Eve Tushnet and David Morrison both have written in recent weeks about ex-gay ministries and psychological programs that say they can heal homosexual desires. There is much wisdom in both of what these individuals say. Eve also followed up her NRO piece on her blog here (scroll down to the end of the day for about five posts) here and here.
As for my thoughts, I am a bit of a skeptic about these programs, because they tend to be based on historical-psychological theories for the genesis of homosexuality, and if that's true, then by definition, it can't be undone. You can't unlive your adolescence (you can try to recode it, sure, but I'm not sure wht this would help existentially ... the male body has a mind of its own and it's a hard thing to fool). But I have even less time for the attacks on these ministries, which I think presuppose a descriptively inaccurate understanding of sexuality -- the dominant-hand/eye-color model of something teleologically determined at birth (or so soon in one's pre-sexual conditioning as to make the distinction academic). I posted some of my thoughts at Amy Welborn's last month, and I've adapted my two or three notes into a few more paragraphs that I think stand up without the context of the back-and-forth:
As for the success of these programs, 'successful" sublimation of homosexual desire does not constitute 'becoming heterosexual,' if we understand these terms as ontological categories. But having desire for the opposite sex might constitute success, at least somewhat, and that IS common. What is rare is the complete elimination of homosexual desire -- in other words, therapy produces three sorts of results; all-straight, mixed (i.e., glass half-empty, half-full, howver you wish to slice it), and all-gay (i.e., complete failure). Whether this split is 33-33-33 or 20-40-40 or 5-5-90 is neither here nor there, ontologically. The point is that change is possible. The rigid division of persons into "gay" or "straight" orientations blinds us to this fact.
The problem is that "sexual orientation" (as our society understands and constructs that term) is not "one's essential being." To ask the question in reverse ... can a breeder change his behavior to the point where homosexuality becomes habitual and "normal" for him? Sure. And if he's propagandized sufficiently with the notion that he's now discovered his "true nature," he can develop the "orientation" as much as anyone else.
I agree that people should go into these programs, if at all (I have not) only with their eyes wide open, knowing what the chances of "success" are, and with realistic expectations. All too often, this caveat is undermined both by marketers eager to sell their product, and by the hopes of potential customers who want to be rid of what they see as a scourge (understandably also ... hey, remember that episode of The Brady Bunch where Dad warned eager-beaver pitcher Greg that out of millions of young boys, only one will go up to be a Don Drysdale. And Greg said, "well, I'm gonna be the one." It's like that.)
So yes, I agree that these things often are unsuccessful and shouldn't be oversold. Shame on those who do. I hope you enjoy your money. But the thing is, I don't think the APA/gay activist concern on this subject is disinterested and unideological. The general prevalence of failure or only-partial success doesn't distinguish anti-gay therapy from any other non-drug, non-intrusive (think "A Clockwork Orange") psychological treatment. And keep in mind that only the believing and highly-motivated should even enter such efforts in the first place (which BTW makes the "unscientific" charges ring hollow). If there were a (say) 30 percent success rate, that wouldn't mean 3 of 10 random men on Dupont Circle. But again, this doesn't distinguish anti-gay therapy. No therapy can ever work on someone determined to resist it or who thinks his condition is good.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
I ♥ NY again
... though I still ♥ the New York Times.
In an explicable outbreak of sanity, modesty and knowledge of their place in their scheme of government (which is NOT to make substantive moral choices), the New York state Supreme Court refused to impose gay marriage on the state. Money quote, from Cheryl Wetzstein of the Washington Times:
And ...
Reading those quotes practically produced a case of the Pepsi Syndrome on my computer. Since when have judges let legislatures decide moral issues? [/sarcasm] The second quote notes something remarkable -- a judge is acknowledging that the rational basis test is not a license for free-standing moral enquiry on rationality. Or in the words of Gerard Bradley in the matter of Martha Nussbaum's disgraceful lying in the Colorado Amendment 2 case:
I despise the rational-basis test in US courts because I don't think most people (especially those in some elite clersiy such as the legal profession) have the intellectual humility to realize that others can have rational reasons for disagreeing with them. "If I think X, it's because X is the verdict of reason, so anyone who thinks not-X must be doing so on non-rational grounds" is too common an implicit intellectual template (and actually as common on the natural-law right as the post-modern left) to give anyone the power to invalidate a law on the grounds of "rationality." Unless you actually WANT him (or them) to be dictator(s).
But read the excerpts Judge Smith's opinion, from the International Herald-Tribune. Everything is couched in the conditional (bold-face mine):
It's hard for me to overstate how joyful this decision makes me, quite apart from the particulars of gay marriage. A court is realizing that a Legislature could make a certain judgment rationally, without taking that as a license to judge the rationality of that judgment itself. That is, this court understood that value judgments are generally not their call. Gay activists have gotten so used to bypassing all public discussion, debate and persuasion with the cry "BIGOT!!!" that they just sputtered ... "how?" The Human Rights campaign called the decision "archaic" and "rooted in ignorance"; Lambda Legal said it denied that homosexuals "are full citizens of this state"; and in spectacular act of presuming one's own conclusion, the ACLU blustered that "there is simply no good reason" not to have gay marriage.
One quote from the dissent by Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye deserves to be unpacked. From the International Herald-Tribune:
This is, as far as it goes, true enough. The common understanding of marriage, who can marry, and why, etc., has indeed changed dramatically in nearly every way conceivable:
Age: Mahatma Gandhi was married as a little boy, before puberty, and this was far from unprecedented in the India of his time, and other cultures where parent-arranged marriages were the norm. Puberty has been generally understood as defining the ability to marry (for obvious reasons), while our current society generally discourages marriage until about the late-20s;
Consanguinity: While the principle is pretty near universal, its application has been very far from that, primarily in matters of cousin marriage. That is, in some societies, one can only marry someone of no known blood relationship at all, while in some others (particularly clan societies) a first cousin or a second cousin is possible, and in some cases even preferred (ditto);
Number: Obviously, polygamy is as old as marriage itself and is approvingly practiced to this very day in some societies, and even in our own among some religious sects, sub rosa. Multiple husband to one wife is rare, but not unheard of. And curiously (or not), AFAIK, the same-sex spouses have never been considered married to each other (there is a great Chinese film called "Raise the Red Lantern" about rivalry among wives;
Dissolubility: Again, whatever Our Lord may have said about "from the beginning, it was not so" divorce or annulment have been available in some or another form in many socieities and religions; in some others, not very easily; and in others, not at all. The social stigma attached to divorce has varied too, with India going all the way and killing widows on the funeral pyre (a practice called suttee);
Love: Marriage hasn't always been understood in romantic terms, and exclusive "love marriage" is a recent development. Most famously, Aristotle argued that the highest form of friendship (one based on character rather than utility or pleasure) was between equals, and thus not possible between men and women, or other superior-inferior groups. Greek men still married because they understood biology, but erotic love was generally thought to be same-sex. Socrates married Xanthippe, but still had his eyes captured by Lysis, Phaedrus and Alcibiades. And there was also Sappho of Lesbos (and yes, that's the derivation);
Dowry/Property: Today's custom that the father of the bride pays for the wedding is a residue of this practice, a way of providing for the bride and an assurance that she came from a good family. Otherwise, it's not generally practiced today in the West, but still is common in India. The reverse practice, called "bride price," is commoner in traditional African and American Indian societies -- it began as a form of the groom showing respect to the bride's father and showing his ability to be a good provider. (Feminists whine about both practices, which just shows how irrational they are.) And in Japan, marriage customs include both practices (sorta) -- the two families exchange a series of symbolic gifts. In our society, not until capitalism gained steam (about the time of Regency England) did marrying for property begin to be considered disgraceful gold-digging (Jane Austen sat on the cusp of the two eras, and this tension is the source of much of her drama);
Matchmaking: Again, our current practice -- the free choice of two autonomous parties -- is quite a recent development. The Church teaching has always been that the bride and groom marry one another, but family influence has waxed and waned considerably. Now, we believe the family has no real input, while at other times, even in our own culture, the family held at least a veto (ditto what I said above about Jane Austen). In other societies, marriages have been arranged outright -- sometimes with the children having a right to refuse, other times not;
Virginity: Generally, knowing another man has "spoiled" a woman (Jane Austen again -- Lydia and Mr. Wickham), but today, we don't think it does. And we consider it suspiciously overpious (if not downright eccentric) for a man to have had no experience before his wedding night.
That was longer than I intended ... but what I'm demonstrating is that I am under no illusions of the kind about which the dissenting New York judge thinks she needs to disabuse the likes of me. That one model of marriage has prevailed in human civilizations, or in our own throughout time, is not true. Correct. In many, many details -- including ones that we now consider (in a loose sense) "sacred" -- marriage is historically conditioned.
And yet ... something still strikes me. Despite all these myriad ways that marriage has differed throughout the 5,000 years of human civilization (I suspect I haven't scratched the surface; I am not an anthropologist), the one notable way it has NEVER differed is the centrality of the male-female union. As I noted above, even in plural marriages, the multiple wives were not married to each other, free to worship Sappho (sometimes they were friends; othertimes rivals; and probably in a few cases, Sappho came upon them). But unless the good judge's point is that any change in the understanding of an institution means the institution has no meaning per se, the fact that an institution has changed in every conceivable way BUT ONE seems to rather suggest that this one thing (male-female) constitutes marriage's essence (this is the classic Aristotelian way of defining, in fact; the unique feature constitutes the essence, distinguishing it from the "accidents," such as [in this case] dowry, number, age, love, etc.). The alternative is simply to say that marriage has no meaning at all, in which case, why not marry an animal, your children, etc.
Nor is this understanding of marriage as essentially male-female the result of ignorance or homophobia. Marriage has been understood as male-female in essence, even in societies with what-we-think-of as a more "tolerant" view of homosexuality. As I mentioned above, pederasty was a common and widely-admired practice among the Greeks [and Romans, to a lesser extent]. In many other primitive societies, rites of passage and periods of testing have involved same-sex sex acts and/or some form of same-sex love (sponsorship, adoption, brotherhood). What is completely unknown in human history (until historically speaking, five minutes ago) is a marriage parallel -- an exclusionary same-sex union that followed the same or parallel customs as opposite-sex unions. (And yes, I know of John Boswell and I also know that his books' account of social approval and gay marriage are incompetent fantasies based on tendentious eisegesis.)
Marriage *means* a man and a woman, so there is no such thing as a homosexual "marriage" (though there is same-sex "love" and same-sex sex acts). It's really that simple.
In an explicable outbreak of sanity, modesty and knowledge of their place in their scheme of government (which is NOT to make substantive moral choices), the New York state Supreme Court refused to impose gay marriage on the state. Money quote, from Cheryl Wetzstein of the Washington Times:
"We hold that the New York Constitution does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same sex," Judge Robert S. Smith said in the 4-2 ruling by the New York State Court of Appeals. "Whether such marriages should be recognized is a question to be addressed by the Legislature."
And ...
"If we were convinced that" state marriage law was "founded on nothing but prejudice ... we would hold it invalid, no matter how long its history," he wrote. But by "limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples, New York is not engaging in sex discrimination."
Reading those quotes practically produced a case of the Pepsi Syndrome on my computer. Since when have judges let legislatures decide moral issues? [/sarcasm] The second quote notes something remarkable -- a judge is acknowledging that the rational basis test is not a license for free-standing moral enquiry on rationality. Or in the words of Gerard Bradley in the matter of Martha Nussbaum's disgraceful lying in the Colorado Amendment 2 case:
Its defenders do not have to show that Finnis (for example) is right and that Nussbaum is wrong. Amendment 2 needs merely a rational basis, not the unequivocal verdict of reason. Its opponents needed to do more than rebut Finnis' account of the classical writers. They needed to show that his account is unreasonable or incompetent-not just debatable or inadequate.
