Wuerl Writes to Gay & Lesbian Catholics

Same sex marriage is an generational issue right now. It is well accepted and established in the younger generations, Catholic or not. As time passes the older generations who grew up without experiences that have lead to acceptance in the younger generations will gradually retire and what has happened in the Catholic and secular spheres will slowly be changed similar to the long Civil Rights changes since the 60's.

Acceptance of younger Catholic generations does come out from Vatican II, as part of what was thought of it was acceptance of people and solidarity with those who are shown prejudice by others.

I have faith and hope for even institutional legal Canon Law changes in Rome, though that will probably be one of the last things to change in coming years.

Sometimes all I can do is cry when I see how organized religions see things. I would love the opportunity to show them all what love really is.

Ah, dear bishop, how do I say this? Your remarks are simply amazing. On the one hand you faithfully espouse religious teachings - all of which are categorically negative concerning nearly any sort of ethically committed pairbonding which two mommies or two daddies might dare to consider; while on the other hand, you want us to understand all that as non-discriminatory? You want positive credit for not disenfranchising any such family (and the children?); yet you are religiously bound, vowed to oppose letting those particular parents and those particular children take the legal and social protections for granted that would automatically be theirs, if only they were ethically committed, parenting straight folks?

But it gets worse. If we set aside even the religious part, your deeply negative beliefs fail to oppose civil marriage equality for straight people of other religions, or even for agnostic or atheist citizens, just so long as the privileged citizens are straight, it seems.

Alas, dear bishop, as a thinking average person, I cannot give you what you seem to so dearly wish: unquestioning agreement. The contradictions are too patent in your negative thinking about the queer folks whose dignity you say you hold so basic and so dear? Nor can I credit you with really caring to protect the dignity of the people who would be most directly affected in daily life, if your negative religious views and your legal barriers get enacted. You cannot respect the dignity of queer folks while arguing that they are innately disordered, more than most straight people - especially if we are going to compare real world, common sense cases, where people are at their human best or at their human worst, as the instance may be. Nor can you be credited with a categorical lack of prejudice, let alone a lack of deliberate (and therefore, mean?) intent to discriminate.

Clearly, in common sense, you wish to deny legal and social protection to the very parents and the very children about whom you continue to hold such mistaken, nasty beliefs. Common sense tells us that you will have intentional dire legal and social impact on real people. Real adults. Real children. How can you seek credit for respecting the basic dignity of queer folks and children, while you seek to harm them at the same time? If you can assert these things without a twinge of feeling, then our instance is worse than ever. If the harm you will do is actually deliberate, then, dear bishop, how can we make anything of your intentions, except mean-spirited drives to target?

Military snipers are told to check their targets, lest an innocent non-combatant or even another friendly combatant be shot dead. Who are your real targets, dear bishop? Why, these targets are our extended family members, our friends, our co-workers, and our neighbors down the block. Real people upon whom you preach we must impose real harms. Real adults, real children. Real targets.

You do yourself, your church, other believers, and the whole common sense notion of USA citizen equality a grave disservice. As my grand-nephew might say to me - and oh yes, he does: Duh, Uncle X, get a clue.

"Please know that you have my pastoral care"

We hear this phase periodically from the bishops... Recently, Archibishop Mancini used similar words upon the sudden departure of Bishop Lahey under pornography allegations.

In my own diocese we hear from our bishop(s) perhaps 4 or 5 times a year unless we have a regualar reader of the diocesan fish wrapper.

At the end of the day, does the "pastoral care" have a reality other than in the mind of the bishop?

The bonds of faith may unite, but not the bonds of matrimony--at least not for gay people. Wuerl and the church is homophobic, pure and simple. If the church really believed what it taught about marriage, it would include marriage for gays and lesbians. But since it believes that marriage (meaning sex between persons) is for procreation purposes alone, obviously it must exclude gays and lesbians. But it believed its own message, however, that marriage (meaning sex between persons) also serves the dual purpose of expressing and creating an intimate bond that unites two persons, obviously it must include gays and lesbians. As it stands, however, the church is caught between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. As a result, it just keeps trying to square its fears with its teachings. An impossible task to be sure. But amusing to watch them try. How foolish they look.

