A couple of year's ago, I found about 10 of Benson's books at our parish bazaar, and bought them all at 25 cents a piece. I'm about halfway through them. By What Authority? was especially good.
Many years ago R H Benson was much loved by Roman Catholics until they discovered he was gay!
Aren't we all, Father?
Msgr. Benson appears on this list of real or alleged homosexuals, so what else can we conclude but that he was a homosexual?
http://www.ncf.ca/freeport/sigs/...gay/history/
his
And here's a page from another list of famous people allegedly to have been homosexual -- this one claims Msgr. Benson and two of his brothers were homosexuals:
http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fa...iob3/
bens3.html
Jordan, Jordan, Benson's reputation was brought to my attention by my spiritual director in the seminary 37 years ago. Continue your trawling and you'll find plenty of material. Here for example:
Benson, E.F. David Blaize. NY, George H. Doran Company, 1916. Homoerotic novel of university life.
Benson, E.F. Final Edition. NY, D. Appleton-Century, 1940. Memoir by the author of the “Lucia” & “Dodo” stories, with a section on his brother R.H. Benson’s friendship with Frederick Rolfe “Baron Corvo.”
(Rolfe, of course, was a notorious gay writer.)
Then there's this page on Marie Corelli, which speaks of Msgr. Benson "often bringing a boyfriend" to Corelli's gardens:
http://www.victorianweb.org/
auth...salmonson1.html
"Hugh Benson loved to hang out at Mason Croft, often bringing a boyfriend with whom to sport throughout her five-acres of gardens."
It would be interesting to find out what evidence, if any, there is to support the allegation that Msgr. Benson was a homosexual. Perhaps the same sort of "evidence" there is that Cardinal Newman was a homosexual.
For many years, I had an exceptionally close friendship with a man (we're still good friends, though we've grown a bit more distant in recent years, as our lives have taken different directions -- and we're both married now, so our emotional energies are, as God intends, centred on our wives). We've never for an instant been sexually attracted to one another, or to any other men for that matter -- but I can well imagine that if some of the letters we've written to each other over the years were to be read by someone who doesn't understand what a strong and healthy friendship between two men can be like, they might well wonder what might have been going on between us. One of the sad things about today's sex-crazed homosexual-friendly culture is that men must keep up emotional walls in their male friendships to prevent others from getting the wrong idea.
BTW, Fr. O'Leary turned this latest commentbox at Dr. Blosser's weblog towards yet another discussion of his favorite subject on only the second comment posted. Fr. O'Leary's very first comment in this box is again about homosexuality.
But is it not interesting that the Neocatholic right gravitate toward texts steeped in homoerotic atmosphere, such as Brideshead Revisited or Benson's rather spooky novels? Is this phenomenon unworthy of analysis?
I thought Benson's Lord of the World was magnificent. And I didn't even think of sex when I read it!
There is a whole novel by RH Benson online -- it reads quite campily:
"Tell me a little about the costumes," said Monsignor, as the two
set out on foot from their lodgings in Versailles after breakfast
next morning, to present their letters of introduction. "They
seem to me rather fantastic, somehow."
"Fantastic?" asked Father Jervis, smiling. "Don't you think
they're attractive?"
"Oh yes; but----"
"Remember human nature, Monsignor. After all, it was only intense
self-importance that used to make men say that they were
independent of exterior beauty. It's far more natural and simple
to like beauty. Every child does, after all."
THAT WAS JUST A RANDOM DIP.
That was from Dawn of All, which was written as something of an answer to those who found Lord of the World so depressing or pessimistic (though from our vantage point it seems almost prophetic). While Lord of the World presented a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario with the rise of Antichrist, persecution of the Church, and return of Christ, Dawn of All offered a hypothetical "what might the world look like if in the 20th century it underwent a civilisational conversion to Catholicism. The discussion quoted here has to do with the revival of something like medieval sumptuary laws, with each profession having a distinguishing uniform or "costume." Monsignor is a Catholic priest from the early 1900s who had succumbed to modernism and was more or less on the verge of apostasy, and who awoke one day to find himself 100 years in the future, in a Catholic civilisation where, to his shock and disgust, he found that almost everyone believed the Catholic faith was true. Father Jervis served as Monsignor's guide to help him understand the alien world he found himself in.
"I thought Benson's Lord of the World was magnificent. And I didn't even think of sex when I read it!"
Nor I.