I despise the rational-basis test in US courts because I don't think most people (especially those in some elite clersiy such as the legal profession) have the intellectual humility to realize that others can have rational reasons for disagreeing with them. "If I think X, it's because X is the verdict of reason, so anyone who thinks not-X must be doing so on non-rational grounds" is too common an implicit intellectual template (and actually as common on the natural-law right as the post-modern left) to give anyone the power to invalidate a law on the grounds of "rationality." Unless you actually WANT him (or them) to be dictator(s).
But read the excerpts Judge Smith's opinion, from the International Herald-Tribune. Everything is couched in the conditional (bold-face mine):
First, the Legislature could rationally decide that for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. ... The Legislature could find that this rationale for marriage does not apply with comparable force to same-sex couples. ... The Legislature could rationally believe that it is better, other things being equal, for children to grow up with both a mother and a father. ... It is obvious that there are exceptions to this general rule ... but the Legislature could find that the general rule will usually hold. ... In sum, there are rational grounds on which the Legislature could choose to restrict marriage to couples of opposite sex. ... A court should not lightly conclude that everyone ... was irrational, ignorant or bigoted. ...
It's hard for me to overstate how joyful this decision makes me, quite apart from the particulars of gay marriage. A court is realizing that a Legislature could make a certain judgment rationally, without taking that as a license to judge the rationality of that judgment itself. That is, this court understood that value judgments are generally not their call. Gay activists have gotten so used to bypassing all public discussion, debate and persuasion with the cry "BIGOT!!!" that they just sputtered ... "how?" The Human Rights campaign called the decision "archaic" and "rooted in ignorance"; Lambda Legal said it denied that homosexuals "are full citizens of this state"; and in spectacular act of presuming one's own conclusion, the ACLU blustered that "there is simply no good reason" not to have gay marriage.
One quote from the dissent by Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye deserves to be unpacked. From the International Herald-Tribune:
The claim that marriage has always had a single and unalterable meaning is a plain distortion of history. In truth, the common understanding of "marriage" has changed dramatically over the centuries.
This is, as far as it goes, true enough. The common understanding of marriage, who can marry, and why, etc., has indeed changed dramatically in nearly every way conceivable:
Age: Mahatma Gandhi was married as a little boy, before puberty, and this was far from unprecedented in the India of his time, and other cultures where parent-arranged marriages were the norm. Puberty has been generally understood as defining the ability to marry (for obvious reasons), while our current society generally discourages marriage until about the late-20s;
Consanguinity: While the principle is pretty near universal, its application has been very far from that, primarily in matters of cousin marriage. That is, in some societies, one can only marry someone of no known blood relationship at all, while in some others (particularly clan societies) a first cousin or a second cousin is possible, and in some cases even preferred (ditto);
Number: Obviously, polygamy is as old as marriage itself and is approvingly practiced to this very day in some societies, and even in our own among some religious sects, sub rosa. Multiple husband to one wife is rare, but not unheard of. And curiously (or not), AFAIK, the same-sex spouses have never been considered married to each other (there is a great Chinese film called "Raise the Red Lantern" about rivalry among wives;
Dissolubility: Again, whatever Our Lord may have said about "from the beginning, it was not so" divorce or annulment have been available in some or another form in many socieities and religions; in some others, not very easily; and in others, not at all. The social stigma attached to divorce has varied too, with India going all the way and killing widows on the funeral pyre (a practice called suttee);
Love: Marriage hasn't always been understood in romantic terms, and exclusive "love marriage" is a recent development. Most famously, Aristotle argued that the highest form of friendship (one based on character rather than utility or pleasure) was between equals, and thus not possible between men and women, or other superior-inferior groups. Greek men still married because they understood biology, but erotic love was generally thought to be same-sex. Socrates married Xanthippe, but still had his eyes captured by Lysis, Phaedrus and Alcibiades. And there was also Sappho of Lesbos (and yes, that's the derivation);
Dowry/Property: Today's custom that the father of the bride pays for the wedding is a residue of this practice, a way of providing for the bride and an assurance that she came from a good family. Otherwise, it's not generally practiced today in the West, but still is common in India. The reverse practice, called "bride price," is commoner in traditional African and American Indian societies -- it began as a form of the groom showing respect to the bride's father and showing his ability to be a good provider. (Feminists whine about both practices, which just shows how irrational they are.) And in Japan, marriage customs include both practices (sorta) -- the two families exchange a series of symbolic gifts. In our society, not until capitalism gained steam (about the time of Regency England) did marrying for property begin to be considered disgraceful gold-digging (Jane Austen sat on the cusp of the two eras, and this tension is the source of much of her drama);
Matchmaking: Again, our current practice -- the free choice of two autonomous parties -- is quite a recent development. The Church teaching has always been that the bride and groom marry one another, but family influence has waxed and waned considerably. Now, we believe the family has no real input, while at other times, even in our own culture, the family held at least a veto (ditto what I said above about Jane Austen). In other societies, marriages have been arranged outright -- sometimes with the children having a right to refuse, other times not;
Virginity: Generally, knowing another man has "spoiled" a woman (Jane Austen again -- Lydia and Mr. Wickham), but today, we don't think it does. And we consider it suspiciously overpious (if not downright eccentric) for a man to have had no experience before his wedding night.
That was longer than I intended ... but what I'm demonstrating is that I am under no illusions of the kind about which the dissenting New York judge thinks she needs to disabuse the likes of me. That one model of marriage has prevailed in human civilizations, or in our own throughout time, is not true. Correct. In many, many details -- including ones that we now consider (in a loose sense) "sacred" -- marriage is historically conditioned.
And yet ... something still strikes me. Despite all these myriad ways that marriage has differed throughout the 5,000 years of human civilization (I suspect I haven't scratched the surface; I am not an anthropologist), the one notable way it has NEVER differed is the centrality of the male-female union. As I noted above, even in plural marriages, the multiple wives were not married to each other, free to worship Sappho (sometimes they were friends; othertimes rivals; and probably in a few cases, Sappho came upon them). But unless the good judge's point is that any change in the understanding of an institution means the institution has no meaning per se, the fact that an institution has changed in every conceivable way BUT ONE seems to rather suggest that this one thing (male-female) constitutes marriage's essence (this is the classic Aristotelian way of defining, in fact; the unique feature constitutes the essence, distinguishing it from the "accidents," such as [in this case] dowry, number, age, love, etc.). The alternative is simply to say that marriage has no meaning at all, in which case, why not marry an animal, your children, etc.
Nor is this understanding of marriage as essentially male-female the result of ignorance or homophobia. Marriage has been understood as male-female in essence, even in societies with what-we-think-of as a more "tolerant" view of homosexuality. As I mentioned above, pederasty was a common and widely-admired practice among the Greeks [and Romans, to a lesser extent]. In many other primitive societies, rites of passage and periods of testing have involved same-sex sex acts and/or some form of same-sex love (sponsorship, adoption, brotherhood). What is completely unknown in human history (until historically speaking, five minutes ago) is a marriage parallel -- an exclusionary same-sex union that followed the same or parallel customs as opposite-sex unions. (And yes, I know of John Boswell and I also know that his books' account of social approval and gay marriage are incompetent fantasies based on tendentious eisegesis.)
Marriage *means* a man and a woman, so there is no such thing as a homosexual "marriage" (though there is same-sex "love" and same-sex sex acts). It's really that simple.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
I ♥ NY
There may be elements of wishful thinking in this New York Times report on a homosexual "marriage" ruling, expected today in New York state supreme court. But as an object lesson in the New York Times' agenda on homosexual issues, how it's barely more than cheerleading for the Human Rights Campaign et al, the article is just this side of unbeatable. You can see the hopeful anticipation seeping through the article in phrases like:
● "[W]hether to permit gay and lesbian marriages in the state" in the story's lead paragraph. Which phrasing presupposes that there is any such thing as a gay and lesbian "marriage" in the first place, something that the state can "permit" (or "ban") as it pleases. The whole case against homosexual marriage is that marriage MEANS a man and a woman and that there 'tain't no such thing as gay marriage, any more than four-sided triangles or male pregnancy (insert Monty Python joke here).
● "The most sweeping would be a clear affirmation of a constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry" in the second paragraph. Which phrasing presupposes that there is such a right, one that needs "affirming" rather than being "created" from whole cloth. And doing so in a "clear" way; clarity always being good you understand (and I doubt the Bowersprecedent abberation was ever called "clear" by the NYT). The controlling worldview is that gay marriage is a reality that our bigoted society just needs to acknowledge and be liberated toward.
● The first direct quotation from Stephen Gillers of NYU: "The question is whether they can intellectually do what I think intuitively and emotionally they'd like to do." As a piece of legal prognostication, this is nothing short of a shocking admission (albeit probably true) that what matters is not what the law or precedents say, but what the judges "intuitively and emotionally [would] like to do." The intellectual work -- the legal analysis, in other words; the supposed expertise that earns judges their legitimacy as rather than a super-legislature, deciding value conflicts -- is slave to the wish.
● "[L]awyers noted that the Court of Appeals has a long history of trailblazing, going back to a golden age in the 1920's under Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo." Which phrasing presupposing that "trailblazing" in matters of legal issues, is something good. Otherwise an era of it wouldn't be called a "golden age," but a "dark age." Can you imagine the 12th century being called "the golden age of religious authority"; if you can't, you see my point.
● "[W]hether to permit gay and lesbian marriages in the state" in the story's lead paragraph. Which phrasing presupposes that there is any such thing as a gay and lesbian "marriage" in the first place, something that the state can "permit" (or "ban") as it pleases. The whole case against homosexual marriage is that marriage MEANS a man and a woman and that there 'tain't no such thing as gay marriage, any more than four-sided triangles or male pregnancy (insert Monty Python joke here).
● "The most sweeping would be a clear affirmation of a constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry" in the second paragraph. Which phrasing presupposes that there is such a right, one that needs "affirming" rather than being "created" from whole cloth. And doing so in a "clear" way; clarity always being good you understand (and I doubt the Bowers
● The first direct quotation from Stephen Gillers of NYU: "The question is whether they can intellectually do what I think intuitively and emotionally they'd like to do." As a piece of legal prognostication, this is nothing short of a shocking admission (albeit probably true) that what matters is not what the law or precedents say, but what the judges "intuitively and emotionally [would] like to do." The intellectual work -- the legal analysis, in other words; the supposed expertise that earns judges their legitimacy as rather than a super-legislature, deciding value conflicts -- is slave to the wish.
● "[L]awyers noted that the Court of Appeals has a long history of trailblazing, going back to a golden age in the 1920's under Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo." Which phrasing presupposing that "trailblazing" in matters of legal issues, is something good. Otherwise an era of it wouldn't be called a "golden age," but a "dark age." Can you imagine the 12th century being called "the golden age of religious authority"; if you can't, you see my point.
Does Jesus love porn stars?
The answer to that question has got to be "yes." After all, it's bedrock Christian doctrine, held by all this side of Fred Phelps, that God loves us all as His children and wants us all to be His. Now this is not at all the same thing as "Jesus loves what porn stars do" ... duh. And it doesn't mean that a porn star who loved Jesus would keep being a porn star ... double duh. After all, Our Lord both saved the women caught in adultery and told her "go and sin no more."
