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PDF versionFr. Robert Sirico on gay marriages he once performed
by Michael Sean Winters on Oct. 18, 2010
Fr. Robert Sirico speaks about the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience document in 2009. The 4,700-word statement was issued by more than 140 Christian leaders who pledged renewed zeal in defending the unborn, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and protecting religious freedom. (CNS/Daniel Sone) “I formally left the Roman Catholic Church when I was 13 years old, in the middle of the 1960s. About decade later, when I was still outside the Church, I underwent a process of conversion, initially political, which then led to a religious conversion. I have spoken about this numerous times in various settings. The concomitant development of my thoughts and spiritual life led to the abandonment of the left-wing ideas I held in that period and to my formal return to the Church. From that time some 35 years ago to the present I have faithfully believed in and practiced that faith.
A scanned photo copy of a 1975 Denver Post story about the Rev. Robert Sirico.While the Catholic hierarchy, from Maine to Minnesota to California, seeks to prevent same-sex marriages from gaining legal recognition, one conservative Catholic commentator, Fr. Robert Sirico, has special expertise on the subject, although in recent years he has said nothing about that expertise. In Washington state and Colorado in the 1970s, Sirico performed some of the first same-sex marriage ceremonies in history.
Sirico is most known as a regular commentator on EWTN’s “The World Over” with Raymond Arroyo. There, Sirico frequently excoriates those whose understanding of their faith differs from his own. Sirico also is the head of the Michigan-based Acton Institute, an organization that is dedicated to laissez-faire economics. His commitment to libertarian ideas in economic matters may lack any precedent in Catholic social teaching, but they echo a libertarian commitment from earlier in his career.
In a 1972 interview with the Seattle Times, while he was serving as pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), reprinted below, Sirico announced his intention to perform same-sex marriages. The MCC is a non-denominational church organized by and for gays and lesbians. Sirico had earlier been ordained as a Pentecostal minister, according to the newspaper, and in 1971 he explained his faith-healing ministry to the Seattle Times.
In 1975, Sirico performed what was reported to be the first “gay marriage” ceremony in the history of Colorado, held at the First Unitarian Church in Denver on April 21, according to an article in the Denver Post, reprinted below. Eventually, Sirico returned to the Catholic Church and was ordained for the Paulists, then affiliated with the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, and finally transferred to the Diocese of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he is currently serving.
Last week, I called Fr. Sirico and asked for an interview. He requested that I submit my questions to him by e-mail, which I did. We agreed that I would re-print his replies without editing, which I do here.
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My questions were:
“1) Now that same sex marriage has become controversial again, how do you reflect on your own participation in such ceremonies in the 1970s in Colorado and Washington state? Do you have special insights on the subject that might be helpful to the Church as it navigates this complicated issue?
2) Were you ordained for the MCC? One news account said that you had been ordained for a Pentecostal church, but it did not indicate whether you had also been ordained for the MCC?
3) When you re-joined the Catholic Church, and entered seminary, did you receive a dispensation to be ordained in the Catholic Church? It is my understanding that ordination in a non-Catholic Church is an impediment to orders.
4) I watch you on EWTN and you seem quite willing to render criticisms of people like Sr. Carol Keehan for deviating from your sense of what a Catholic should do and believe. You said that the inclusion of female altar servers in the masses with Pope Benedict XVI in the UK evidenced "an agenda." Do you think your own circuitous route to the priesthood might suggest more sympathy with those who disagree with your understanding of orthodoxy?”
Fr. Sirico replied:
Fr. Robert Sirico speaks about the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience document in 2009. The 4,700-word statement was issued by more than 140 Christian leaders who pledged renewed zeal in defending the unborn, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and protecting religious freedom. (CNS/Daniel Sone) “I formally left the Roman Catholic Church when I was 13 years old, in the middle of the 1960s. About decade later, when I was still outside the Church, I underwent a process of conversion, initially political, which then led to a religious conversion. I have spoken about this numerous times in various settings. The concomitant development of my thoughts and spiritual life led to the abandonment of the left-wing ideas I held in that period and to my formal return to the Church. From that time some 35 years ago to the present I have faithfully believed in and practiced that faith.
An agreement with a professional journalist to whom I have been giving a series of interviews about the details of this journey prevents me from cooperating in any kind of profile of my life with you. I can, however, respond to a number of your questions for the article you are writing which do not compromise this agreement. I trust you understand my obligation to honor my previous commitment.
1. When I entered religious formation and at every stage of both my vocational and professional journey, I have always been transparent, giving the relevant details of my background to my superiors and close colleagues. I placed my confidence in my superiors for any dispensations or other requirements of Canon Law at each step of the way.
2. I believe that my activities in the 1970s, though representing a very different political and theological stance to the ones I hold today, nonetheless help me to understand the complex issues that go into the debate “gay marriage.” These insights have also been helpful in my pastoral work with persons who have same sex attractions and have given me a greater sensitivity into the struggle to live a chaste life.
