The Sheepcat

Bridging the Gap Synchroblog: Think With The Church

New Direction Ministries asks how the church can "reach across the divide and build bridges" to people in the gay community. A synchroblog on the theme, timed to coincide with Toronto's Pride Week, began yesterday.

I'm a late arrival and will try to keep things brief, as I'm busy getting ready to get married in a few weeks' time!

Ever since I returned to Christianity in 1998, I've struggled with questions of how to interact with the gay community and my old (and new) friends in it. The need for discernment became all the more evident when I concluded in the spring of 2000 that gay sex was a serious sin under every circumstance and that I couldn't ever go back to it, nor could I condone others' participation in it.

I've wanted both to follow Christ without reserve and not to lose whatever was genuinely good in my relationships with friends who identify as gay--especially those men with whom I'd been sexually involved, for whom I feel a special responsibility. I've kept in touch regularly with some of them, drifted away from many, and, painfully, become estranged from a few.

The main idea I'd offer is that we need to think with the Church. This isn't at all to rule out the creative ferment of new ways of handling the issue just because they're new and "we've never done it that way." Indeed not.

But sexuality is such a powerful force, with potential for great good or great evil, that we need to remain firmly anchored in the tradition handed down from the Apostles. I don't mean just that we ourselves will be sexually tempted, but that whenever we walk with people in friendship, there will be temptations to bend our own values to theirs--and temptations too, for the more scrupulously inclined, to selfishly back away from opportunities to reach out in hospitality, perhaps for fear that a kind act might be misinterpreted by our potential guests, or by bystanders poised to cluck their tongues disapprovingly.

How do we navigate the shoals? I'll say that I've found it helpful beyond measure that I now belong to the Catholic Church, where the dignity of all people regardless of sexuality and the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts are simultaneously held as official doctrine (CCC 2357-2358). It is so difficult, yes, unnecessarily difficult and error-prone (not that I've always gotten things right since I came into full communion with the Church), to try to work these things out on one's own. The saints before us have grappled with similar, if not necessarily identical, problems. They have things to teach us, lessons in humility and patience and courage. Such lessons will serve us well no matter which culture war happens to confront us at the moment.

I used to be terribly troubled by St Paul's admonition "Do not even eat with such a one" (1 Corinthians 5:11), referring to Christians who are "guilty of immorality." I wanted so badly to do the right thing, out of reverence and love for the One who had redeemed me, and yet what was the right thing? Well, I'm satisfied now that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with my having brunch with this or the other friend.

There are philosophical tools, as I pointed out last year at Bridging the Gap, for helping us sort out what we can and should do to reach out to our gay neighbours without becoming implicated in things that do not deserve our support.

Anyway, I know full well I can't support all the ideas that are being put forward this week, but I applaud the effort.

All right, now where did I put that caterer's phone number?

Tag-Team Spiritual Battle Enters Round Two

Bad news. I went by the site of one of the psychic shops whose closure we celebrated several months ago, and there was a new set of signs up in the window for another psychic. Time to redouble those prayers to St Michael.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust down into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Two Funerals and a Wedding

Yesterday we held the funeral for my uncle Roly, who was full of energy until the last of his 86 years. A few days earlier, Miss Blanche and I attended the funeral for someone else in our circle. (And, had we been able to bilocate, we might have tried to get to a third funeral, for a friend's father.) So it's been a heavy time. We ask for your prayers for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed, and for all of us who are in mourning.

Roly was an avid sailor throughout his adult life, so the readings and hymns had a nautical theme. "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep..." (Psalm 107:23-30). "And [Jesus] awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!'" (Mark 4:35-41). At a family gathering last night, my mother recalled that when her brother was about 7, this gospel passage was to have been read by another child, who didn't show up in time, so he was asked to fill in at the last minute. Little Roly read with remarkable poise, only he pronounced the unfamiliar word as "rebucked."

Miss Blanche and I are way behind schedule with our wedding preparations, what with my move to the apartment that will be our shared home, and a bad cold, and this and that. We're trying to rein in our anxiety about the big day. Funerals, sad as they are, have helped remind us of the long view. So did last Wednesday's celebration of the 70th anniversary of the ordination of Monsignor Vincent Foy, a steadfast proponent of the culture of life and the foremost critic of the Canadian bishops' 1968 Winnipeg Statement. Through his experience as a parish priest and as the former head of Toronto's archdiocesan marriage tribunal, Msgr Foy has seen over and over again how contraception contributes to the breakdown of marriages. We wish all couples could hear what we learned about contraception during our marriage prep classes.

Last Wednesday was also the 65th anniversary of the ordination of Fr John Harvey, the founder of Courage--and the feast day of the Ugandan martyrs, who are Courage's patron saints. Msgr Foy is apparently a big fan of Fr Harvey, and we're fans of both.

Such are my scattered thoughts at the moment.