This is not advanced exigesis of Von Baltasar in the original German. This is fairly basic Mere Christianity, one would think. But apparently not for some. XXX Church describes itself as the "#1 Christian Porn Site" but it's really a ministry to the porn industry and to those suffering from pornography's effects. Some people don't like that. From the news article:
I can understand a certain "not my style" reaction to the gaudy New Testament covers, the free translation style, the nonobservance of certain forms of social piety, including such deliberately provocative phrasings as "#1 Christian porn site." There's an instant knee-jerk backlash among some Christians, understandable to a degree and borne of one too many guitar Masses or visits from "Bishop" Spong, to anything that looks too modern, not that old-time religion. (But c'mon ... Christ would never use the word "sex"; and coming from someone who does feel comfortable using the word "whore.")
But I think what many current Christians, especially those who do not or have not struggled with ... ahem ... sexual compulsion, do not realize is what "reaching people where they are" means. Excessive surface piety and a condemnatory attitude (in this day and age of socially-approved libertinism, at least) only pushes away. David Morrison once criticized a right-wing Catholic columnist on the issue of same-sex-attracted priests, saying that her heresies and attitude and arguments were, effectively if not intentionally, counter-witness. Here's his description of the mental dynamic of a proud sexual sinner in his comment fields.
It would be one thing if there were any porn on the XXXChurch site or links thereto, or if they were pushing bad beliefs. But all that is at the site is perfectly orthodox in content, there's free anti-porn software for downloading. Yeah, there's a flambuoyant or impudent style to it all. But this site's critics cannot get blinded by such inessentials, the things on which that modernist heretic St. Augustine said there should be liberty. And y'know what ... whatever self-promoting streak Mahon and Gross have (and they clearly have one) ... at least they're there. They're at porn conventions, trying to minister to those most in need of Him and those whom I (and millions of other Christians obviously) have helped corrupt through my own sin. And ask yourself honestly ... if you're far-gone enough to be degrading yourself for money, on film and tape for all the world to see forever -- is the title "Jesus loves porn stars" make you more or less likely to open a book than "Porn stars are evil."
This is not advanced exigesis of Von Baltasar in the original German. This is fairly basic Mere Christianity, one would think. But apparently not for some. XXX Church describes itself as the "#1 Christian Porn Site" but it's really a ministry to the porn industry and to those suffering from pornography's effects. Some people don't like that. From the news article:
But some believe there are better ways to attract potential converts.
"Christ would never compromise or stoop to their level. Mary came to him, remember? He didn't go to the whore house using words like sex and porn," said a typical entry in the hate mail section of the XXXchurch website.
"It's nothing but a gimmick to you, an excuse to mingle with the perverts. You talk more about porn than you do Jesus Christ," it said.
Mahon admits his ministry has received mixed reactions in the Christian community. "When we first started this thing four years ago, some people looked at us and thought we were working for the devil," Mahon said.
The young ministers also had trouble finding a publisher for their porn-fighting Bible. The American Bible Society, one of the oldest Bible publishers in the US, refused to print it.
"Out of a sense of propriety, ABS felt that the wording 'Jesus Loves Porn Stars' was misleading and inappropriate for a New Testament cover," the company said in April.
I can understand a certain "not my style" reaction to the gaudy New Testament covers, the free translation style, the nonobservance of certain forms of social piety, including such deliberately provocative phrasings as "#1 Christian porn site." There's an instant knee-jerk backlash among some Christians, understandable to a degree and borne of one too many guitar Masses or visits from "Bishop" Spong, to anything that looks too modern, not that old-time religion. (But c'mon ... Christ would never use the word "sex"; and coming from someone who does feel comfortable using the word "whore.")
But I think what many current Christians, especially those who do not or have not struggled with ... ahem ... sexual compulsion, do not realize is what "reaching people where they are" means. Excessive surface piety and a condemnatory attitude (in this day and age of socially-approved libertinism, at least) only pushes away. David Morrison once criticized a right-wing Catholic columnist on the issue of same-sex-attracted priests, saying that her heresies and attitude and arguments were, effectively if not intentionally, counter-witness. Here's his description of the mental dynamic of a proud sexual sinner in his comment fields.
Father before, and even after, I came to belief in Christ I used to have a little box in my mind into which I put "Christians" and attitudes I understood to be "Christian." While the little box would not have provided me the sufficient argument to intellectually defend eschewing Christ, it was enough of a disincentive to keep the question from arising. That is what I think this sort of thing does, just like [Fred] Phelps' signs, they put one more brake on, one more brick in the barricade.
It would be one thing if there were any porn on the XXXChurch site or links thereto, or if they were pushing bad beliefs. But all that is at the site is perfectly orthodox in content, there's free anti-porn software for downloading. Yeah, there's a flambuoyant or impudent style to it all. But this site's critics cannot get blinded by such inessentials, the things on which that modernist heretic St. Augustine said there should be liberty. And y'know what ... whatever self-promoting streak Mahon and Gross have (and they clearly have one) ... at least they're there. They're at porn conventions, trying to minister to those most in need of Him and those whom I (and millions of other Christians obviously) have helped corrupt through my own sin. And ask yourself honestly ... if you're far-gone enough to be degrading yourself for money, on film and tape for all the world to see forever -- is the title "Jesus loves porn stars" make you more or less likely to open a book than "Porn stars are evil."
Monday, June 19, 2006
I will never understand gay ideology ...
Here is the newly-elected head priestess of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, from a CNN interview as reported by Reuters (scroll to second page):
OK ... let's parse this. The Bible has a lot to say about the meaning of life, but nothing about diet and dress. Fair enough, in itself (I'm Catholic, not a fundamentalist; I can hardly deny that statement, as far as it goes).
So what then, must the bishop be saying about homosexuality? Presumably, to make her categories fit her analogy, it would have to be that homosexuality fits into the diet-and-dress template, and not meaning-of-life issues (like ethnic diversity, say). Diet and dress are matters of indifference, of accident. Or at most, a temporally-defined matter -- prohibitions that might have been valid at one time but not now. "Don't eat shellfish" was right in ancient times, but made obsolete by refrigeration, Saran Wrap, Tupperware, etc. If sexuality, or the sex of one's beloved, truly is a "meaning of life" matter, then what the Bible has to say about it presumably would be salient -- and none of it is *good,* whatever ambiguities we might read into Romans 1, "para phusin" and "pathe atimias"). But we don't need to worry about that.
But, but ... if homosexuality is a matter resembling diet and dress -- why is it so important to anybody's life? Why is gay "marriage" so necessary? How could any teaching against its practice be as ornery, inhumane or degrading as we constantly hear the Church's teaching on it described as. "Don't mix cotton and silk" or "don't eat crabcakes" might be stupid or asinine or any other number of unkind adjectives, but they could hardly be called "oppressive" "hateful" "phobic" or the like. I could never see another shrimp scampi in my life and I would hardly be any the worse for it (in fact, my waistline might be the better for it). Nor does the fact I can't sue people for discriminating against the Langostavore Community any great hardship on me.
On the one hand, homosexuality is a matter of indifference; with the other, it's the essence of life, the meaning of existence and all that. When it suits the gay propagandists, as in exigesis of the Old and New Testaments, sexuality is a mere taste preference, with no great import. And when it suits the gay propagandists, as in exigesis of (say) civil-rights laws and the 14th Amendment, sexuality is the immutable WHO I AM, and everything depends on it. Heads I win; tails you lose.
Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions.
"The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -- there are rules in the Bible about those that we don't observe today," she said.
"The Bible tells us how to treat other human beings and that is certainly the great message of Jesus to include the unincluded."
OK ... let's parse this. The Bible has a lot to say about the meaning of life, but nothing about diet and dress. Fair enough, in itself (I'm Catholic, not a fundamentalist; I can hardly deny that statement, as far as it goes).
So what then, must the bishop be saying about homosexuality? Presumably, to make her categories fit her analogy, it would have to be that homosexuality fits into the diet-and-dress template, and not meaning-of-life issues (like ethnic diversity, say). Diet and dress are matters of indifference, of accident. Or at most, a temporally-defined matter -- prohibitions that might have been valid at one time but not now. "Don't eat shellfish" was right in ancient times, but made obsolete by refrigeration, Saran Wrap, Tupperware, etc. If sexuality, or the sex of one's beloved, truly is a "meaning of life" matter, then what the Bible has to say about it presumably would be salient -- and none of it is *good,* whatever ambiguities we might read into Romans 1, "para phusin" and "pathe atimias"). But we don't need to worry about that.
But, but ... if homosexuality is a matter resembling diet and dress -- why is it so important to anybody's life? Why is gay "marriage" so necessary? How could any teaching against its practice be as ornery, inhumane or degrading as we constantly hear the Church's teaching on it described as. "Don't mix cotton and silk" or "don't eat crabcakes" might be stupid or asinine or any other number of unkind adjectives, but they could hardly be called "oppressive" "hateful" "phobic" or the like. I could never see another shrimp scampi in my life and I would hardly be any the worse for it (in fact, my waistline might be the better for it). Nor does the fact I can't sue people for discriminating against the Langostavore Community any great hardship on me.
On the one hand, homosexuality is a matter of indifference; with the other, it's the essence of life, the meaning of existence and all that. When it suits the gay propagandists, as in exigesis of the Old and New Testaments, sexuality is a mere taste preference, with no great import. And when it suits the gay propagandists, as in exigesis of (say) civil-rights laws and the 14th Amendment, sexuality is the immutable WHO I AM, and everything depends on it. Heads I win; tails you lose.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
'Romano DID NOT bend my life'
During my absence, I got a couple of e-mails from the subject of a post last month. J. David Enright IV wrote to protest that the New York Post got wrong the details of his threatened lawsuit, with their Page One tabloid head (quoting from memory): "Suit: Priest made me gay."
His initial note to me said:
Here's a link to the post Mr. Enright refers to by homosexual journalist Wayne Besen. The article also contains a link to the initial column Besen wrote, denouncing Mr. Enright.
I responded in part:
He responded, in part, as follows:
As Mr. Besen wrote, the Post stands by its story, and it has not issued any corrections as best I can tell. As long as Mr. Enright's lawsuit will say what he says it will say (or not say, actually) and he says the molestation did not "make me gay," then I withdraw the comments I made about his lawsuit and case, plus the snarky asides.
I do not, however, withdraw the general point that the gay ideologues' insistence on homosexuality's supposed inborn-ness or God-given-ness in on a collision course with reality and even the pro-gay APA itself.
His initial note to me said:
Tidy thinking and writing. The NY POST being the sensationalistic tabloid it is portrayed me as quite the jackass. NO, Father Romano's molestation did not make me gay and I was adamant about this with the reporter as I noted him attempting to steer me in that direction. Pls. refer to Wayne Besen's blog reportage ... he checked the facts, interviewed me and hopefully the false accusation will dry up.
Here's a link to the post Mr. Enright refers to by homosexual journalist Wayne Besen. The article also contains a link to the initial column Besen wrote, denouncing Mr. Enright.
I responded in part:
But I'd like to know what you're saying the Post got wrong. Are you saying the Post made up the quote from whole cloth? Or are you saying you said something they misconstrued (though it's hard to see what's ambiguous about "I believe that my life would be very different now ... I'd probably be married, living in Greenwich, with four children in boarding school.")
As I interpret the NYPost story, you've merely filed notice to sue, not the actual suit. May I take this note to mean that when the lawsuit proper is filed, it will not cite "making me gay" or anything similar as part of the damages you would be seeking to collect.