"But is it not interesting that the Neocatholic right gravitate toward texts steeped in homoerotic atmosphere, such as Brideshead Revisited or Benson's rather spooky novels? Is this phenomenon unworthy of analysis?"
I've never read Brideshead Revisited and know nothing about it, and I discovered Benson quite by accident. I was initially just curious to find out what a Catholic novel about the end of the world might be like. It would never in a million years have occurred to me to find or detect anything "homoerotic" in Msgr. Benson's novels. Of course I've only read a few of them, and I'm not in the habit of looking for real or alleged sexual undertones in the novels I read that aren't about sex or don't treat of sex.
Philip,
Why not just rename the blog, All Gay, All The Time? After all, that is what it has become. Face it: Joe has taken over your blog and has used it as a launchpad to promote homosexuality, bait your orthodox readers, and accuse everyone and their brother who holds to a remotely Christian understanding of sexual ethics as a tormented, self-hating, homophobic closet homosexual.
Either rename your blog to give some truth in advertising, or else do something to prevent You-Know-Who from hijacking those threads that have nothing to do with homosexuality (like what Mark Shea did with Chris Sullivan and pacifism). He has his own blog to rant about whatever he wants; there's no excuse for him ruining yours.
And if Joe wants to consider me a closeted, self-denying homophobic homosexual, I say to him: Whatever.
Benson was a bit of a talibanist, too. In that novel, The Dawn of All (1911) he imagines the whole world converted to Catholicism in 1973: "all the laws are Christian... Divorce was abolished thirty years ago, and fornication was made a felony ten years later... we have our own courts for heresy, with power to hand over convicted criminals to the secular arm..." (Tauchnitz ed. p. 45). Needless to say the monarchy is flourishing in England and France in his fatuous utopian scenario!
"Brideshead Revisited" -- a beautiful novel, with sympathetic evocation of homoerotic friendship between the protagonist and his doomed friend Sebastian (who later teams up with a man), was, I have just discovered, influenced by Robert Hugh Benson. There was a television series of Brideshead with Claire Bloom, Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons, as Lady B., Sebastian and Charles Ryder, respectively. The homoerotic elements were played to the hilt and it went down like hot cakes with Catholic neoconservatives (being introduced on US TV by William Buckley jr.).
"None Other Gods" is the tale of a saintly young man, described as follows:
"Frank Guiseley, too, lolling in the window-seat in a white silk shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and grey flannel trousers, and one white shoe, was very pleasant to look upon. His hair was as black and curly as a Neapolitan's... and though, properly speaking, he was not exactly handsome, he was quite exceptionally delightful to look at" (p. 11).
A clergyman meets Frank in a house where he is lodging incognito: he "for the first time became consciously conscious of the second man... the clergyman met his eyes full. Some vague shock thrilled through him; Frank's clean-shaven brown face seemed somehow familiar -- or was it something else?... there grew in the clergyman a desire to hear his voice". When Frank speaks, "again a little shock thrilled Mr Parham-Carter. The voice was the kind of thing he had expected from that face". (249-50)
The clergyman falls head over heels in love with Frank! "There is not other phrase so adequate for describing his condition of mind as the old one concerning head and heels. There had rushed on him, not out of the blue, but.. out of the very dingy sky of Hackney Wick.. this astonishing young man, keen-eyed, brown-faced, muscular... the boy who had thrown off his coat in early school and displayed himself shirtless... And this is not all -- for, as Mr Parham-Carter informed me himself -- there was being impressed upon him during this interview a very curious sensation, which he was hardly able, even after consideration, to put into words -- a sensation concerning the personality and presence of this young man which he could only describe as making him feel 'beastly queer'" (243-4).
"Christ's Vicar, by whom kings reign" (The Dawn of All) sums up Benson's view of how the world should be.
Yet he expresses unease about a church which "at last had laid her hands upon the sceptre, and ruled the world... had at last put her enemies under her feet - 'repressed' the infidel and killed the heretic" (p. 172). Perhaps the novel explores some subtle thematic?
Is this a joke or something. A few days back, Dr. Blosser quoted my comment, "I guess that if Dr. Blosser makes some comment on chocolate or on the weather, [O'Leary] will be able to put sodomy in the comments once again".
Well, I should have added literature, O'Leary's academic interest. Whatever the subject, get ready: O'Leary will gay it up!
Let's see ... according to the self-styled "Spirit of Vatican II" (a.k.a. Father Joseph O'Leary), Benson is gay, Waugh is gay, Pope Paul VI was gay, the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman was gay, and Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI entertain homoerotic attractions. Is there ANYTHING else this man thinks about?
