primate for one of those churches whose apostolic lines descend from the late Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa,the National Catholic Church of America, I am happy to see these former Roman Catholic priests find a home in what I consider to be a more authentically pastoral and apostolic branch of Catholicism; one that practices the inclusive love of Christ and seeks to enliven by the Spirit and not deaden by the Law. They may have been removed from their ministries by Rome, but, happily, have not gone slinking off into obscurity and abandoned their vocations.

I extend an open invitation to current and former Roman Catholic priests throughloutt the United States and, indeed, the world who have arrived at the courage of their personal beliefs that the Vatican is a barrier and not a stimulus to Christian Unity, and that it has ceased to be in touch with the people of God on the most basic pastoral level, to consider incardination with us. More information about the NCCA can be found on our web site.

www.nationalcatholicchurchofamerica.org

Sincerely, in Christ,

The Most Reverend Richard G. Roy, OSJD
Archbishop and Primate
National Catholic Church of America
Saint Martin's Priory
166 Jay Street
Albany, NY 12210
Email: NatCathCh@aol.com
Telephone 518-434-8861

Of course there are also those who are not Catholic or Christian who resent bishops and popes trying to impose their beliefs and their values on them. And there are good Catholic and Christian gay people who resent that the bishops preach to them in the pews as though they are disordered and their relationships and families are dirt.

If Uganda s 42% Catholic, even ones who have chosen a differing path from Rome, why is legislation to "Kill or punish people for being GAY, working its way through the legislature?? People of conscience in Uganda need to stop this traversty against human rights and the immortal souls of God's creation. What person chooses to be GAY?? It is a very difficult path in life. But, if these people have been present throughout the history of man, and in every corner of the world, then they are part of the human race and must be allowed to live their lives with dignity and purpose. Life is a struggle and we believe that God is the source of all grace and that he only gives us burdens we can bear in faith with Him, then the people of faith in UGANDA cannot allow this attack on the dignity of mankind.

Seems to me that the elephant in the room is clericalism, not secularism.

Let's face it religion is a business and therefore in order to stay viable it takes money. The RCC has certainly been a growing enterprise for a very long time, however it now is shrinking along with its members. Nothing on this earth last without changing with the circumstances of the times. With the disappearing rolls of our religious it will probably be necessary in various locations to attend Mass, it will require a long drive or watch on go to meeting.com.

All but a few of the major religions have decided that women are very capable and in many circumstances are far more qualified than man, one example would be to give birth. However by managing your business with a seventh century business plan seem to be axiomatic. The Vatican has taken on the appearance of the practice of solipsism.

Milingo's ordained bishops are not only illicit but invalid since a married priest could not be ordained a bishop in either Catholicism or Orthodoxy. Further, the ordination of a bishop can only be done by three bishops, not one. However, any married candidiates Milingo ordained as priests would be valid but illicit.

I expect lots of complicated, wordy treatise have been and will be written on how a solid Catholic identity affects the Church. I prefer the simple. Where that identity and theology is strong (Africa, various religious orders like the Servants of God, colleges like Christendom college, etc.) the faith is growing. Where that identity is weak and the theology is watered down, the faith is shrinking. If anyone disagrees with this, then count up the numbers of "progressive" orders that are shrinking in numbers, and compare that to the number of solid, orthodox Catholic religious orders that are growing. The Spirit is life and he is visible.

"Dude.
Where's my Church?"

It is remarkably disingenuous for the "spirit of Vatican II" set to claim they have had no influence over the last forty years. We haven't shortchanged devotion in favor of "social justice"? What, we haven't made the liturgy mundane enough? We haven't had enough felt banners? We haven't sufficiently reduced the gospel message to leftist platitudes? We haven't made our churches ugly enough? You haven't controlled the seminaries, the organs of opinion like NCR and America, the theological faculties? We haven't had enough lay committees, enough dissent? You haven't been in charge of catechesis these last forty years? You've all been shackled, really? Bystanders? Get real, you've had your Church, and the fruits are plain to see.

Brother Charles, your comments are always interesting and thought provoking, but I feel that this time you've really put your finger on the heart of it. I've known a few groups who feel as you do. It's something of the emotion that taking part in the Call To Action national conferences creates. I tell people I believe there will be women priests in my day (I turned 70 last March) and I still think so because of the brave women who have dared to take the first steps and are trying to carve out the place for women priests at this stage. But I don't know that "The Church" will ever be the church you're looking for. Of course I don't suppose Jesus managed to accomplish all he'd like to have in his days on earth. This has to be a case where the journey is valuable, even if one never arrives at an end goal. But it's lonely and frustrating.