He responded, in part, as follows:
I never said that Joseph Romano "made me gay" which would be a ridiculous assertion. Yes, The Post made that up all by themselves. Father Romano introduced me to homosexuality by repeatedly molesting me as a seven- eight-year old child explaining that it was an accepted "rite of passage." He, given his stature, told me that to lie, to cover-up, tell no one, was also part of growing up. He forced a "dirty little secret" upon a child with his sexual molestations. He caused elaborate childhood depression robbing me of an otherwise happy childhood. At such a tender age, sexuality isn't even part of most children's thinking. Whether it had been hetero or homosexual pedophilia, I knew something wasn't quite right - the man damaged my natural happy and curious spirit. He stole a big chunk of my childhood away from me and that is what this suit (in part) is all about. He did BEND my life dramatically by his pathetic, sick deviate child molestation.
Whether I'd be living in Greenwich with a wife and children in school, otherwise, is anyone's guess. The Post swamped me
on this as well. The answer is, who knows what might have been? My issues with Father Romano and the Diocese of Albany (NY) are far larger than what has been suggested by The New York Post, a sensationalistic tabloid where I bet a young reporter could learn plenty - hands on - about yellow journalism.
AND
No, my actual suit will not have any mention of Romano "making me gay." Now that would be preposterous.
Yes, The Post did a hatchet job with my words and intent for the sake of their sensationalistic journalism and ambition to sell newspapers. Thank you for checking Mr. Besen.
As Mr. Besen wrote, the Post stands by its story, and it has not issued any corrections as best I can tell. As long as Mr. Enright's lawsuit will say what he says it will say (or not say, actually) and he says the molestation did not "make me gay," then I withdraw the comments I made about his lawsuit and case, plus the snarky asides.
I do not, however, withdraw the general point that the gay ideologues' insistence on homosexuality's supposed inborn-ness or God-given-ness in on a collision course with reality and even the pro-gay APA itself.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
What West Coast diocese?
Time magazine has an article on how the Church uses head-shrinkers, including some non-Catholics and others not especially sympathetic to Church teachings, to learn about prospective and current seminarians' sexuality, sexual history and other mental-health related matters.
Obviously there's dangers in using psychiatrists given the American Psychiatric Association's PC litmus tests on homosexuality, but the article is informative on how the Church does and doesn't use head-shrinkers, and in principle there can be nothing wrong with making use of secular expertise in at least some fields (to pick an uncontroversial example, a good carpenter who is Protestant is preferable to a bad one who is Catholic. Though I hear Jewish carpenters are best of all.)
But one passage in the second section caught my eye:
Did everybody catch that? ... one West Coast diocese ... [asked the head-shrinker] to keep homosexual designation out of his final reports." I wonder what West Coast diocese that might have been. Hmmm ... there are other possibilities too numerous to allow the listing of every potential suspect.
And there's more to be disturbed about. One of the big excuses for bishop malfeasance in re The Situation was that "the expert head-shrinkers told us pedophiles could be cured." Set aside all the various ways this is not an argument even if true -- this little tidbit buried in the Time article still indicates that the dioceses are the dog and the head-shrinkers the tail in their relationship (thus giving the factual lie to the bishops' post hoc excuse).
But even beyond that, the "please don't tell us" bit also illustrates the depth of the American Church's contempt for Rome, and the way large chunks of it are essentially wedded to the homosexual agenda. If we have to do X if we know something ... don't tell us that something. In discussing The Document None of Us Have Seen, those of us skeptical of the reports it would issue a blanket ban on all homosexual men argued that it wouldn't really address the problem because AmChurch would just ignore it. I consider us vindicated.
Obviously there's dangers in using psychiatrists given the American Psychiatric Association's PC litmus tests on homosexuality, but the article is informative on how the Church does and doesn't use head-shrinkers, and in principle there can be nothing wrong with making use of secular expertise in at least some fields (to pick an uncontroversial example, a good carpenter who is Protestant is preferable to a bad one who is Catholic. Though I hear Jewish carpenters are best of all.)
But one passage in the second section caught my eye:
When a psychologist reports a candidate's describing his prior dating life as "'I didn't go with a girl, I went with a guy for three years,' that's usually a game stopper," says Monsignor Steven Rohlfs, rector at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmetsburg, Md. But most in his position are more accepting. Plante reports that one West Coast diocese responded to rumors of Rome's new hard line by asking him to keep homosexual designation out of his final reports, for fear it would hurt gay priests' careers down the line.
Did everybody catch that? ... one West Coast diocese ... [asked the head-shrinker] to keep homosexual designation out of his final reports." I wonder what West Coast diocese that might have been. Hmmm ... there are other possibilities too numerous to allow the listing of every potential suspect.
And there's more to be disturbed about. One of the big excuses for bishop malfeasance in re The Situation was that "the expert head-shrinkers told us pedophiles could be cured." Set aside all the various ways this is not an argument even if true -- this little tidbit buried in the Time article still indicates that the dioceses are the dog and the head-shrinkers the tail in their relationship (thus giving the factual lie to the bishops' post hoc excuse).
But even beyond that, the "please don't tell us" bit also illustrates the depth of the American Church's contempt for Rome, and the way large chunks of it are essentially wedded to the homosexual agenda. If we have to do X if we know something ... don't tell us that something. In discussing The Document None of Us Have Seen, those of us skeptical of the reports it would issue a blanket ban on all homosexual men argued that it wouldn't really address the problem because AmChurch would just ignore it. I consider us vindicated.
'Romano bent my life'
A "Which Part of Our Ideology Is Most Important? test is coming up, according to a report in the New York Post (link below requires subscription). A New York socialite (J. David Enright IV ... I am not kidding) claims he was made gay by repeated sexual abuse at age 7 by a priest. J. David Enright IV is planning to sue the Catholic Diocese of Albany, the bishop and the priest in question.
This puts the homosexual groups and the jurist class (to the extent they are distinguishable) in a quandary in my opinion. Do they follow Worldview Postulate (1) "Stick it to the Catholic Church"; Postulate (2) "Homosexuality is an inherent given"; or Postulate (3) "Being Gay is Super (Thanks for Asking)"
If (2) is true, and that's the Gay Orthodoxy (remember the "God made Mary Cheney gay" shrieks last fall), then the sexual abuse, horrible and legally-actionable though it may have been in itself, could not have had anything to do with J. David Enright IV's current adult homosexuality. And so (1) goes by the wayside. Further, if suffering same-sex sex-abuse as a child disposes one toward homosexuality, then *there* is the perfectly rational basis for excluding homosexuals from Scout leaders, teachers, priests, adoptive parents or any other positions with access to children or authority over them.
If (3) is true, and the gay groups obviously have to say THAT, then there's no legal cause for action at all. No harm has been done to this man J. David Enright IV by being made gay. And so (1) goes by the wayside. Further, this man doesn't seem to have damaged much in his life prospects in general, and he seems to move in those social circles least likely to disapprove of homosexuality. And the New York Post, bless their working-class tabloid hearts, plays this part up -- "dressed in a custom-made English suit and French cuffed shirt." (Ouch.)
Will (1) go by the wayside? My inner cynic says no. Some rationale will be cooked up.
This puts the homosexual groups and the jurist class (to the extent they are distinguishable) in a quandary in my opinion. Do they follow Worldview Postulate (1) "Stick it to the Catholic Church"; Postulate (2) "Homosexuality is an inherent given"; or Postulate (3) "Being Gay is Super (Thanks for Asking)"
If (2) is true, and that's the Gay Orthodoxy (remember the "God made Mary Cheney gay" shrieks last fall), then the sexual abuse, horrible and legally-actionable though it may have been in itself, could not have had anything to do with J. David Enright IV's current adult homosexuality. And so (1) goes by the wayside. Further, if suffering same-sex sex-abuse as a child disposes one toward homosexuality, then *there* is the perfectly rational basis for excluding homosexuals from Scout leaders, teachers, priests, adoptive parents or any other positions with access to children or authority over them.
If (3) is true, and the gay groups obviously have to say THAT, then there's no legal cause for action at all. No harm has been done to this man J. David Enright IV by being made gay. And so (1) goes by the wayside. Further, this man doesn't seem to have damaged much in his life prospects in general, and he seems to move in those social circles least likely to disapprove of homosexuality. And the New York Post, bless their working-class tabloid hearts, plays this part up -- "dressed in a custom-made English suit and French cuffed shirt." (Ouch.)
Will (1) go by the wayside? My inner cynic says no. Some rationale will be cooked up.
Friday, October 07, 2005
The other side
This site might look like I am down on orthodox/rightist/conservative¹ Catholicism, posting mostly about The Document. But that's merely a function of having expectations of people. As much as it might subjectively sting to hear that "men" like myself are somehow not really men, it's objectively-speaking nothing compared to the proudly-hateful, anti-intellectual, butt-ignorant and frankly-psychotic attitudes toward Catholicism that *constitute the mainstream* at the progressive-left end of the spectrum. Every so often, it's good to be reminded of that.
Earlier today, I was searching GoogleNews for an AP link to the Document story and I got the Huffington Post, among others. As I sit down to write this, there are 65 comments to the Reuters article I linked to below. These are the samples from just the first 25:
There is a difference between annoying and nauseatingly evil.
¹ Yeah, yeah ... none of these terms is perfect.
Earlier today, I was searching GoogleNews for an AP link to the Document story and I got the Huffington Post, among others. As I sit down to write this, there are 65 comments to the Reuters article I linked to below. These are the samples from just the first 25:
When is this monolithic institution going to finally crumble under its own weight? Hopefully, taking with it, the non-thinking, non-feeling members it attracts to its cult(ure).
-----------
You know what this means guys...
That’s right,
#1) no more penances for touching yourself.
#2) All good fags get go to heaven.
-----------
Everyone remember: dense thinking comes in all religious flavors.
"Drink from the cup of hate and you end hating." Matthew 10:7
-----------
In other words the Kingdom of God shall not be occupied by human beings. Sounds like a lousy place to end up, this 'Kingdom of God'. Good thing it's all just silly fantasy made up by angry impotent men who hate women.
-----------
And just how does one 'prove' they've been celibate for three years?
Guess this underscores just how bad off the Catholic Church is these days in their efforts to recruit new perverts to fill the ranks of the clergy.
-----------
I just think that the all the lace and robes that the pope wears looks an awful lot like drag to me.
-----------
This is going to open up a whole new area of religious controversy, summed up by the question:'How many angels and devils will fit on the engorged head of a gay priest's erection?'
-----------
I find it difficult to respect and give any credence to a fascist organization run by a Nazi. Pope Benedict XVI IS a Nazi. There is no doubt about it. Not only is he a Nazi but Joaquin Navarro Valls is a member of Opus Dei which was founded by a staunch supporter of Franco. The RC Church, thanks to the "good" JPII boo, is now in the hands of the good ol' New Spanish Inquisition (Opus Dei). The Vatican, as well as the city of Rome, is overrun with Opus Dei members, whose founder was placed on the VERY fast track to sainthood as now is JPII. I'm sure Christ is spinning where he is as is John XXIII.
So that "they" condemn homosexuality as an evil is beyond my comprehention coming from the devil's minions themselves.
-----------
Vatican sounds a lot like the current White House administration--lies upon lies upon lies, then burying the truth so much (child-moleting priests) that their leaders forget why they joined "the club" in the first place!
-----------
Does anyone else regard 'biblical scholarship' as an oxymoron? Such as the 'science of resurrection'? The 'physiology of virgin birth'? The 'intelligence of Robertson'? The 'wisdom of Dobson'? The 'knowledge of Falwell'? The 'competence of Bush'?
There is a difference between annoying and nauseatingly evil.