... Besides all the patent nonsense ... Word! How low can you go? Death Row! What a brother know?
I don't believe Fr Joe is gay. The man has no humor in him: only venom, sniping, spitting, and snarling. I confess, as I read his compulsive rug-chewing I begin to feel "beastly queer".
"Yet he expresses unease about a church which 'at last had laid her hands upon the sceptre, and ruled the world... had at last put her enemies under her feet - "repressed" the infidel and killed the heretic' (p. 172). Perhaps the novel explores some subtle thematic?"
Perhaps -- it's worth noting that in this novel, the Holy Father is opposed to the Catholic states' use of the death penalty against heresy, and at the end the Pope gets them to agree to abolish capital punishment for heresy -- so the novel definitely has a happy ending. The quote from page 172, of course, comes from the internal crisis of the modernist priest trying to make sense of the Catholic civilisation into which he'd found himself thrust.
"Whatever the subject, get ready: O'Leary will gay it up!"
How about we have ourselves a drinking party? Every time Fr. O'Leary says "gay" or "homosexual" or "homoerotic," we take a shot.
We'll all be under the table in no time.
"The clergyman falls head over heels in love with Frank!"
Oooookay . . . .
When I read None Other Gods, I didn't get anything homosexual about the priest's encounter with Frank Guiseley. Certainly the priest doesn't act like he felt particularly friendly towards Frank -- quite the contrary, he treats Frank cooly and uncharitably, regarding him as a good-for-nothing bum.
"Needless to say the monarchy is flourishing in England and France in his fatuous utopian scenario!"
Benson himself regarded Lord of the World as a far more realistic scenario than Dawn of All -- and events have borne out his expectations.
Well, er, y'all do know that Benson, aside from his historical novels, was primarily a satirist? He was on record as saying he didn't believe that the events in Lord of the World would ever happen, and that The Dawn of All described a world he would have hated to live in ...
The whole thrust of Benson's work was to explore the relationship between God and man. When Frederick Rolfe (alias "Baron Corvo") and Marie Corelli revealed themselves as frauds and violent anti-Catholics, Fr. Benson cut the connection ... FAST.
Some of the comments here would seem to indicate a lack of familiarity with the style of late Victorian and Edwardian writing, e.g., many British even today think nothing of using the word "queer" without putting any other meaning than "odd" to it. I've heard it in Ireland many times.
As one commentator on a web site put it, referring to a number of people, "You just don't know. And, even if [they] were, what difference does it make?"
"The whole thrust of Benson's work was to explore the relationship between God and man."
Yes, I think that's obvious from the novels of his that I've read -- that's their primary intent, and I think they do a pretty good job too.
I must apologise, however, for my homoerotic comments -- "thrust" and "pretty," etc.
"When I read None Other Gods, I didn't get anything homosexual about the priest's encounter with Frank Guiseley. Certainly the priest doesn't act like he felt particularly friendly towards Frank -- quite the contrary, he treats Frank cooly and uncharitably, regarding him as a good-for-nothing bum."
Never mind -- wrong clergyman. I remember that passage now. It was about the Anglican priest, not the Catholic priest who appears earlier and only briefly in the novel. Even so, I didn't construe "head over heels" in the sexual manner that Fr. O'Leary has construed it.
Philip Blosser, I never said that John Paul II "entertained homoerotic attractions". On the contrary, I always took him to be a full-blooded exclusive heterosexual.
It was not I who invented the homosexual elements in the personalities of JHN or the Benson brothers or Michelangelo or Waugh, nor was it I who "outed" them; in fact they were all rather communicative on the topic of their loves and desires. I don't see what the fuss is about. It is purely a mater of your own phobia about homosexuality, seems to me.
The phrase "head over heels" has only one meaning in English as far as I remember, namely, "head over heels in love". It is true that this theme is not developed any further in the novel. Of course Newman also talks of the "love-light" in the eyes of Froude and himself when they met (if I remember correctly) and love between males was such an established feature of Etonian and Oxonian life at the time that this may not have been unusual; in Ireland we talked of male friends "taking a shine to" one another.
Look up the Bensons in the Dictionary of Literary Biography -- there is an interesting resume of EF Benson's novel about the love-life among the students at Eton. A photo of EF at age 18 or so reveals him to have been a stunningly handsome youth. EF was Mayor of Rye and lived at Lamb House after Henry James. The latter was a friend of their father the Archbishop of Canterbury from whom he got the germ for The Turn of the Screw. Nice to think of him listening to tales of the preternatural with the three sons, of whom both EF and RH went on to be masters of the spook-story genre.