I worked on the editorial committee of the Manhattan Declaration and its section on marriage reasonably expresses my view of the matter today and as well as outlining what I see as a needed and balanced concern that emerges from my own past my experience of having advocated positions opposed to those of the Church when I was outside her fold:
In particular I see the current “impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships [a]s a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture.” In this regard I believe the ‘gay marriage’ question arises today because as a culture we no longer fully understand what marriage itself is in its biblical and theological meaning. To abandon the Church’s view of marriage will erode the marriage culture itself, with wide and deleterious repercussions. It would, as the Manhattan Declaration states, “ lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life.”
At the same time, we must confront the reality that there are those who are, to a greater or lesser degree, inclined towards homosexual relationships. The same Church that authoritatively and truthfully teaches that such activity is immoral also authoritatively demands charity on the part of the faithful towards those so disposed. Persons who experience same-sex attractions deserve respect as human beings who possess an inherent, profound, and equal dignity as do all human beings. I have a personal awareness of the grace necessary to live a life worthy of one’s own dignity, a dignity so generously restored by Baptism and reinforced by the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
As I have pondered these matters, I have come to one simple conclusion, and that is that I love the truth more than my freedom; indeed, that I love the truth more than myself, because it is only in the embrace of that Truth, Who is also the Way and the Life, that my own life will ever have any meaning or peace. I fully understand that for some people it is a difficult thing to say ‘yes’ to something that appears and even deeply feels, like a denial of one’s own self. Yet, that is precisely what Jesus asks of us. To say yes to the Cross is to say yes to the Risen One. As one prelate of the Second Vatican Council (Cardinal Journet) said, under different but for him no less arduous circumstances, “When one tears something dear away from us, and when this is demanded of us in the name of obedience – for a future which is yet hidden from us – one must say yes, one must be content in saying yes, one must be content even to feel suffering…But it is with happiness one suffers, for he has something to give to God.”
This entire discussion will be elevated to a higher level when we can all engage the question by first understanding that our disagreements, profound as they sometimes are, can never give us license to vilify each other. At the same time, our compassion can neither give us license to lower the standard our morality to that of our inclinations or lifestyles.”
Below, we reprint the original articles from the Seattle Times and the Denver Post. In a sense they speak for themselves but, as a blogger, I do not think anything speaks for itself and I shall be posting a commentary shortly.
- The 1975 Denver Post article: 2 Men Wed In Denver Church Rite
- The 1972 Seattle Times article: Pastor to perform homosexual marriages
This story seriously vitiates
This story seriously vitiates Sirico's credibility,as a spokesman for Catholic thought. I don't think that he has really answered Arroyo's questions. I suspect he won't be appearing on EWTN in the future. (Remember Ken Roberts,Msgr. Ed Clark and Father Ray) I am sad because I really enjoy EWTN. I do believe in the possibility of change an do support gay rights to an extent, with gay marriage being precluded.
What was the purpose of this
What was the purpose of this hit piece and its accompanying commentary? As noted, it wasn’t to expose Fr. Sirico as a “hypocrite” which the author recognizes Fr. Sirico is not. Fr. Sirico has never hidden the fact that he experienced a deep conversion in his life, one that was not only intellectual but moral.
What seemed to drive Mr. Winters in choosing to research and write these pieces was his claim that Fr. Sirico is “sanctimonious.” The author’s functional definition of sanctimonious is not “hypocritically pious or devout” or “feigned piety or righteousness” — dictionary definitions that would be ruled out by Mr. Winter’s own acknowledgement of Fr. Sirico’s integrity —but because Fr. Sirico had the gall to make strong moral judgments based on the Catholic faith. Mr. Winters believes that Fr. Sirico’s past should make him “less judgmental,” which seems to mean less judgmental about the issues Mr. Winters does not want to see judged negatively on the basis of the Catholic faith, like Senator Kennedy’s funeral, President Obama’s Notre Dame invitation, Sr. Keehan’s claims about the health care bill, or whether there would be a need for altar girls for Masses in a country with enough capable seminarians and an obvious need for more.
Mr. Winters states that he wouldn’t have had a problem if Fr. Sirico had merely given his opinion that such decisions were wrong or misguided, rather than objectively wrong and eschatologically dangerous. It’s the strength of such a conclusion, and the powerful tone with which it’s expressed, that Mr. Winters thinks should be out-of-bounds. Why? Because of Fr. Sirico’s past. Thankfully, St. Paul, who, like Fr. Sirico, once experienced a massive conversion, didn’t follow such a principle or he would have never brought the Corinthians and so many others to conversion. Thankfully Augustine, Dorothy Day, Bernard Nathanson and many other notable converts didn’t follow it either.
Mr. Winter’s detraction of Fr. Sirico is serious enough and — though I may risk being labeled sanctimonious or judgmental for saying so — clearly contrary to Catholic morals (see CCC 2447).