¹ Yeah, yeah ... none of these terms is perfect.
My addiction
"What does cocaine make you feel like. It makes you feel like having more cocaine."
-- George Carlin
I have two interrelated compulsions that constantly threaten to consume my soul -- to Internet porn and to self-abuse. I can't say no to them, even though I know they are both wrong. And have repeatedly confessed to them through tears. There. I've said it.
In all honesty, before I had Internet access at home, porn was never a serious problem for me. Sure, I would steal glances or extra-long looks at masculine or beefcake images in legitimate magazines, TV shows and movies (I had done that since before puberty). But such furtive looks often occur in public and around others, so taking it to the next impure step was not an option. And an awareness of the closet and your public persona as a devoutly orthodox Catholic will do what fear of God's (future and thus in some sense unreal) wrath might not. Sneaking into the red-light district in a trenchcoat with a hat pulled over my face on a rain-swept night -- it was not me. I was better than that. Better than them. I knew that.
What's so pernicious about Internet porn that makes it qualitatively different from hard-copy porn is that it's available privately (so avoiding public shame), and just one click of the mouse away (or at most two; for the "subscribers-only section," where they keep the best stuff). I have already clicked the keyboard hundreds of times while working on this (at this instant less-than-half-done) post. In fact, and to my shame, I would sometimes post on some orthodox Catholic site about something-or-other, click twice, sate myself, and then go back to posting. Let's face it, most people (myself not excluded) are slothful about most things. We'll do what's most convenient. Internet porn is just too damn easy. To use economist's language, the barriers to market entry for the purchaser are nonexistent. It's like putting an unlimited supply of cocaine before the lab rat, available at a touch.
But it also contributed to my depression -- within five minutes of finishing, I'd be angry at myself for stumbling again. The humiliation would then make me want to act out again, and sometimes not especially for pleasure's sake, but as a way of deliberately hurting myself bodily or defiling my soul. I would be like someone who scratches himself bloody. And the bloody wounds itch, so then you need to scratch them some more, etc. All the while knowing I was doing something wrong and immoral, that I'd have to admit in shame to my confessor (now someone who knows me as a human being). But I'd had so much cocaine that I needed more cocaine.
I did some things around my computer space to deter myself. As I look to my left, I have taped to my desk overhang a laminated Divine Mercy card from the Archdiocese of Krakow, with a picture of the altar at St. Faustina's church. As I look in a prominent place to my right, I have from the health department the results of a negative HIV test (suffice to say the contrary result was not impossible). I can't say either helped tremendously, particularly since hatred and resentment toward God on the one hand and self-destructiveness on the other are factors that have motivated my bad behavior. And frankly, there was pleasure too and an inability from years of inexperience to imagine what life could be like without wanking daily. In St. Augustine's formulation: "Make me chaste, O Lord, but not yet."
About six weeks ago, a week before I launched this site, I had, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, what alcoholics call a moment of clarity. I won't detail what happened as it's too long for a digression, but when I described it all to Father during Confession after the chapter meeting the next Tuesday, he said in a peremptory way that the incident proved "how severe your problem is" and called my saying that I had my life under control "crap." One of my Courage brothers, a techno-computer-whiz I will call "Jim" and who had been involved in extracting me from the bad situation, said "when can I come over and fix up your computer." Not "can I" but "when can I." We had some technical difficulties, because I am a Mac person, and Jim only knows two porn filters available in Mac versions. One he couldn't install because the instructions were written in "japlish" so bad that they even stumped this man experienced in dealing with computer instructions written in that weird tongue. The second was SafeEyes, but my two-year-old iMac runs an OS version not compatible with the program. And then there was a couple of weeks stumbling around each other's schedules.
But then, I made the ultimate modern American proof of committment -- I spent money. I went to a Mac store to get the $100+ upgrade to OSX Tiger (which I never would have gotten otherwise; I was quite happy with my existing OS, though Tiger is sweet, I will say). "Jim" came by the next night and installed SafeEyes with no technical problems (well, one minor imperfection involving the ADMIN password, which we quickly corrected). The program is available here.
After Jim left, I did three or four tests of my most-commonly-used porn/hookup sites -- not to get around it, but to "test the locks" like the heroin addict who has locked himself in a room to go cold turkey. (There was also an element of "trying out the new toy," I will admit). Now if I try to go to a site (I just tried one obviously-banned site to get the wording. Honest.), I get a page reading "The website was denied because of the banned sites categories your administrator has selected. You will not be able to reach websites which fall under banned categories unless your administrator removes the ban on those categories." In addition, "Jim" gets weekly reports of my attempts at banned activity, broken down by day. That was 11 days ago, and I'm amazed at how much easier life has been. Obviously a technical fix isn't interior chastity, and I'm under no illusions about the size of the mountain a yearslong habit is. But I have lived porn-free close to perfectly; less so with self-abuse though still far better than before. Anyone with a computer at home should get one of these filters -- there's no reason not to.
There's no way to overstate the importance of not having a gazillion pictures at my fingertips. No way. And hard to see what possible benefit there can be to have it THAT easily available. If there are, let us stipulate, people who can consume porn without it warping them as badly as it does me (I don't doubt that, though I also don't believe it can have no effect. It's purely a matter of degree in given cases), it shouldn't be too much difficulty to expend some effort. I'm realistic about what a liberal society can do, so I've become more convinced than ever than porn needs to be ghettoized, both in "live" life and the Internet. If it can't be banned (for now), everything that can be done to make it more difficult and awkward to acquire is for the good. Even if such laws can be gotten around by those determined. My confessor once said something to the effect of "part of the reason I rail against TV is my own weakness. If I watched it, I'd likely just waste my time with Adam Sandler movies or somesuch." The reason society exists and laws passed, after all, is to benefit or protect the weak and vulnerable. The rich and strong don't need government; they can generally handle themselves naturally.
-- George Carlin
I have two interrelated compulsions that constantly threaten to consume my soul -- to Internet porn and to self-abuse. I can't say no to them, even though I know they are both wrong. And have repeatedly confessed to them through tears. There. I've said it.
In all honesty, before I had Internet access at home, porn was never a serious problem for me. Sure, I would steal glances or extra-long looks at masculine or beefcake images in legitimate magazines, TV shows and movies (I had done that since before puberty). But such furtive looks often occur in public and around others, so taking it to the next impure step was not an option. And an awareness of the closet and your public persona as a devoutly orthodox Catholic will do what fear of God's (future and thus in some sense unreal) wrath might not. Sneaking into the red-light district in a trenchcoat with a hat pulled over my face on a rain-swept night -- it was not me. I was better than that. Better than them. I knew that.
What's so pernicious about Internet porn that makes it qualitatively different from hard-copy porn is that it's available privately (so avoiding public shame), and just one click of the mouse away (or at most two; for the "subscribers-only section," where they keep the best stuff). I have already clicked the keyboard hundreds of times while working on this (at this instant less-than-half-done) post. In fact, and to my shame, I would sometimes post on some orthodox Catholic site about something-or-other, click twice, sate myself, and then go back to posting. Let's face it, most people (myself not excluded) are slothful about most things. We'll do what's most convenient. Internet porn is just too damn easy. To use economist's language, the barriers to market entry for the purchaser are nonexistent. It's like putting an unlimited supply of cocaine before the lab rat, available at a touch.
But it also contributed to my depression -- within five minutes of finishing, I'd be angry at myself for stumbling again. The humiliation would then make me want to act out again, and sometimes not especially for pleasure's sake, but as a way of deliberately hurting myself bodily or defiling my soul. I would be like someone who scratches himself bloody. And the bloody wounds itch, so then you need to scratch them some more, etc. All the while knowing I was doing something wrong and immoral, that I'd have to admit in shame to my confessor (now someone who knows me as a human being). But I'd had so much cocaine that I needed more cocaine.
I did some things around my computer space to deter myself. As I look to my left, I have taped to my desk overhang a laminated Divine Mercy card from the Archdiocese of Krakow, with a picture of the altar at St. Faustina's church. As I look in a prominent place to my right, I have from the health department the results of a negative HIV test (suffice to say the contrary result was not impossible). I can't say either helped tremendously, particularly since hatred and resentment toward God on the one hand and self-destructiveness on the other are factors that have motivated my bad behavior. And frankly, there was pleasure too and an inability from years of inexperience to imagine what life could be like without wanking daily. In St. Augustine's formulation: "Make me chaste, O Lord, but not yet."
About six weeks ago, a week before I launched this site, I had, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, what alcoholics call a moment of clarity. I won't detail what happened as it's too long for a digression, but when I described it all to Father during Confession after the chapter meeting the next Tuesday, he said in a peremptory way that the incident proved "how severe your problem is" and called my saying that I had my life under control "crap." One of my Courage brothers, a techno-computer-whiz I will call "Jim" and who had been involved in extracting me from the bad situation, said "when can I come over and fix up your computer." Not "can I" but "when can I." We had some technical difficulties, because I am a Mac person, and Jim only knows two porn filters available in Mac versions. One he couldn't install because the instructions were written in "japlish" so bad that they even stumped this man experienced in dealing with computer instructions written in that weird tongue. The second was SafeEyes, but my two-year-old iMac runs an OS version not compatible with the program. And then there was a couple of weeks stumbling around each other's schedules.
But then, I made the ultimate modern American proof of committment -- I spent money. I went to a Mac store to get the $100+ upgrade to OSX Tiger (which I never would have gotten otherwise; I was quite happy with my existing OS, though Tiger is sweet, I will say). "Jim" came by the next night and installed SafeEyes with no technical problems (well, one minor imperfection involving the ADMIN password, which we quickly corrected). The program is available here.
After Jim left, I did three or four tests of my most-commonly-used porn/hookup sites -- not to get around it, but to "test the locks" like the heroin addict who has locked himself in a room to go cold turkey. (There was also an element of "trying out the new toy," I will admit). Now if I try to go to a site (I just tried one obviously-banned site to get the wording. Honest.), I get a page reading "The website was denied because of the banned sites categories your administrator has selected. You will not be able to reach websites which fall under banned categories unless your administrator removes the ban on those categories." In addition, "Jim" gets weekly reports of my attempts at banned activity, broken down by day. That was 11 days ago, and I'm amazed at how much easier life has been. Obviously a technical fix isn't interior chastity, and I'm under no illusions about the size of the mountain a yearslong habit is. But I have lived porn-free close to perfectly; less so with self-abuse though still far better than before. Anyone with a computer at home should get one of these filters -- there's no reason not to.
There's no way to overstate the importance of not having a gazillion pictures at my fingertips. No way. And hard to see what possible benefit there can be to have it THAT easily available. If there are, let us stipulate, people who can consume porn without it warping them as badly as it does me (I don't doubt that, though I also don't believe it can have no effect. It's purely a matter of degree in given cases), it shouldn't be too much difficulty to expend some effort. I'm realistic about what a liberal society can do, so I've become more convinced than ever than porn needs to be ghettoized, both in "live" life and the Internet. If it can't be banned (for now), everything that can be done to make it more difficult and awkward to acquire is for the good. Even if such laws can be gotten around by those determined. My confessor once said something to the effect of "part of the reason I rail against TV is my own weakness. If I watched it, I'd likely just waste my time with Adam Sandler movies or somesuch." The reason society exists and laws passed, after all, is to benefit or protect the weak and vulnerable. The rich and strong don't need government; they can generally handle themselves naturally.