Why do you guys blame me for pointing out the obvious homoerotic leanings of the neocath blogsphere? I found outrageous gay porn pics on the "Dreadnought" site recommended as a model of orthodoxy on "Against the Grain" -- how are pictures of nude men in obscene poses supposed to be compatible with the teachings of Ratzinger on homosexuality? No wonder you are all so keen to say that the new Vatican plan will NOT exclude gays from the seminaries. Maybe the canny Ratzinger will call your bluff!
A sentimental vieille barbe of Vatican II like myself cannot but be touched by the four-hour coloquy between Ratzinger and Kung (see "Against the Grain", apparently their first meeting in 22 years. Kung said he rediscovered the sunny colleague of their Tuebingen days. I take this as a happy sign that the spirit of Vatican II is not yet dead.
The pics I mentioned are here: http://johnheard.blogspot.com/20...ftop-
shoot.html
WARNING -- could be an occasion of sin.
Someone please explain the connection with orthodoxy.
Oh, I see. These are not gay pics at all? I am missing the cultural context, the kind of heman aesthetics that is just a form of US humor?
Dreadnought's apologia:
Perhaps the most frequently asked question, after 'so you really like the Pope' and 'how can you reconcile being a happy Catholic with being a happy homosexual' goes something like this: 'it's all very well and good to talk about Church teaching, but we want to know what DREADNOUGHT actually gets up to?' This actually means, 'do you lead a celibate life?'
My standard answer to such questions has been a variation on the theme, 'I assent to the teachings of the Church and attempt, weak though I am, to live according to her laws'. Some people are unhappy with this kind of honesty. I think many people want me to be a make-believe DREADNOUGHT, a man with a sexuality so repressed or at least so fictionalised, that I am not really any kind of same sex attracted at all.
I have always resisted giving these people what they want. This is for two reasons. First, I am an honest person, if you want either immoral grandstanding or false-humility, go read Shelby Spong. DREADNOUGHT has never pretended to be perfect, I have frequently claimed I am a terrible model for young Catholics and if anyone thinks I am arrogant let me state clearly, I do not think I have all the answers. Indeed I don't think I have any answers of a particularly original kind, but at least I am searching!
This leads into the second reason, I don't reveal very personal information because I don't think it's relevant.
WELL, THAT'S A GOOD LINE FOR THE GAY SEMINARIANS IN THE FORTHCOMING INVESTIGATION TO TROT OUT!
I have a beautiful, scintillatingly intelligent, Jewish, NYU grad student boyfriend*. Of course I slip up from time to time. I certainly drink too much, I've been known in the past to chase hot boys and I don't want to make out I am some kind of saint and certainly not a martyr. I hope this does not debase me, rather makes me more real. I can say with moral force to other homosexuals that I am just like you, I undergo the same temptations, understand the same pleasures and I am just as prone to stupidity and error. .. same sex attracted Catholics have no good reason to leave the Church based solely on their sexual orientation. They are surely bound by the same rules and laws as anyone else. ..I'm here, I'm queer and I'm Catholic, get over it!
Let me clarify that I have nothing against Dreadnought's views or behavior; I just think he should come clean on their incompatibility with the present church teaching that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered, even if it means losing his buddies on the neocath blog circuit.
Never heard of "Dreadnought," and I didn't know he was another of those "neocaths" whose existence you seem to lament. If both Dr. Blosser and Dreadnought are "neocaths," then the category of "neocath" is so broad as to be of little help in identifying anyone. Anyway, I don't think I've been to Christopher Blosser's "Against the Grain" very often, and had no idea he recommended John Heard's weblog. As you correctly point out, Heard's homosexual pornography certainly, and his views on homosexuality apparently, are incompatible with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
I see that you have misrepresented Christopher Blosser. He lists John Heard's weblog as one of many, many weblogs that he reads, but he does not "recommend" him as a model of orthodoxy. This disclaimer appears at the head of Christopher Blosser's list:
"Please Note: Recognition of the following blogs & periodicals should not be considered personal endorsement of the opinions contained therein, especially when content is not consistent with Church teaching."