I grew up a dedicated member of the second response but I'm certainly not there anymore.. I'm interested in the third response as possibly eventually nurturing a real People of God, but it seems right now it's largely the case of a more culturally contextualized second response. I don't know Fr. de Mello's writings very well, but I've lived with Moslems and Buddhists and Shinto and nothings as well as growing up at Notre Dame University so I'm used to looking at other faiths with the same kind of expectations and hopes as I have for the Catholic faith, but it will take a long time before the people like you will be accepted/comfortable/effective in any of them. I guess I'm still a supporter of the Spirit of Vatican II. Was it Chesterton who said we shouldn't say Christianity is dead, since it hasn't really been tried yet.

Keep the faith, though.

fr. charles du desert OSB OBLAT, I think that it is quite evident to all that you already have your church, your god, your truth.

I am in an East Asian country and glad to be away from the kind of morbid Catholic self-hatred draining the energies of the Church in the West. I am grateful that the rank and file believers here as well as the native clergy in general (despite the presence of some foreign priests who want to import their battles from the West) are disinterested in your self-righteous Eurocentric disembodied spirit of Vatican II, preferring to follow the Holy Spirit that inspired Vatican II and to be in solidarity with the Magisterium, despite its flaws and sometimes slowness to respond to changes. We are willing to follow the example of St. Francis and St. Dominic along the path of holy patience and holy wisdom. DeMello and Phan have been colonized by white liberal theology and need to return to their Asian Catholic roots ...

Friends/Brothers,
My perspective is that the Roman Catholic Church will never attract people to Christ by compromising with "modern views" (which are actually recycled old views that have already been previously refuted) and allowing or condoning women or married priests, gay marriage, abortion or any other secular liberalization.
John Paul II hit the nail on the head when he said that the RCC needs to go out a bodly proclaim the truth.
The RCC seems to be more concerned about retaining numbers (regardless of how many are spreading decent from the pews), than really converting people to Christ. Once people REALLY believe then they will be keen to evangelise.
Do as the Apostle intructed and kick out all the dissenters from within so that the devil may have his way with them and they will then come running back to the church with a REAL repentence.
Stop focussing on a large luke warm church and focus on a smaller church that is red hot for Christ. Only then will people be attracted back to the RCC.
Look at the Muslims, they are spreading like wild fire in western society not by being compromisers but by being dogmatic and claiming to be the keepers of the absolute thruth. Well if the RCC is the keeper of the absolute truth then get out there and speak it boldly like JPII.
Here are three words that will revive the truth in the Catholic church. 1 SIN, 2 JUDGEMENT, 3 PUNISHMENT
In case you missed it Secularisation is trying everywhere to redifine what is SIN, who can JUDGE, and whether there is any PUNISHMENT.
Give em a reality check boys.
Any Catholic who is a public official (ie:politician) and publicly dissents by supporting antiCatholic actions like abortion funding/gay marriage etc should be INSTANTLY repremanded by the local Bishop.
Oh and incase you also missed this point, secularisation is spreading to non-western countries is for 2 reasons
1. Because the United Nations pushing this secularisation on the world. It is the UN's conventions that always get used to slowly break regional law makers into complying with the "internationally accepted human rights".
2. Because western society's secular disgusting antiChristian television and film that is so full of filth and sin is now readily avilable in non-western countries and people are watching it in droves. Sin sells, not just here in the west but everywhere. The RCC needs to be helping its people to produce good television for the world. Entertainment with Catholic values. And to be doing organised lobying of producers and media watchdogs to eradicate the worst of the filth from our screens.
It also would not hurt to encourage people to turn off the satanvision and read a Christian book for once.
God be with you.

Note to editors!

A lot of people no doubt skipped this good article because of the bad headline.

Thinking that I already knew all I needed to know about the two items mentioned in the headline, I skipped it at first encounter. I read it only upon the recommendation of a good friend.

John Allen is a great reporter/analyst. But one can't read everything these days.

"Same sex marriage" is an oxymoron. "Gay marriage is pejorative. "Marriage" is by definition between a man and a woman. "Civil partnership" is appropriate for the agreement between two people of the same sex. Where is the problem?

It is ironic that this new breakaway church that wants to liberate its clergy from imposed celibacy is located in the very country whose mainly Catholic inhabitants want to lynch gays and burn them at the stake!