Good news on The Document
I have to break my silence, because I'm just too happy. According to several reports, starting with the Milan daily Corriere Della Sera, the new Church document on homosexuals in seminaries will not impose a per se rule againat all men with same-sex attractions. Those whose Italian is up to it can see the first reporting here). Language wimps like myself can read the first pick-ups from by Reuters and then as independently confirmed by the Associated Press. The most comprehensive English report is from the National Catholic Reporter
These are the money paragraphs from NCR:
In addition, the article goes on, whether these criteria are met in a given case will be decided "in the context of individual spiritual direction." The specificity of detail -- the three-year period, the Gay Pride parade example, the three adjectives each referring to something different (degree, length, and mix) -- makes me think the document is completed and, at a minimum, that reporter John Allen's source (and possibly Allen himself, though he'd be bound not to say that) has actually seen it and was able to quote from it.
This is a relief, I must say. It is consistent with both the need to act against homosexual cliques and uphold the overall Church teaching on homosexuality. Appearances aside, I actually don't object to the notion that, especially in this time and place with the dangers of a widespread "out" homosexual culture, men with homosexual attractions have to be put on a shorter leash during formation. Men with SSA have a steep mountain to climb -- and none of us are under any illusions about the constant banana peels the broader culture strews around us -- and so we tend to fall hard. That's a legitimate concern. Also homosexuality itself can underlie a legitimate cause for exclusion
What this rule would do, and this may turn out a good or bad thing depending, is put the ball in the hands of the bishops and seminary officials, to make sound judgments. Which is what they should have been doing all along. Now there's a specific instruction with criteria that can't be ignored. Oh, those determined to ignore it, either from ideological wilfullness or personal blackmailability, may in fact do so (the Church really isn't the top-down tyranny most of its haters and a few of its more rabid supporters believe it is). And I take second place to nobody in my distrust of the judgment of, say, Cardinal Mahony. But in such cases there really is a much more fundamental problem, one that no rule from Rome, whatever its content, could affect. Ultimately, there really is no substitute for holiness in the trenches.
These are the money paragraphs from NCR:
A forthcoming Vatican document on homosexuals in seminaries will not demand an absolute ban, a senior Vatican official told NCR Oct. 7, but will insist that seminary officials exercise "prudential judgment" that gay candidates should not be admitted in three cases.
Those three cases are:
• If candidates have not demonstrated a capacity to live celibate lives for at least three years;
• If they are part of a "gay culture," for example, attending gay pride rallies (a point, the official said, which applies both to professors at seminaries as well as students);
• If their homosexual orientation is sufficiently "strong, permanent and univocal" as to make an all-male environment a risk.
In addition, the article goes on, whether these criteria are met in a given case will be decided "in the context of individual spiritual direction." The specificity of detail -- the three-year period, the Gay Pride parade example, the three adjectives each referring to something different (degree, length, and mix) -- makes me think the document is completed and, at a minimum, that reporter John Allen's source (and possibly Allen himself, though he'd be bound not to say that) has actually seen it and was able to quote from it.
This is a relief, I must say. It is consistent with both the need to act against homosexual cliques and uphold the overall Church teaching on homosexuality. Appearances aside, I actually don't object to the notion that, especially in this time and place with the dangers of a widespread "out" homosexual culture, men with homosexual attractions have to be put on a shorter leash during formation. Men with SSA have a steep mountain to climb -- and none of us are under any illusions about the constant banana peels the broader culture strews around us -- and so we tend to fall hard. That's a legitimate concern. Also homosexuality itself can underlie a legitimate cause for exclusion
What this rule would do, and this may turn out a good or bad thing depending, is put the ball in the hands of the bishops and seminary officials, to make sound judgments. Which is what they should have been doing all along. Now there's a specific instruction with criteria that can't be ignored. Oh, those determined to ignore it, either from ideological wilfullness or personal blackmailability, may in fact do so (the Church really isn't the top-down tyranny most of its haters and a few of its more rabid supporters believe it is). And I take second place to nobody in my distrust of the judgment of, say, Cardinal Mahony. But in such cases there really is a much more fundamental problem, one that no rule from Rome, whatever its content, could affect. Ultimately, there really is no substitute for holiness in the trenches.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Last night's meeting
Our Courage group meets Tuesday night, and to go this week, I did some juggling with my work schedule (which prevents my routine attendance). Naturally, it was largely about The Document -- the consternation it had caused among individual chapter members being something to which Father already had been exposed. After the opening Rosary and recitation, Father read the following beatitude:
"Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me."
He read it back more than once during his opening remarks, always emphasizing the word "falsely." He was emphasizing among other things, I think and especially in light of his advice to me to avoid discussing The Document, a need to cultivate some distance from Fortuna, from chance, from things beyond our (my) control. After all, it's the easiest thing in the world to say to yourself "I'm just correcting Person X's error" or "I don't mind being criticized for true things, Person X, but at least accuse me/us of something right." And then sinking back into the Comment Box Whirpool when Person X insists the accusations are true or not errors. I've been tempted several times thus in the two days and then remember the promise I gave Father (which frankly so goes against my contentious personality that, for now at least, I have to rely on external things like oral promises and public words).
At the meeting, Father didn't quote the Catechism verbatim IIRC but I believe he alluded more than once to the teaching contained in 2358: "These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition." To offer it up. In other words, to be, rather than not to be. "To bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," because it is not "nobler to die" (in Christ, at least) but to "unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross."
ADDENDUM: I wrote this post primarily to repeat and disseminate Padre's words. It's accurate, names no group member's names, reveals nothing even potentially embarrassing, and violates nobody's confidentiality. (And believe me, I could have written a very interesting post had I been a moral cretin and just repeated the substance of Tuesday's meeting.) But I don't wish to leave the impression that it is generally acceptable to write about Courage meetings or repeat what people say. It is not, and, so as not to inadvertantly leave a false impression, I have taken advice not to do it again. I will say it: This blog doesn't matter; Courage itself does. Nobody who could benefit should avoid a Courage meeting for fear that it'll be splashed all over the place the next day. Like the confessional, what makes us free to say whatever is on our mind at the meetings (and the other guys in the Arlington chapter could do some terrible damage to me with what I have said) is the guarantee that whatever is said stays among us. And it always will around me, despite whatever impressions this post might have left.
"Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me."
He read it back more than once during his opening remarks, always emphasizing the word "falsely." He was emphasizing among other things, I think and especially in light of his advice to me to avoid discussing The Document, a need to cultivate some distance from Fortuna, from chance, from things beyond our (my) control. After all, it's the easiest thing in the world to say to yourself "I'm just correcting Person X's error" or "I don't mind being criticized for true things, Person X, but at least accuse me/us of something right." And then sinking back into the Comment Box Whirpool when Person X insists the accusations are true or not errors. I've been tempted several times thus in the two days and then remember the promise I gave Father (which frankly so goes against my contentious personality that, for now at least, I have to rely on external things like oral promises and public words).
At the meeting, Father didn't quote the Catechism verbatim IIRC but I believe he alluded more than once to the teaching contained in 2358: "These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition." To offer it up. In other words, to be, rather than not to be. "To bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," because it is not "nobler to die" (in Christ, at least) but to "unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross."
ADDENDUM: I wrote this post primarily to repeat and disseminate Padre's words. It's accurate, names no group member's names, reveals nothing even potentially embarrassing, and violates nobody's confidentiality. (And believe me, I could have written a very interesting post had I been a moral cretin and just repeated the substance of Tuesday's meeting.) But I don't wish to leave the impression that it is generally acceptable to write about Courage meetings or repeat what people say. It is not, and, so as not to inadvertantly leave a false impression, I have taken advice not to do it again. I will say it: This blog doesn't matter; Courage itself does. Nobody who could benefit should avoid a Courage meeting for fear that it'll be splashed all over the place the next day. Like the confessional, what makes us free to say whatever is on our mind at the meetings (and the other guys in the Arlington chapter could do some terrible damage to me with what I have said) is the guarantee that whatever is said stays among us. And it always will around me, despite whatever impressions this post might have left.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
But maybe it's not so bad
I went to confession earlier today, and though I mentioned it briefly as the proximate cause for a bout of despair and depression, and Father called it then "the document that nobody has seen and may not even be finished." But he made a point of discussing it after, despite my stated preference to the contrary, as a way of underlining for me that these last few days have really not been good for my soul. He reminded me, "you can't do anything about it." He said some reassuring words that this will not change or kill Courage or alter teaching in any way. And I'm not going anywhere, I told him. "So what's the point?" he gestured.
I promised Father that I would stay away from discussions of The Document. (The post below was in the draft folder already more than half-written and, I decided, was not really about The Document but the reaction from the Catholic Right, something I actually do have first-hand knowledge of and power over). And I had seen some sensible words from Eve Tushnet earlier in the day.
All this by way of saying, I'm imposing a silence on myself on these damn reports, at a minimum until The Document is officially released. And maybe even after that -- after all, it won't affect me and I'm bound not to dissent.
UPDATE: Apparently, Padre told David Morrison something similar.
UPDATE 2: I think Father Martin Fox covers all the needed ground without my hefty helping of Angst.
I promised Father that I would stay away from discussions of The Document. (The post below was in the draft folder already more than half-written and, I decided, was not really about The Document but the reaction from the Catholic Right, something I actually do have first-hand knowledge of and power over). And I had seen some sensible words from Eve Tushnet earlier in the day.
All this by way of saying, I'm imposing a silence on myself on these damn reports, at a minimum until The Document is officially released. And maybe even after that -- after all, it won't affect me and I'm bound not to dissent.
UPDATE: Apparently, Padre told David Morrison something similar.
UPDATE 2: I think Father Martin Fox covers all the needed ground without my hefty helping of Angst.
Monday, September 26, 2005
A sinus-clearing moment in re the Catholic right
I don't want this post to sound bitter, as I'm generally quite happy right now. In these last few days, I've already done more than my fair share of polemicizing (surely the 336 comments at that last link is a record for Amy's site). And I hate whiny little bitches. But it will sound bitter.
These last few days have been a wake-up call to me. Last week, I could truly say that never had my fellow Catholics made me feel ashamed or humiliated me over my homosexual attractions (I can do a pretty good job of that on my own). As I've said here, never has Topic H been a problem with any Catholic or Christian who knew me as me. And I've always dismissed charges of "homophobia" against the Church or Catholics generally from The Gay Activist Crowd as just so much illiterate bleating from people who'd consider me a homophobe for stating that gay sex is sinful and wrong.
But no more.
Now, don't get me wrong ... GLAAD, HRC, Lambda and the rest can still go piss off. But it's been discouraging to find out what some people who should know better, who wear the mantle "Catholic," really think about people with same-sex attraction. Directly contrary to what the Church teaches about homosexuality, quite a few seem to believe reductionist (i.e., persons with same-sex attraction can be described or categorized merely by reference to that sin) and deterministic (i.e., persons with same-sex attraction must inevitably act on their irresistable desires) theories about homosexuality. And not a few others, in a bid to justify what can only be an administrative rule, turn it into an ontological issue about the possibility of ordination via some truly bizarre combinations of circularly-reasoned personalist psychology and overliteralized mystical theology. It always included some riff on the melody: "a man with same-sex attractions is not *really* a man" (and therefore ordination is impossible). Some of the worst gloating in St. Blogs, the former of which I was alerted by a friend, at CWN, or from Diogenes(though this last one actually makes an interesting point; it's the comments that are off the wall) and others.