Christopher Blosser said:
On this issue I believe the most relevant voices are those Catholics with SSA who live the call to bring their lives into conformity with the Church's vision of sexuality. Of these, John Heard, aka. DreadNought is in my opinion one of the best and most eloquent in his witness to the gospel: Seachange Not Shortchange 9/19/05; Vatican Bans Gay Priests 9/21/05 and Responses to a Seminarian.
Since Chris Blosser must have known the content of the site he recommends as orthodox gospel witness, I suggest that he too be struck off the list of bona fide neocaths. It is at least hilariously funny that the cardinalratzingerfanclub be recommending gay porn.
Not that I need to respond to any of this, but I must defend Dr Blosser.
First, none of you know what I do or don't do with my boyfriend. Frankly, it's not your business and you're not my confessors.
Second, calling the pictures of my friend - taken with his consent as an exercise in artistic expression, pornography is itself not only highly suspect, but particularly unorthodox.
JP the Great expounded Catholic teaching on images and the body. Regarding pictures, he taught that where the particular humanity and personhood of the individual was ignored/exploited, there gross objectification and/or pornography exists. Such a thing cannot apply to my pictures of Jason.
I once posted gratuitous pictures of other attractive men on my blog. I did not know these men. In the course of my writing and reading I was challeneged and finally convinced by the Popes' teaching on such things. I changed my mind and such pictures are no longer posted.
Perhaps if you'd bothered to do any serious reading at DREADNOUGHT, you'd have noted this fact. This is, I think, what Dr Blosser meant by: 'liv[ing] the call to bring their lives into conformity with the Church's vision of sexuality'.
Like the post says, I am not perfect, but at least I submit to the Church's authority and lament my past errors, firmly resolving not the repeat them going forward. I'm not sure what else a poor, but committed Catholic can do.
Alas, dreadnought, you are no where near satisfying Cardinal Ratzinger's exigences of orthodoxy. He wants you to day that your sexuality is intrinsically disordered.
Also I am pretty sure he would disapprove of your taking sexy pics of your bf and distributing them to the public. From his point of view that would count as sexual acting-out. Foucault talks of de-sexualized perversion, for instance SM sessions without orgasm, or exhibitionist-voyeurist sessions where the thrill is in the strangeness rather than in physical excitation. I personally have nothing in particular against any of these things, especially in the context of a loving relationship, but I am sure that Ratzinger would sternly disapprove, officially at least.
Let's face it, the entire culture out of which self-accepting Australian gays comes differs toto coelo from the culture of closeted European clerics. If you affirm the basic goodness of sexuality, you are going against two thousand years of the poisoning of Eros. In Ratzinger's eyes you are a neo-pagan. I'm sure you have had this discussion with many people. If I were you I would not bother to sort out the confusion prematurely. Sometimes it is better to live with contradictions, at least provisionally.
If I understand Vatican ethics (does anyone?), you can argue that your loving relationship with Jason, even if an occasion of temptation, is still a better situation morally than its concrete alternatives. On that score, Jan Visser, co-author of Persona Humana 1975, would advise building up mutual love and fidelity as the best interim solution. I'm not a moral theologian myself, but I am always amazed at how dexterous moral theologians can be in reconciling principles with real life.
Meanwhile, I would like to congratulate Dreadnought on his very interesting and intelligent site. He may succeed in getting the church to dialogue with gays at long last. Of course there are thousands of gay moral theologians who are keeping their mouths tightly shut, out of fear -- they are the people most to blame for the non-communication between cardinals or bishops and the gays about whom they pontificate.
"Since Chris Blosser must have known the content of the site he recommends as orthodox gospel witness, I suggest that he too be struck off the list of bona fide neocaths. It is at least hilariously funny that the cardinalratzingerfanclub be recommending gay porn."
I'm sorry, but I still can't find where Christopher Blosser recommends John Heard as "a model of orthodoxy."
As for John Heard's beliefs on same sex attraction, though they are incompatible with Church teaching, it must also be said that he says he seeks to abide by the teachings and laws of the Church. He describes how his study of Church documents helped him see that promiscuous or casual sexual activity is unacceptable -- so while I can't countenance what he currently believes about homosexuality (some of it but not all), I think he's moving in the right direction -- i.e., ever closer to Jesus through His Bride Holy Mother Church and what she teaches, which is after all what God desires of everyone of us.
On whether or not his photos are gay porn, I'd be more open to the argument they're not if it weren't for the one with the hand in the shorts.
Jordan Potter shows some sympathy with Dreadnought -- good. I feared he would send him off to jail with the "fornicators"!