It is still amazing that after the sexual abuse scandal in the US,Ireland, etc, and the stories about the living conditions of some priests in Holland in terms of their relationships with women, people still talk of celibacy as an African problem- talk of playing the ostrich, I guess

I live in a land that is further away from Tierra del Fuego than Rome and one of the most secularised. St Paul cnverted the Gentile world by founding churches in various localities, which were distinct, which thought globally, but acted locally, by proclaiming the Word of God, who is our Lord Jesus Christ to all within hearing distance—their own locality. They it was who in turn sent out their own apostles to othr places where Christ was not yet known. Catholicity resides in the local church, not in a multinational institution, and this layperson, just like other baptised person, has the perfect right to say this out at the top of his or her voice. It is not a matter of finger-pointing at who did this or who did that, or who is right or who is wrong, or who spat first, or cast the first stone. One's world is one's parish, one's town, one's county, one's diocese. If you ant a vibrant Catholicism, start there, within a kilometre or two from your home, and be like St Paul. don't bother to wait for anyone's permission; he had Christ's mandate, and so have you.

Here in Indonesia where tsunamis and earthquakes are seen by many as direct acts of God, where we go to a shaman to find out who caused the illness of a relative, we need MORE secularisation. And so does much of the Southern Hemisphere.

If by "Catholic identity" you mean increasing the use of Latin, kneeling, Gregorian chant, convoluted latinised Indonesian, re-clericalisation - where does that put us vis-a-vis the Muslim majority? They see us as a wedge of westernisation to soften the country up for commercial exploitation. In this part of the world the re-Europanisation of Global Catholicism looks more like a simple re-assertion of male clerical power.

According to the Indonesian Catholic Bishops' Conference, the biggest challenge we face is the gap between religious ritual and daily life. I live in the most Christian of all the Indonesian Provinces (over 70% are Christian), but we are the most corrupt province in the country according to Transparency International. Of 50 cities studied, our provincial capital Kupang in West Timor, was proclaimed the most corrupt.

So, on with secularisation, away with the re-Europeanisation of our identity, and let us get on with the daily challenge of greed, and spite, and manipulation, and love and compassion and solidarity with those at the margins.

Thanks, John L. Allen, Jr., for your weekly columns here. They are insightful and good.
Just wondering about your phrasing, "a former Catholic priest, Luciano Anzanga Mbewe, who was excommunicated by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last June."
I don't know enough about the procedures for excommunication, but is it correct to say that someone is excommunicated by a Vatican Congregation?

John Allen, as a few other Catholic journalists, is fascinated by the “secularism” that the Catholic Church leaders see as the great evil creeping over the world as if it is an apocalyptic thing that challenges the very existence of life on earth. Secularism, in political issues today, is often denounced by the church from the pulpit like communism was denounced a few years back.

But secularism isn’t an “ism” that people swear to in some direct assault upon the church. Secularism isn’t contagious like a disease. Secularism, too, isn’t a phenomenon created as an evil apart from its surroundings. It might not even be an “evil” at all.

I am often puzzled when I hear church leaders denounce secularism. One never hears a church leader analyze secularism as changes in society for which the church (Catholic and others) has played a major role in helping to create. Any story independently written by historians about Europe often finds so-called secularism (or becoming unchurched or less Catholic) is a response to church leaders’ political excesses and clericalism that offended many people.

If secularism is more properly defined as being non-church: going to football games on Sunday instead of church services, getting married before a justice of the peace, being spiritual but not religious, setting one’s own moral standard (conception, cohabitation, gay marriages, etc), then one can say that secularism has nothing to do with the church.

To take one social change, why is the church all upset about gay marriages? The gays do not belong to the church. They were kicked out of church several years ago or they left except for those in the ranks of the clergy (which, hypocritically, is extremely high).

Maybe the answer to the question of why the Catholic Church is concerned with secularism is that the institutional church claiming divine revelation still wants to rule over others, even non-Catholics. Witness the American bishops’ willingness to help block health care for millions of needy people if the proposal contains any heath care in the case of abortions. In this case, many conservative non-Catholic Protestants joined in the alliance, it should be pointed out.

Bottom line, I suspect that secularism bothers the church so much because the church has become irrelevant in the lives of many people. I never hear a Catholic clerical leader ask why and listen carefully to the answers given. (Lay leaders do not count in the Catholic Church). I suspect, too, that Pope Benedict and his curia do not want to face that question and its answers. Hence, they are going for the smaller, more orthodox church of loyal, unquestioning members. It is, probably, the same re-entrenchment after the Reformation. It is the only pattern that the church leaders know as the way to preserve institutional powers.

To continue. I do not recognise any of the three "Churches" outlined by Allen. Living amidst the largest Muslim community in the world and where Pentecostalism is making a modest advance, these are not our defining issues. We certainly do not need to sideline ourselves from mainstream society by returning to a European identity, nor do we wish to engage in crass proslytism. Together with the Muslim majority we face an unjust, corrupt society. Many prominent Catholics in public life are very pious and very corrupt. They are not consciously hypocritical; religion as cult, as devotion, as ritual is divorced from public life, public ethics, day to day living. That is our challenge.