These discussions took place, and this is Key Point #1, OUTSIDE the context of the Kulturkampf and red-blue stuff -- i.e., Dom, Mark and Amy¹ probably run the three largest "conservative" or "orthodox" Catholic blogs and so we're among friends. Also, and this is Key Point #2, OUTSIDE the context of arguments about the morality of homosexual conduct itself -- i.e., none of us were arguing for that. In other words, this is not a discussion with Voice of the Faithful or with Dignity. (One of the earliest comments at Amy's thread above was a pro-gay type who said he was "glad that the good little Courage quislings are squirming. Kiss a** too much and all you get is painfully chapped lips." To which I gave a retort that felt really good at the time).
But over those days, it just became impossible to avoid the conclusion that for some people, against whom I have no interest in specific "J'Accuse" finger-pointing, this was just about prettifying a prejudice against Those Sodomitic Butt-Burglars. People who were gleeful for a chance to stick it in the eye of Those Disordered Preverts. Who couldn't imagine that somebody could have same-sex attractions and be committed, by God's grace, to living chastely as best he can, with God's grace.
I have always denied to liberal friends that there was any homophobia in the Church, dismissing the claim as an artifice of their trumped-up definitions.² I can do that no more. Like many a naive man, I've been gobsmacked. Mugged by reality.
----------------------------------------------
¹ Lest I be understood, I am describing the subsequent discussions, which did not involve the blog hosts themselves, all of whom I respect.
² Which I obviously still believe to be the case, to an extent.
These last few days have been a wake-up call to me. Last week, I could truly say that never had my fellow Catholics made me feel ashamed or humiliated me over my homosexual attractions (I can do a pretty good job of that on my own). As I've said here, never has Topic H been a problem with any Catholic or Christian who knew me as me. And I've always dismissed charges of "homophobia" against the Church or Catholics generally from The Gay Activist Crowd as just so much illiterate bleating from people who'd consider me a homophobe for stating that gay sex is sinful and wrong.
But no more.
Now, don't get me wrong ... GLAAD, HRC, Lambda and the rest can still go piss off. But it's been discouraging to find out what some people who should know better, who wear the mantle "Catholic," really think about people with same-sex attraction. Directly contrary to what the Church teaches about homosexuality, quite a few seem to believe reductionist (i.e., persons with same-sex attraction can be described or categorized merely by reference to that sin) and deterministic (i.e., persons with same-sex attraction must inevitably act on their irresistable desires) theories about homosexuality. And not a few others, in a bid to justify what can only be an administrative rule, turn it into an ontological issue about the possibility of ordination via some truly bizarre combinations of circularly-reasoned personalist psychology and overliteralized mystical theology. It always included some riff on the melody: "a man with same-sex attractions is not *really* a man" (and therefore ordination is impossible). Some of the worst gloating in St. Blogs, the former of which I was alerted by a friend, at CWN, or from Diogenes(though this last one actually makes an interesting point; it's the comments that are off the wall) and others.
These discussions took place, and this is Key Point #1, OUTSIDE the context of the Kulturkampf and red-blue stuff -- i.e., Dom, Mark and Amy¹ probably run the three largest "conservative" or "orthodox" Catholic blogs and so we're among friends. Also, and this is Key Point #2, OUTSIDE the context of arguments about the morality of homosexual conduct itself -- i.e., none of us were arguing for that. In other words, this is not a discussion with Voice of the Faithful or with Dignity. (One of the earliest comments at Amy's thread above was a pro-gay type who said he was "glad that the good little Courage quislings are squirming. Kiss a** too much and all you get is painfully chapped lips." To which I gave a retort that felt really good at the time).
But over those days, it just became impossible to avoid the conclusion that for some people, against whom I have no interest in specific "J'Accuse" finger-pointing, this was just about prettifying a prejudice against Those Sodomitic Butt-Burglars. People who were gleeful for a chance to stick it in the eye of Those Disordered Preverts. Who couldn't imagine that somebody could have same-sex attractions and be committed, by God's grace, to living chastely as best he can, with God's grace.
I have always denied to liberal friends that there was any homophobia in the Church, dismissing the claim as an artifice of their trumped-up definitions.² I can do that no more. Like many a naive man, I've been gobsmacked. Mugged by reality.
----------------------------------------------
¹ Lest I be understood, I am describing the subsequent discussions, which did not involve the blog hosts themselves, all of whom I respect.
² Which I obviously still believe to be the case, to an extent.
Friday, September 23, 2005
The Courage Conference and a seminary environment
I did something last month that may speak to the question of whether a same-sex-attracted man is capable of life in a seminary situation -- probably the main argument in favor of this per se rule against "gay priests." I went to the annual conference of Courage for the first time in August. It was a mixed-sex environment, so not exactly like a seminary (though it was mostly male, I'd guess about 2-to-1. And there were a lot of priests there). Still it was structured around "Churchy" things and I knew, as a point of fact, that nearly every single man around me was same-sex attracted.
I have a problem with self-abuse, to the point of its being an addictive compulsion -- I know backwards and forwards that it's wrong, and yet I do it anyway with a clear head. On average daily -- and so on some days more than once. So you'd think, and a Church per se rule would seem to endorse, that my being surrounded by a bunch of other same-sex-attracted guys in an environment with some resemblance to a seminary-type situation would be like putting the crack before the lab rat.
But no. To put it in the most crass way possible (moi?), I enjoyed 10 days of chastity -- before during and after. It was the anticipation and later fact of a holy environment, with daily Mass and availability of confession, *despite* the temptations of the people surrounding me. The whole weekend was just ... hopeful. It was more than fellowship, more than the holy environment and daily sacraments, but my just being able to *be* for four days without any fear or shame or worry or Angst. To breathe easily with everybody always already knowing the thing I hate most about myself and most fear others knowing/guessing/finding out. I hate the word "liberating" (it carries the aura of Che Guevara posters), but that's what it was. I was not sunk in my customary gloom, trapped in the whirlpool of frustration, anger, acting out, despair and depression.
Or in a phrase: a holy, at-ease environment trumps the temptations of SSA, when it's provided, available, and we cooperate with it.
I have a problem with self-abuse, to the point of its being an addictive compulsion -- I know backwards and forwards that it's wrong, and yet I do it anyway with a clear head. On average daily -- and so on some days more than once. So you'd think, and a Church per se rule would seem to endorse, that my being surrounded by a bunch of other same-sex-attracted guys in an environment with some resemblance to a seminary-type situation would be like putting the crack before the lab rat.
But no. To put it in the most crass way possible (moi?), I enjoyed 10 days of chastity -- before during and after. It was the anticipation and later fact of a holy environment, with daily Mass and availability of confession, *despite* the temptations of the people surrounding me. The whole weekend was just ... hopeful. It was more than fellowship, more than the holy environment and daily sacraments, but my just being able to *be* for four days without any fear or shame or worry or Angst. To breathe easily with everybody always already knowing the thing I hate most about myself and most fear others knowing/guessing/finding out. I hate the word "liberating" (it carries the aura of Che Guevara posters), but that's what it was. I was not sunk in my customary gloom, trapped in the whirlpool of frustration, anger, acting out, despair and depression.
Or in a phrase: a holy, at-ease environment trumps the temptations of SSA, when it's provided, available, and we cooperate with it.
Another blast from the past
Last year, I wrote some thoughts on Amy Welborn's site on why I think the priesthood has become so filled with homosexuals, both practicing and not. It was in the partial context of the best-selling book "Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul" by Tony Hendra (who played the manager in "This is Spinal Tap").
-------------------------------------------------------
Regarding the homosexualization of the priesthood, I basically agree that everybody has a part of the reason:
I think that the above posters are right that many young Catholic boys who find themselves struggling with same-sex attraction either see the priesthood as a way of dealing with "that" or see 'that" as a form of "calling," God's tap on the shoulder and whatnot.
The first layman I ever told about "that" was a nationally-known and very orthodox Catholic law professor who I had a class with. He published something about homosexuality that I thought was grossly incomplete and I wrote him a lengthy, very confessional note saying what I thought the article didn't grasp (although nothing in it was exactly "wrong"), and we discussed it for a couple of hours. He suggested to me that perhaps God was "blessing you" (his term) with a calling to celibacy and perhaps the priesthood as well.
In a similar vein, the mother who's very proud of "my boy, the priest" is such a stock and recognizable character that it has to have some basis in broad experience. And there's enough psychological-anecdotal evidence that domineering mothers produce gay boys that a connection to priests (particularly in big ethnic ghetto families -- which is the situation whose vocational fruit we have decades later) seems reasonable.
In addition, a Catholic boy who has these mysterious desires for male companionship that he probably only half-understands (and probably doesn't yet see in sexual terms ... I speak from experience here) is probably going to gravitate to priests -- plus there's all the loveliness of the smells and bells.
So you have an unnaturally large share of men thrown together with homosexual inclinations. Some stumble and become compromised and blackmailed. Then discipline becomes impossible (or very painful) and the result is the Lavender Mafia. Church teachings become harder to credit, and downright ugly behavior becomes normal and, in some places, orthodox men find the environment intolerable, the bad money driving out the good as that fallacy of Lutheran pseudo-science Gresham's Law would predict.
At the risk of touching the third rail, I agree with [Rod] Dreher that among the worst fallout of the scandals is that so many parents (quite rationally, in a certain sense, if irrationally in another sense) can no longer trust priests with their young boys, and all the good priests have to operate under such a cloud of suspicion as to make impossible some of the good they can do. Thus boys like Tony Hendra are less likely to find men like Father Joe who can save them. In fact, particularly for a young boy struggling with latent homosexuality, a chaste gay priest might be the best friend he could have. If nothing else, such a priest would personify the Church teaching that these inclinations are not the end of the world even if they never go away, and that the boy is still called to serve God somehow and be part of the Church family somehow. But what parent in this environment would trust a son that they "had worries about" with a priest?
-------------------------------------------------------
Regarding the homosexualization of the priesthood, I basically agree that everybody has a part of the reason:
I think that the above posters are right that many young Catholic boys who find themselves struggling with same-sex attraction either see the priesthood as a way of dealing with "that" or see 'that" as a form of "calling," God's tap on the shoulder and whatnot.
The first layman I ever told about "that" was a nationally-known and very orthodox Catholic law professor who I had a class with. He published something about homosexuality that I thought was grossly incomplete and I wrote him a lengthy, very confessional note saying what I thought the article didn't grasp (although nothing in it was exactly "wrong"), and we discussed it for a couple of hours. He suggested to me that perhaps God was "blessing you" (his term) with a calling to celibacy and perhaps the priesthood as well.
In a similar vein, the mother who's very proud of "my boy, the priest" is such a stock and recognizable character that it has to have some basis in broad experience. And there's enough psychological-anecdotal evidence that domineering mothers produce gay boys that a connection to priests (particularly in big ethnic ghetto families -- which is the situation whose vocational fruit we have decades later) seems reasonable.
In addition, a Catholic boy who has these mysterious desires for male companionship that he probably only half-understands (and probably doesn't yet see in sexual terms ... I speak from experience here) is probably going to gravitate to priests -- plus there's all the loveliness of the smells and bells.
So you have an unnaturally large share of men thrown together with homosexual inclinations. Some stumble and become compromised and blackmailed. Then discipline becomes impossible (or very painful) and the result is the Lavender Mafia. Church teachings become harder to credit, and downright ugly behavior becomes normal and, in some places, orthodox men find the environment intolerable, the bad money driving out the good as that fallacy of Lutheran pseudo-science Gresham's Law would predict.