I hope Dreadnought knows a good thing when he sees it, and knows when he's well off.
There are plenty of Christian and Catholic communities who would fully accept his friendship with Jason, whatever the privacies of their life.
There is no need for him to apologize for living, or kiss the dead hand of gerontocracy, or agonize among the scruple-ridden.
And it's probably not a good idea to share bf's sex pics with the public -- it seems a tad immature and in questionable taste.
"On whether or not his photos are gay porn, I'd be more open to the argument they're not if it weren't for the one with the hand in the shorts."
But actually that is the least kinky of the shots. The first one, "Gay dad couchant", for example, has a bunch of SM connotations -- humiliating animal posture, blindfolding or gagging, tagging -- which of course both of them love. I saw no indication on the site that the photographee was the photographer's boyfriend, and the title "gay dad" suggested he was a father, adding another kinky twist.
Oh well, I think I'd better give up again. Don't blame me for dragging your discussion down to these steamy depths. I think that as long as you keep dragging up sexual topics, even if in the most puritanical tones, they will always bring you back to this sticky stuff. Seems to be the nature of the territory. Enjoy your symptom!
Here is an essay that seems to imply that the RCC now recognizes gay couples and their rights, but not gay marriage. I am amazed to see how this radical alteration of Catholic thinking on homosexuality is proceeding apace, even with archbishops and Roman seminaries involved.
The essay I refer to may be found here:
http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/resea...t_5/
Ogilvie.htm
Fr. O'Leary (it's getting more and more difficult to prefix the "Fr." without feeling quite conflicted about it) increasingly shows a side of himself we'd rather not know in a priest. He writes about "de-sexualized perversion, for instance SM sessions without orgasm, or exhibitionist-voyeurist sessions where the thrill is in the strangeness rather than in physical excitation," and then says: "I personally have nothing in particular against any of these things, especially in the context of a loving relationship." Lord, have mercy! While nothing human is strange to me, there is something highly convoluted and disordered about an icon of Christ, a priest, tacitly approving (or, at least, finding nothing wrong with) such depraved affectivities.
And then -- does one weep or laugh? -- he has the gall to say: "Don't blame me for dragging your discussion down to these steamy depths. I think that as long as you keep dragging up sexual topics, ... they will always bring you back to this sticky stuff." But O'Leary, YOU are the one who stirred up this pot of muck to begin with, as the trail of comments clearly attests! You're obsessed with this stuff.
I apologize for mistakenly saying that you attributed same-sex attraction to JPII. It was Pope Paul VI whom, along with Pope Benedict XVI, you think have exhibited these affectivities. Of course, I think you're crazy, and that what O'Leary tells us about these popes tells us far more about O'Leary than about the popes.
How you think you can find a brief for homophilia or homosexuality in Waugh or Newman or Benson is beyond me. You mention the homoerotic elements in Brideshead Revisited, between Sebastian and Ryder and Anthony Blanche. Of course the film version played up the Blanche character with exquisite flair. But how you imagine any of this can be taken as providing any quarter to homophilia or homosexuality, God only knows. Waugh was a shrewd observer of the human condition. He personally suffered a disastrous divorce. He understood fallen human nature and the uglier side of sin. Brideshead is a magisterial portrayal of how God's grace can suffuse a humanly hopeless and tragic tale. Sebastian is a hopeless drunk who dies of alcohol poisoning. His whole family is coming unravelled through divorce, adultery, degeneracy and death. In this context Ryder stumbles into Sebastian at Oxford and his degenerating and disintegrating world of alcohol and narcissism. True, God's grace finds them by the end of the story. But how any of this can be seen as promoting homophilia or as another arrow in your quiver to be shot off as a weapon against your "homophobic" Catholic Church, I cannot imagine. If thus, Waugh, how much less, Newman!
Disgusting, disturbing... These are the words which come to mind after reading O'Leary's latest comments.
Father (I have avoided using this word with you for I have felt as confused as Dr. Blosser)... Father, Reverend Father: you need help! Your soul is in great danger! Please, do not go on in this disastrous path!
Let's suppose Fr Joe is right about Benson. Suppose the man was a homosexual.
Can one ponder, for a moment, the irony of Fr Joseph O'Leary, a dependable geyser of compassion for the travails of the sexually deviant, cackling mercilessly at the novelist's downfall.
Apparently Robert Hugh Benson is one [putative] homosexual whose pain the exquisitely sensitive O'Leary does not feel. He is, rather, an occasion for the Jesuit's schadenfreude.