I think it’s matched in seriousness, however, by the calumnious suggestion that Fr. Sirico is unsympathetic to those who are struggling. As a friend of Fr. Sirico’s for more than 15 years and someone who has pastorally collaborated with him during conferences, on pilgrimages and even at the bedsides of those who are dying, I can testify that I have always found him a priest full of genuine compassion and kindness for those who are struggling to live according to the Gospel. He was ordained a Paulist Priest, after all, and as I believe Mr. Winters would readily corroborate, Paulists have a particular outreach for those who are marginalized, an outreach that, I attest, continues to influence Fr. Sirico’s priesthood.
It shouldn’t be left unsaid that Fr. Sirico’s past, as detailed in the article, would make him particularly sensitive to the type of well-meaning but false sympathy that he used to engage in before his conversion and that Mr. Winters appears to suggest that he recommence. This is the false compassion that thinks that genuine sympathy for those who seek, for example, to enter into same-sex unions means supporting them in this aim. True compassion, genuine sympathy, means to try to meet them where they’re at and guide them toward the truth, continual conversion and holiness, even if on occasion it may be done with the forceful language and firmness that John the Baptist and Jesus himself occasionally displayed. That’s the type of sympathy and compassion Fr. Sirico exercises.
Hit pieces like this are often boomerangs. Mr. Winters seems to be guilty of many of the same transgressions of which he accuses Fr. Sirico. He accuses him of “sanctimonious” statements regarding Sen. Kennedy, Sr. Keehan and Fr. Jenkins, but none of those strong statements by Fr. Sirico even approximates the detraction in Mr Winter’s article and the moralism in his accompanying blog commentary. He likewise accuses Fr. Sirico of lacking sympathy, but if he truly put himself in Fr. Sirico’s shoes, it’s impossible imagine he would have written such a story, especially since he himself was the object of an internet hit piece a year ago in defense of Archbishop Wuerl’s opposition to same-sex marriage in Washington, DC.
Why was this piece written? If the real aim were a screed against sanctimoniousness in general or Fr. Sirico’s putative sanctimoniousness in particular, there would have been no need to rehash the details of a life from which Fr. Sirico sincerely and thoroughly converted three-and-a-half decades ago. If Mr. Winter’s problem was with Fr. Sirico’s judgments or Fr. Sirico’s tone in expressing those judgments, Mr. Winters certainly has the writing abilities to address those on their own merits. To engage in such a superfluous detraction of Fr. Sirico as a pretense for condemning alleged sanctimoniousness suggests a decision on Mr. Winters’ part, sadly and shamefully, to go ad hominem, to try to disqualify or undermine Fr. Sirico’s adult ideas with which Mr. Winters disagrees by bringing up irrelevant issues from decades ago.
I hope Mr. Winters and the NCR will recognize this piece this detraction and distraction for what it is, remove it from their website out of Christian justice, and do all they can to remedy it.
I am glad I stumbled upon
I am glad I stumbled upon this bit of "blogging"... MSW labels himself a "blogger" as if it is some kind of higher degree of journalist. In fact, this type of piece reminds us that anyone with a computer can pretend to play in the arena of ideas, even if they are fenced in by their own prejudice.
MSW wears his agenda on his sleeve, and his tone regarding Fr. Sirico is insulting. MSW would do well to re-read Fr. Sirico's comment, "I love the truth more than my freedom" and apply it to his blogging.
I will post this over at CatholicMaine.com to shed some light on the beauty of truth that penetrated the darkness through Fr. Sirico's having come home to the Church.
-CH
Question 4 is rather odd.
Question 4 is rather odd.
It is interesting tha Fr.
It is interesting tha Fr. Sirico's "answer" never aknowledges the teaching of the Church acording to which there must be no legal recognition of so-called "gay marriages" or "civil unions".
Is that the Libertarian in him (not) speaking ?
I am trying to have a
I am trying to have a ceremony for me and my girlfriend on June 18th 2011 in WYandotte Mi at 2pm but cannot find a reverend to do it. Like they are ashamed of performing the ceremonies or something. If there are any female reverends out there that would do our ceremony please respond or email back to me.. Its only a couple months away please and thank you
The so-called priest is an
The so-called priest is an opportunist and a fraud. I'd have more respect for him if he acknowledged his own sexual orientation. It won't happen but it sure would shed light on his character.
Who is the journalist to whom
Who is the journalist to whom he had an 'obligation' and therefore could not answer the primary question regarding his participation in the MCC church and his own performance of gay marriages? Where is the final product they are/were supposedly working on? Sounds like a suspicious reason for lacking accountability. When one delves a bit further, you see he was involved beyond a superficial level and most likely an active gay man. There seems to be a bit of Queen Gertrude playing out in his own career with such zealous participation in Christian marriage defense events, campaigns, etc., a bit more than can be labeled "pastoral". The question of revenue generated from a number of these activities also gives reason for pause.
I am more concderned with the
I am more concderned with the boardroom than the bedroom. When is Fr. Sirico going to have a conversion experience on Mathew 25 and consider the plight of the underclass. Defending the Ryan budget doesn't cut it.
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