At the risk of touching the third rail, I agree with [Rod] Dreher that among the worst fallout of the scandals is that so many parents (quite rationally, in a certain sense, if irrationally in another sense) can no longer trust priests with their young boys, and all the good priests have to operate under such a cloud of suspicion as to make impossible some of the good they can do. Thus boys like Tony Hendra are less likely to find men like Father Joe who can save them. In fact, particularly for a young boy struggling with latent homosexuality, a chaste gay priest might be the best friend he could have. If nothing else, such a priest would personify the Church teaching that these inclinations are not the end of the world even if they never go away, and that the boy is still called to serve God somehow and be part of the Church family somehow. But what parent in this environment would trust a son that they "had worries about" with a priest?
When there's not a damn thing you can do ...
... think of Flannery O'Connor.
AND
I've always tried to avoid the "tortured homo" persona, but sometimes it's just unavoidable.
It seems to be a fact that you suffer as much from the Church as for it, but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.
AND
What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
I've always tried to avoid the "tortured homo" persona, but sometimes it's just unavoidable.
Enemas hurt
The last few days have frankly been very difficult for me, with every news outlet in the country following CWN in reporting that sometime this fall, the Church will bar all men with homosexual tendencies from seminary.
I've said that I can understand a temporary ban in given cases according to a bishop's prerogative. But I posted on Mark Shea's site last night that this still hurts, partly because of its universality and partly because of the reasoning. Even though I saw it coming. David Morrison put his finger on "why" I can be depressed at something that I saw: "it's a vote of 'no confidence'." It's like any other rebuke or punishment -- no matter how much you steel yourself on the way to the woodshed, no matter how you tell yourself you can take it, no matter how reconciled you might be to your deserving it, no matter how much you tell yourself to be Christ-like and accept an unjust punishment that might be for the greater good in the overall sacramental economy -- whippings still hurt; votes of no confidence still humiliate. But here's what I wrote in Mark's comment field. The first, italicized, paragraph is from another poster.
----------------------------------------------------
I'd put the alleged ban on SSA ordinations in the same genre as the Charter -- an overly zealous zero-tolerance policy intended to make up for decades of pastoral neglect.
Y'know, I understand that. And the overall need for the priesthood not to be seen as a "gay thing." And that we're in a crisis/mobilization situation, which sometimes requires measures you would never take in ordinary times. And I can see with my brain the overall legal-theoretical legitimacy.
But after this past week of news reports, I still have to say ... this effing hurts. Effing. Hurts. Not because I want to be a priest and see this as an "infringement on my rights." No. I do not, and I have no such right. But because the Church I love and cannot leave -- "Master, to whom shall we go," and all that -- is betraying its own Catechism. And betraying its teachings on sexuality. For as long as I've been with the Church, it has said: that however I sinned (and I have), I was not beyond God's grace and the chance of at least some improvement; that I was not compelled by my condition to cruise bathhouses or bars; that the pangs of conscience after buying a prostitute or having an anonymous hookup (I have done both) proved I wasn't completely dead to sin; that God saw me as something other than a perverted sodomite.
I know this rumored document, assuming the reports are accurate (a big "if"), doesn't strictly speaking repudiate any of that. But it does deny its underpinnings, which is that temptations are not character- or soul-defining. (The glee some are taking in it is no help either.) Or in David's words, the teaching is neither reductionist nor deterministic. This document appears to treat people as a class, uniformly and always, as defined by a nonsinful temptation. To quote the military aphorism: This is not what I signed up for. I get that from the gay activists or the secular culture: "self-hating repressed homo" and all that. I just expect better from Christ's Church.
Despite my anger, I'm not gonna pull an Andrew Sullivan. I've never denied the Church teaching on sex or withheld something from my confessor. Or even tried to use the "addiction" line to minimize my compulsive self-abuse (I frankly wonder how he can stand to listen to me at times). And to be fair, the situation on the ground isn't bad: my SSA has never been a problem with any Catholic or Christian who knows about it (though I have cherry-picked, I admit). I went to the Courage Conference for the first time this year and it was one of the happiest weekends I've ever had.
But enemas hurt, and what Mr. Shea calls the Great Enema is no exception. Stoking my anger and succumbing to despair (a constant problem I have, quite apart from Topic H) have gotten a lot easier in recent days.
So to those priests who committed the acts of sex abuse that contributed to the situation; to you I say: "I sure hope it was a great orgasm."
And to those bishops and chancery rats who covered up the acts, shuffled around the perps, intimidated or hoodwinked parents, etc.; to you I say: "I sure hope you enjoy purgatory or worse."
I've said that I can understand a temporary ban in given cases according to a bishop's prerogative. But I posted on Mark Shea's site last night that this still hurts, partly because of its universality and partly because of the reasoning. Even though I saw it coming. David Morrison put his finger on "why" I can be depressed at something that I saw: "it's a vote of 'no confidence'." It's like any other rebuke or punishment -- no matter how much you steel yourself on the way to the woodshed, no matter how you tell yourself you can take it, no matter how reconciled you might be to your deserving it, no matter how much you tell yourself to be Christ-like and accept an unjust punishment that might be for the greater good in the overall sacramental economy -- whippings still hurt; votes of no confidence still humiliate. But here's what I wrote in Mark's comment field. The first, italicized, paragraph is from another poster.
----------------------------------------------------
I'd put the alleged ban on SSA ordinations in the same genre as the Charter -- an overly zealous zero-tolerance policy intended to make up for decades of pastoral neglect.
Y'know, I understand that. And the overall need for the priesthood not to be seen as a "gay thing." And that we're in a crisis/mobilization situation, which sometimes requires measures you would never take in ordinary times. And I can see with my brain the overall legal-theoretical legitimacy.
But after this past week of news reports, I still have to say ... this effing hurts. Effing. Hurts. Not because I want to be a priest and see this as an "infringement on my rights." No. I do not, and I have no such right. But because the Church I love and cannot leave -- "Master, to whom shall we go," and all that -- is betraying its own Catechism. And betraying its teachings on sexuality. For as long as I've been with the Church, it has said: that however I sinned (and I have), I was not beyond God's grace and the chance of at least some improvement; that I was not compelled by my condition to cruise bathhouses or bars; that the pangs of conscience after buying a prostitute or having an anonymous hookup (I have done both) proved I wasn't completely dead to sin; that God saw me as something other than a perverted sodomite.
I know this rumored document, assuming the reports are accurate (a big "if"), doesn't strictly speaking repudiate any of that. But it does deny its underpinnings, which is that temptations are not character- or soul-defining. (The glee some are taking in it is no help either.) Or in David's words, the teaching is neither reductionist nor deterministic. This document appears to treat people as a class, uniformly and always, as defined by a nonsinful temptation. To quote the military aphorism: This is not what I signed up for. I get that from the gay activists or the secular culture: "self-hating repressed homo" and all that. I just expect better from Christ's Church.
Despite my anger, I'm not gonna pull an Andrew Sullivan. I've never denied the Church teaching on sex or withheld something from my confessor. Or even tried to use the "addiction" line to minimize my compulsive self-abuse (I frankly wonder how he can stand to listen to me at times). And to be fair, the situation on the ground isn't bad: my SSA has never been a problem with any Catholic or Christian who knows about it (though I have cherry-picked, I admit). I went to the Courage Conference for the first time this year and it was one of the happiest weekends I've ever had.
But enemas hurt, and what Mr. Shea calls the Great Enema is no exception. Stoking my anger and succumbing to despair (a constant problem I have, quite apart from Topic H) have gotten a lot easier in recent days.
So to those priests who committed the acts of sex abuse that contributed to the situation; to you I say: "I sure hope it was a great orgasm."
And to those bishops and chancery rats who covered up the acts, shuffled around the perps, intimidated or hoodwinked parents, etc.; to you I say: "I sure hope you enjoy purgatory or worse."
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Lest I be unclear ...
... I really have no personal dog in the fight over ordaining men with SSA. One can never say "never" in matters of God's calling of course, but otherwise, and quite apart from homosexuality issues, I am as convinced as one can be that I am not called to the priesthood. I am approaching middle-age for one thing, and I simply don't have the temperament or personality of a priest. Or to be more precise, my temperament and personality are almost the perfect opposite of all the good priests I have known, my current confessor included.
Monday, September 19, 2005
It may happen
A ban on any and all men with same-sex attractions entering seminary has been approved by Pope Benedict, according to Catholic World News (link requires registration).
I’ll wait to see what exactly the document says, whether it’s couched as contingent, a response to circumstances, or as necessary, something essential to the priesthood. Whether it emphasizes the universal call to holiness and chastity (and the current social degradation therein) or categorizes homosexual persons as a class apart.
The first-named option in each pair would sting, but I’d accept it as collateral damage from the recent sexual indiscipline (part of the cause of which was poor formation) and the lavender mafia. The latter-named options … well, I don’t want to think about them or say more than that they would prompt one crisis of conscience. They would not be compatible with the last 30 years of teaching on homosexuality.
But any blanket ban, which I don't favor despite my acknowledgement of its legitimacy, will always face three problems:
(1) "sexuality" is a continuum, not a polarity, making a blanket ban for *any* degree of same-sex attraction absurd (does having an pubescent crush on your best friend count?);
(2) a blanket ban, like any rule, will still rely on those who have to ask The Question, and thus depends on their reliability and honesty (not to speak of honesty on the part of prospective seminarians). And like in many other matters, the orthodox will obey, and the dissidents will find a way to get around it or just ignore it. So, perversely, we might have fewer men with SSA, but more of them will be of the bad kind; and
(3) a blanket ban will guarantee that Topic H will never come up during formation, meaning that if any men with SSA do wind up in seminary, they will be entering an environment closer to the poor pre-V2 formation (the reason why checks and balances exist is for situations that DON'T go well). So perversely, we might have fewer men with SSA in seminary, but more of them will be of the bad kind. Ultimately there is simply no substitute for sound judgment on the part of the men in the trenches -- the bishops, the vocation directors, and the seminary officials. And if the bishops and chancery rats are as bad as widely believed in St. Blogs, this rule will not affect them, while the blanket ban will convince people (wrongly) that something will have been done.
I’ll wait to see what exactly the document says, whether it’s couched as contingent, a response to circumstances, or as necessary, something essential to the priesthood. Whether it emphasizes the universal call to holiness and chastity (and the current social degradation therein) or categorizes homosexual persons as a class apart.
The first-named option in each pair would sting, but I’d accept it as collateral damage from the recent sexual indiscipline (part of the cause of which was poor formation) and the lavender mafia. The latter-named options … well, I don’t want to think about them or say more than that they would prompt one crisis of conscience. They would not be compatible with the last 30 years of teaching on homosexuality.
But any blanket ban, which I don't favor despite my acknowledgement of its legitimacy, will always face three problems:
(1) "sexuality" is a continuum, not a polarity, making a blanket ban for *any* degree of same-sex attraction absurd (does having an pubescent crush on your best friend count?);
(2) a blanket ban, like any rule, will still rely on those who have to ask The Question, and thus depends on their reliability and honesty (not to speak of honesty on the part of prospective seminarians). And like in many other matters, the orthodox will obey, and the dissidents will find a way to get around it or just ignore it. So, perversely, we might have fewer men with SSA, but more of them will be of the bad kind; and
(3) a blanket ban will guarantee that Topic H will never come up during formation, meaning that if any men with SSA do wind up in seminary, they will be entering an environment closer to the poor pre-V2 formation (the reason why checks and balances exist is for situations that DON'T go well). So perversely, we might have fewer men with SSA in seminary, but more of them will be of the bad kind. Ultimately there is simply no substitute for sound judgment on the part of the men in the trenches -- the bishops, the vocation directors, and the seminary officials. And if the bishops and chancery rats are as bad as widely believed in St. Blogs, this rule will not affect them, while the blanket ban will convince people (wrongly) that something will have been done.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