Why should this be so? What is there about Benson that exempts him from Fr Joe's solicitude?
Could it be his ardent Catholicism?
And if so, why?
"Oh well, I think I'd better give up again. Don't blame me for dragging your discussion down to these steamy depths."
What a piece of work you are. You turn what should have been a discussion of Msgr. Benson's literary works into yet another excuse to revel in your obsession with homosexuality, and then turn around and tell us not to blame you for dragging your (not "our") discussion down.
What the blood blue blazes is wrong with you, Father?
Oh well, I was only trying to understand John Heard, and I think I did quite a good job. I never attacked Benson for his sexuality, only those Catholics who turned their back on him when they discovered he was gay (or "involved in sexual perversion" as they put it) and those other Catholics who now deny his gayness for reasons of bigotry.
As for Waugh, pb fails to note the homoerotic component in the ardent friendship between Charles and Sebastian, glowingly evoked in the novel. Also the quite kinky relationship between Sebastian and his German lover-cum-master, which is quite of a piece with other such naughtinesses throughout Waugh's fiction.
If it is anti-Christian to note and be amused by kinky things in literature, then it is anti-Christian to read literature at all. Even Shakespeare has lots of this kind of stuff, and he lived long before Sacher-Masoch.
Potter, Blosser, Roister, New Catholic -- the four horsemen of a modern puritanical apocalypse -- should begin by purging their own library of gay-friendly and kink-friendly authors!
I find the chronological sequence here interesting. From DREADNOUGHT’s post at 3:09AM, it takes Fr. O’Leary about 10 posts, 700 words, and 9 hours to realize that he has received a metaphorical whack in the head with a 2 by 4, and that it's time to give it a rest.
If feverish posting is some way of biding time until a delayed reaction sets in, it would go a long way towards explaining his output in general.
Still, I found this a very interesting thread. In particular, I'm reminded that in terms of artistic merit, Sebastian and Anthony Blanche are definitely a cut above Big Gay Al and Mr. Garrison, but then in any age, we have to start from where we are.
Your flirtation with perversion is purely frivolous -- for instance, this from one of you: "If you believe that masturbation is a mortal sin, a sin capable of condemning you to the bowels of hell, could not castration be construed as a profound act of charity?"
My point of view on perversion is that it is a ludic extension of sexual interest, that can be ethically innocuous, at least within a loving relationship. However, sadism that overrides the will of the other or that inflicts grievous bodily harm such as castration is a graver matter. One problem with the permissive attitude to perversion in our culture is that it can be taken as a charter by the rapist, sadist, or serial killer to indulge his own violent desires.
Who are Big Gay Al and Mr Harrison? Didn't think we needed to get beyond the classics of Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian literature to cater for the rather genteel proclivities of our friends here.
Spirit of Vatican II:
On behalf of those who actually benefit from the positive conversations here, and with an attempt at slight restraint in deference to your title, could you please oh please just ... shut ... up!
"please just... shut... up!"
What a wonderful argument!
http://www.adam-carr.net/012.html
Found this 1982 piece on Waugh and Brideshead Revisited
Both book and author were heavily criticised at the time of its first publication in 1945. The experience of the Second World War had produced a profound transformation in British politics and attitudes, one which had completely passed Waugh by. The political bankruptcy of the old establishment had been starkly exposed by Spain, appeasement, Munich, the Phoney War and Dunkirk. .. To many critics (mainly but not exclusively those of the left), Brideshead seemed like a deliberate spit in the eye for the British public's recent ordeals and aspirations for their future...
Waugh's whole background led him naturally to the political right. The Oxford intellectual push under whose influence he fell (the 'aesthetes' of the Hypocrites Club) was radical only in its aesthetic iconoclasm. It never developed a political criticism and most of its followers later settled happily into the lives of privilege to which their class backgrounds destined them. This is in sharp distinction to the almost contemporary Cambridge-centred group now known as Bloomsbury. This group, dominated by figures such as Maynard Keynes, E M Forster, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant, was, like the Aesthetes, mostly made up of upper-class homosexuals, but its politics leaned distinctly to the left.
