The Sheepcat

Mea Maxisisima Culpa, I Guess

I got a surprise just now while looking at my site meter. Seems someone came by after searching for "mea culpas"--would you believe my category is currently ranked fourth out of 16,895 hits?! That's some most grievous fault! Kind of makes me glad I can now resort privately to the Sacrament of Penance. (If you check the date on the first post, it's before I became Catholic.)

Looking Back to the Death of John Paul II

I just came across an old post of DREADNOUGHT's on the harmony between the manner of John Paul II's death and his consistent teaching against euthanasia such as is quoted below. Plenty of people wrote quite powerfully about this last year; this piece collects several illuminating links.

In this context the temptation grows to have recourse to euthanasia, that is, to take control of death and bring it about before its time, "gently" ending one's own life or the life of others. In reality, what might seem logical and humane, when looked at more closely is seen to be senseless and inhumane. Here we are faced with one of the more alarming symptoms of the "culture of death", which is advancing above all in prosperous societies, marked by an attitude of excessive preoccupation with efficiency and which sees the growing number of elderly and disabled people as intolerable and too burdensome. These people are very often isolated by their families and by society, which are organized almost exclusively on the basis of criteria of productive efficiency, according to which a hopelessly impaired life no longer has any value.

Just War--Ratzinger Then and Now

Chris Blosser, with the help of comboxer rcesq, looks at Benedict's recent "war is the worst solution" remarks in the context of his speech (as John Paul II's deputy) on the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

The comment thread is well worth reading too, if you can get past Chris Sullivan's amiably woolly-minded pacificism. Link via Insight Scoop.

Dragon Illusion

This is a wonderful optical illusion. This little dragon is made out of paper - you simply cut it out and stick it together, and stand it on a table or window ledge. But when you move around, the dragon's head seems to follow you around the room. Have a look at the video, to see what we mean. The effect is really uncanny.

Link via CAEI.

The United Nations Disability Treaty

The World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations responds to current negotiations toward a UN Disability Treaty.

Mr. Chairman, we respectfully disagree that the treaty does not articulate new rights. With respect to Article 25a and reproductive rights it is not a question of new rights but new possibilities by new technologies. We have, for example, the ability to study the 3-day-old embryo for chromosomal translocations or polysomy, marking these for termination.…

A society which seeks to reduce suffering by abortion or by euthanasia of a disabled newborn, or at any time thereafter, will devour itself. In truth the human condition ultimately finds each and every one of us disabled, physically, emotionally or psychologically.

Through my involvement in a forthcoming book on rights of people in Europe with disabilities, I found a link to the draft text of the convention. Can't say I had any luck at all trying to navigate the UN site directly.

She Wasn't Aborted

Journalist Julia Gorin responds to Ms Magazine's petition calling for women who have had an abortion to step forward and demand their reproductive freedom.

Like most Soviet-era fetuses conceived in Russia by couples who were already parents, I was scheduled for abortion as a matter of course. In a society where abortion was the only form of birth control, it wasn't uncommon to meet women who had double-digit abortion counts. Often a couple would schedule the appointment before they even stopped to remember that they wanted a second child.

…

We don't have a crystal ball, but there's someone who does, and there is a reason for every stork He sends along. I am religiously illiterate, but I have come to understand on the most visceral level why pregnancies are called "blessings"--even if, as often as not, the blessing comes in disguise.

Stephen Harper, Heartless Bastard

The CBC quotes Prime Minister Harper as saying,

I'm not concerned or preoccupied in  any way with reactions within individual communities. I think that reaction is very predictable.

That after a protester is shown speaking out passionately against "burning children and killing innocent people."  Blogging Tory Stephen Taylor reveals the distortion.

The "Ex-Gay" Debates

Over at Warren Throckmorton, Michael Bussee and others have at it over the early days of the ex-gay (or "ex-gay") organization Exodus. Scroll past the initial overheated battle over minutiae down to where Ed Hurst reports that Dr Throckmorton

suggested that Exodus adopt the phrase Sexual Identity Ministry (SIM) to replace "Ex-Gay Ministry". I've thought that one over and it sounds workable to me.
I even thought of a clever catch-phrase "SIM, just a step away from SIN." (Ok, if you don't know me, I am compulsive about word-plays and I also think a little bit of humor helps with a topic this weighty.)

The phrase only applies to the ministry not to the individual. In the past, we might have said "he's an ex-gay guy" where, with SIM, this wouldn't translate. So, I puzzled over what terminology we'd use for the individual and came up with a real winner. How about 'client'?

I was always troubled by the fact that it seemed we took people out of one box (or label) only to put them in another. The shift to Sexual Identity Ministry might actually serve to eliminate the label problem too.

Yep, I've noticed that "ex-gay" identity in some people I've met and recoiled, perhaps not always as far as I should have done, from the psychological stories that seem to explain everything.

Anyway, riffing off Mr Bussee's description …

You have to understand the context. It was not a mistake that EXODUS started at Melodyland. [Melodyland] was one part tent revival meeting and one part broadway musical. (Ironic that the choir director now conduts the Gay Men's Chorus of Orange County,)
There were [huge] "healing" services, lavish musical bumbers and stunning testimonies. It was alive with the energy of the Jesus Movement and Neo-pentacostalism.

Every day we heard of "ex" drug addicts and "ex" prostitutes and "ex" gang members. 