You write: "Any gay and lesbian Catholic who reads this letter will certainly feel less alienated from the Church." As a lesbian Catholic who attends Mass 3-4 times a week now, I certainly don't feel alienated from the Church. I do believe, though, that the Church hierarchy is becoming further and further alienated from the people - the people in the pews as well as the people who've long left them, because our "leaders" are no longer prophetic voices, but merely tired and fearful men who try harder and harder to hold up a meme that just isn't credible. The teaching on marriage isn't "established by our Lord", but is established by tradition, tradition which is now anchored more on fear than on the prophetic courage that Christ calls us to live in the world. I felt deep sadness reading the letter - not for gay and lesbian Catholics so much as for the Church herself, and for leaders who do not truly lead, but try to encircle themselves - and all of us - with their fear.

Same-sex marriage does not destroy the family. Same-sex marriage does not harm God's intention for creativity and life-giving forces in the world. Same-sex marriage does not harm children, it does not diminish the Church as a potential force for social justice for the poor and oppressed throughout the world. Same-sex marriage is no more - and no less - than seeing God's face in the image of the beloved and forming a covenant to join together and live one's calling in the world, just as it is for heterosexual couples who marry.

I appreciate Bishop Wuerl's pastoral tone, which is a welcome change from the hostile screeds of many of his brethren. But is he truly off in search of the lost sheep, or is he one himself now, not able to see God's grace at work in the world and in the lives of some in the Church who are, canonically-speaking, "the least among us"?

I'm sorry, Michael, but as a lesbian Catholic who lives and works in Archbishop Wuerl's diocese - I feel more alienated, not less, after reading the archbishop's letter. Of course I find the church hierarchy's teaching on marriage difficult (I'd argue that this is a more humanmade and less Godmade teaching). I find this teaching infuriating and diasappointing. And that the archbishop refuses to see the damage that continues to ensue as a result of this teaching doesn't make him a good pastor, in my estimation.

If Archbishop Wuerl would look out and see the signs of the times and realize that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people deserve equal rights, then I'd consider him a good pastor. Until then, this sheep is still lost as a result of the archbishop's and the church hierachy's anti-gay bigotry.

"Any gay and lesbian Catholic who reads this letter will certainly feel less alienated from the Church." "Any"?! "Certainly"?! This statement really shows more about how out of touch Michael Sean Winters is than how "pastoral" Wuerl is.

“One of the attributes of power is that it gives those who have it the ability to define reality and the power to make others believe their definition.”

William Sloan Coffin

The Church's teaching on sexuality owes more to Aristotle filtered through St. Thomas Aquinas than to Jesus Christ.
I am thankful that Aquinas taught the Church to try to reconcile reason and religion and I think the Church would do better to follow his general example than to stick to his specific ideas in all things since they are based on an outdated biology and a philosophy which may or may not be the final word. My guess is that if Thomas Aquinas were alive today, or rather a modern-day Thomas Aquinas were around, he would be working to reconcile ideas from modern-day biology (more than anything) and secondarily modern-day psychology (granted having less than perfect scientific status) and offering us some guidance drawn from that dialogue of "reason" and "revelation."
Some parts of Islam are fundamentalist, some Protestants have their Biblical fundamentalism, but the hierarchy of the Catholic Church seems full of Thomistic fundamentalists. We need to look at the overall teaching of Jesus (which thankfully most Catholics in the pews and increasing most priests do)and strive to set the sexual and justice teachings of the Church in light of that and to revise our tradition where those traditions are based on clearly out-of-date understandings of human biology and psychology.

There are very few times I am ashamed to be a Catholic. One of those times was when the clerical abuse scandal broke forth into Catholic pews. The other was when our Pope promoted an anti Semitic attitude in the case of the bishop who was a Holocaust denier and member of schismatic group who sees liturgical theater as more important than liturgical substance. Most recently I felt shame at being a Catholic when I witnessed at Archbishop Wuerl's Cathedral of St. Matthew an announcement being made at the beginning of mass that there was a presence in the Cathedral that threatened the unity of the Church by publicly identifying themselves as gay.

The mass begin and I saw a single individual put on a Rainbow Sash, and than he approached the altar for communion, and was denied. When the individual returned to his pew I saw a young man behind him tap him on the shoulder, and share his Communion with him.

After mass I along with many in their pews approached the individual to say how wrong it was that he was denied communion. His response touched me. He said "I forgive them, and my purpose was to show how LGBT people are really thought of in this Church."

I never really understood the pain of the Church's position on Gay people until that movement. I would imagine Archbishop Wuerl was given a choice in this matter to be a shepherd, or a damage control manager. I fear he chose the later just like he is presently doing with the issue of gay marriage.

This incident changed how I viewed gay Catholics. Going forward I pray God will give me to gift of courage to act and not just sit in my pew in safety.