When I was a child in the 50's, in a Catholic grade school in New York, I learned that no one could be admitted to a seminary or convent if one's parents had not been married in the Church. Civil marriage did not count as "marriage" for Catholics.

Later, in Catholic high school, I learned that Catholics who enter into civil marriages are free to get divorced because the Church is unconcerned about the dissolution of non-existent marriages. It seemed to me at the time that Catholics could avoid the cost of obtaining an annulment by entering a civil marriage, leaving the option to solemnize it later. In effect, this would have the effect of betrothal. Historically, until the 19th century, people without property didn't always marry: always reliable parish baptismal records list many baptisms of infants born to parents who never married in church.

Now the Church is upset that civil marriage is being extended to homosexuals, and sees this as increasing secularism.

Am I missing something?

If civil marriage is not "marriage," in the sacramental sense (and it can never be), what is the concern of the Church with how civil marriage is administered?

In seeking to keep civil marriage from being entered into by gays and lesbians, isn't the Church promoting secularism by trying to safeguard the "sacred" nature of civil marriage?

If the Church wants to protect civil marriage, it should seek to outlaw divorce.

Pope Benedict is a coward and he represents the last triumphalist imperial Bishop of Rome. He will most likely bring the final implosion of the imperial model of Church to an end. He can no longer CONTROL people's conscience as Bishops of Rome once tried to do. He is an anomaly but he is also dangerous and ill suited to lead the People of God on this good Earth. He orchestrated his election to the imperial throne long before John Paul II had ended his Papacy. He, along with John Paul II will go down as two of Catholicism's worst Popes. Homosexual Catholics are just a diversion of blame for an imperial model of Church that is imploding and in the final stages of decay. Any diversions that Benedict can provide (such as his degrading and un-Christ like treatment of homosexual people) are, simply tricks or diversions to slow the process of decay as he loses his power to control hundreds of millions of Catholics. I thank God that most Catholics I know came to similar conclusions years ago. A new Church is about to emerge but it will not happen until this process is complete.

Generally, I like John Allen's analyses. However, his persistent view of Latin America as non-Western is thoroughly parochial (Anglo-Americanist) and a-historical. The state of homosexual "marriage"--and secularization--in Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, and other Latin American nations is EXACTLY comparable to similar situations in Western European nations.

The fact that Allen does not see that, in this regard, Latin America is NOT Sub-Saharan Africa reveals that, when it comes to going beyond the North Atlantic corner of the world, Allen has a lot of catching up to do.

This year many Latin American nations begin celebrations for the 200 anniversary of independence (neither Germany nor Italy as unified entities are that old). This should give Allen a clue that there's something that distinguishes Latin America from the rest of the so-called "third world".

Responding to Mr. Sveda's question:

"If civil marriage is not "marriage," in the sacramental sense (and it can never be), what is the concern of the Church with how civil marriage is administered?"

As you probably already know, civil marriages between non-Catholic persons eligible to marry are presumed to be valid by the Church. The Church is concerned because before one of the parties may marry a Catholic in the Church, the presumption must be overcome and the civil marriage must be declared a nullity. These presumed valid civil marriages impose a great burden on the Church's marriage tribunals.

The gay-and-proud-of-it people have made good points about how some laws favor married people over unmarried people but they remedy you propose -- same-sex marriage -- is a selfish one. The solution is that states should get out of the marriage/civil union business altogether. No more state sanctioned civil marriages/unions. To the extent that marriages/civil unions grant rights and privileges not enjoyed by unmarried people, they violate the right of the unmarried to be treated equally. For example, what is fair about the unlimited estate tax exemption given to for property passing to a surviving spouses but to one else? Nothing. Will it be fairer if it is extended to same-sex partners? Of course not. The cost of repealing marriage/civil union laws: Maybe nothing. The benefits: Equal treatment for single people , i.e., no special rights and benefits for married couples, no more divorce, and no more of this absurd construct called "legalized gay marriage." Marriage should a spiritual matter, left up to parties and their churches. If the parties want legal rights over each other, let them enter into a contract.

You mentioned that at one time you thought Catholics would be better off forgoing sacramental marriage and if favor of civil marriage. I hope you now realize that a serious Catholic that would not want to hedge in this way and would also want to receive God's sacramental grace.

"Any Catholic who is a public official (ie:politician) and publicly dissents by supporting antiCatholic actions like abortion funding/gay marriage etc should be INSTANTLY repremanded by the local Bishop."

Well, there go the Kennedys....