… comes Mr Hurst's further thought-provoking comparison of "the situational differences between attempting to leave the gay identity and attempting to leave drugs, prostitution and gangs":

1) With DPG a person can get totally removed from the source of their temptation. There isn't a bag of pot sitting on the pew beside you; there isn't someone in the church offering you money for your body and there certainly isn't anyone trying to provoke you into violent anti-societal behavior. But there may be people that you find attractive in both appearance and personality.You might work with them, pray with them, share your deepest struggles with them. (As a Bible school student, I roomed with them...saw them in their underwear. On one evangelism outreach, I even had to take group showers with them. The DPG don't go through that type of temptation!)

5) With DPG, psychology and society are in agreement that these lifestyles are dysfunctional but with homosexuality they actually debunk the notion of change. A former homosexual in the church is not immune to the sound of these voices and these voices also undercut the resolve.

Then most interestingly, Dr T writes:

Mr. Bussee says: "I am pleased to announce that Alan Chambers has asked me to join him for a joint press conference to officially RETIRE the misleading term "Ex-gay."' No word as yet if or when this might occur but from my vantage point, this would be a fine development.

For the comments, the Red Herring of the Week Award goes to the usually more thoughtful grantdale, a long-term gay couple:

Imagine telling a Hindu that unless they ate beef they could never eat at all? Imagine if their goodness depended on their willingness to eat beef? Imagine if, unless they ate beef, they would otherwise be excluded from full and equal participation in public life -- by law?

Pfft! Dr T's opponents go on to have a field day in the comment stream. Ho-hum. To my mind this is is all missing the point, as Mr Hurst eventually reminds everyone:

Mike, I found it ironic that you finished your last post with the illustration that ex-gay minstries were inappropriately using your marriage as 'proof'. Aren't you now using the failure of your marriage as 'proof' for the opposite point of view? The reality is that we are all human. We are all on a journey...learning different lessons...at different times. Failing a time or two (or three) along the way. But WE are not the measure. WE are not the standard. We do harm to ourselves and others when we lose sight of this.

I'd say this points to the peculiarly Protestant cultural underpinnings of the ex-gay movement, as Disputed Mutability was suggesting a while ago.

<long aside>

By the way, see her new post endorsing Christian ex-gay support groups, despite their imperfections as she experienced them. (Some of her remarks, I'd point out, would apply equally to Courage, which has never characterized itself as an ex-gay group.)

One day, a thought occurred to me.  What if I thought about my homosexual temptations in the same way I thought about my temptations to every other sin? Like pride, greed, or unrighteous anger?

Rather than focusing on trying to make the temptation go away, I focused on living with the temptation, doing battle with it, gaining mastery over it. I no longer worried about how it got there.

This worked amazingly well for me.  It got me to lighten up about my homosexual attractions. It helped me enjoy far greater peace and contentment than I knew before. It gave me a set of goals and a purpose that seemed more solidly Biblical to me than those recommended by these theories about what makes people homo-attracted. And, rather ironically, I got far better “change” results with this approach than I did with deliberately trying to get healing for my attractions according to those theories.

</long aside>

For it or agin 'em, the ex-gay claims and ex-ex-gay counterclaims are kind of irrelevant when moral codes are based not on private judgment but on the guarantee to God's people of "the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error" (CCC 890). In other words, there's a lot we don't know yet about the etiology (CCC 2357) and potential changeability of homosexual desire, but no outcome of these controversies can undermine the basic call to every last blessed one of us to live our whole lives in chastity, be it within or outside heterosexual marriage (CCC 2337-2350, esp. 2339, 2342).

Meanwhile, I've come across Jim Burroway's attempt to debunk various stats critical of the gay movement, etc. I hardly wish to offer a general endorsement--and besides, TLDR, as Eve Tushnet says--but I say good on him for tackling  Paul Cameron--of whom Eve doesn't think too highly either (see her sidebar link to this).

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Amy Welborn's open book has links on St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (whose memorial day was yesterday): "born and more well-known as Edith Stein, philosopher, Jewish convert to Catholicism, Carmelite nun, killed at Auschwitz."

DREADNOUGHT on Madonna's Esthetics

DREADNOUGHT's take on Madonna is a good deal more sympathetic than that of many in the Catholic world and beyond. He sure has a point about the esthetic centre of gravity within Catholicism.

Like Boy George's early adaptation of Chasidic aesthetics, Madonna's focus is not on guitar churches and easygoing priests, it's on hardline imagery (bleeding Christs, burning cross, hushed confessional stalls) and deeply orthodox doctrine (virginity, redemption, divinity). Ultimately, why shouldn't a dancefloor - that vortex of desire and human interaction - provide yet another venue for sacramental confession?

:: The Upshot ::

Other than being enjoyable per se, such culture-jamming opens the door to a subtle and more effective translation of Catholic ideas into secular orbits. We know that a middle-aged mother of two can make shells of Catholic culture irresistible to same sex attracted men. How much more appealing will real Catholicism appear, if only we have the courage to carry it into the heart of queer culture, if only we confess Christ crucified, even on the dancefloor?

I have to say, she plays with the imagery in a way that I can understand would cause many people offence and that often leaves me uncomfortable, but she hasn't managed to empty the symbols of their genuine power. She may not realize it, but they are greater than she is. For the time being, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Now, to answer Dread's first question: John, are you serious?? I can't see it myself. "That vortex" is it all right--insistent, throbbing music, flashing lights … the club dancefloor is the perfect venue for blotting out the still small voice that asks, "What are you doing here?" Is there any space on the dancefloor for someone to recognize contrition for what it is?

As for the second question, I'll venture into the bars on occasion, but I'm always concerned that I may fall into the sin of scandal. If you can show me how to evangelize within queer culture, sign me up.