Later, in Unconditional Surrender (1961) he even turned his own satirical pen against Brideshead. One of his characters, Corporal Ludovic, spends his war writing an impossibly baroque novel, described as "a very gorgeous, almost gaudy, tale of romance and high drama. . . The plot was Shakespearian in its elaborate improbability. The dialogue could not have issued from human lips, the scenes of passion were capable of bringing a blush to readers of either sex and any age. . . [it was a book] which could turn from the drab alleys of the thirties into the odorous gardens of a recent past transformed and illuminated by disordered memory and imagination." This analysis of Brideshead 's origins, and criticism of its weaknesses, were more penetrating than most of those it received at the time of its publication. They also demonstrate Waugh's saving grace, his ability to laugh at anything, including himself.
.. Is the hero of Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder, a portrait of Evelyn Waugh? The answer must be, not really. He is a character occupying Waugh's time and space, and there are certain parallels in their lives, but his personality and behaviour bear little relationship to the author's. We are shown a rather serious-minded, introspective young man, being brought out of himself by the radiant personality of Sebastian Flyte. In fact, the young Waugh, once at Oxford, flung himself headlong into the riotous decadence of the postwar aesthetic movement, launched and dominated by Harold Acton and Brian Howard (who appear in Brideshead as a composite character, Anthony Blanche). Even Waugh's reticent and protective biographer, Christopher Sykes, concedes that "at this period Evelyn entered an extreme homosexual phase", a phase he describes as "unrestrained, emotionally and physically." Sykes does not like homosexuality and says so, so this admission about his hero cannot be an exaggeration. Sir Harold Acton, in Memoirs of an Aesthete, describes Waugh as "a prancing faun, thinly disguised by conventional apparel. His wide-apart eyes, always ready to be surprised under raised eyebrows, the curved sensual lips, the hyacinthine locks of hair, I had seen in marble and bronze at Naples. . . Though his horns had been removed, he was capable of butting in other ways."
Many have tried to play down the fact of Waugh's homosexuality at Oxford and the homosexual origins of Brideshead Revisited. Waugh himself, after his conversion to Catholicism in 1930, destroyed his Oxford diaries. Derek Grainger, the producer of the television series, allowed himself in a recent interview (Campaign 7
to talk a load of nonsense about "powerful attachments" and "tender affections" caused by the unfortunate absence of women. He says Waugh's feelings were "very strong toward this sense but he was fairly chaste." Grainger may be excused a desire to preserve the family viewing status of his production, but this really is rubbish.
Two of Waugh's closest friends at Oxford were Alistair Graham and the Hon Hugh Lygon (pronounced Liggon). The balance of probability is that they were among his many lovers there, but this is now unprovable (although Graham is still alive). The personal character of Lord Sebastian Flyte is apparently based on Graham, as are many of the details of the relationship Waugh describes between Sebastian and the narrator. (According to Sykes, the name 'Alistair' occasionally appears in the Brideshead manuscript in place of 'Sebastian'.)
...
The story line of Brideshead can therefore be understood partly as a cleaned-up reworking of Waugh's Oxford relationship with Hugh Lygon (with bits of his relationship with Alistair Graham grafted on), partly as various pieces of Waugh autobiography, with his own character, in the person of Charles Ryder, subtly heterosexualised and respectablised, and partly as a description of the decline and fall of the Lygon family, only with the family's central crisis, Lord Beauchamp's homosexuality, removed and replaced with a spurious tale of adultery and voluntary exile - which in turn is subtly blamed on the inoffensive Lady Beauchamp/Marchmain, who gets recast from victim to villain. Of such pettiness is great literature made.
amazon.com advert:
Evelyn Waugh (English, 1903-1966) was best known during his lifetime as the author of bitter satires; today, however, he is best known for the brilliant 1945 novel 'Brideshead Revisited', an elegant tale of the failing English aristocracy between the world wars. The novel does not specifically identify homosexuality--but several characters are implicitly gay, most notably Sebastian, whose sexuality runs at odds with his religious beliefs and who ultimately self-destructs into alcoholism. While not "about" sexuality per se, Brideshead Revisited paved the way for later, more open examinations, and remains one of the most beautifully written novels of the 20th Century.
The Waugh-Benson connection:
Waugh wrote the preface to Benson's "History of Robert Raynal".
His favorite Benson work was "The Dawn of All" which influenced one of his short stories.
"Potter, Blosser, Roister, New Catholic -- the four horsemen of a modern puritanical apocalypse"
Oh, that's priceless! I'm definitely saving that one!
I guess since I'm named first, I'm riding the white horse, Dr. Blosser's red the red horse of war, Ralph is on the black horse of famine, and New Catholic is on the pale horse of pestilence.
Roister and Potter believe that gays cannot be good priests, as they lack some essential qualities of priesthood. This is just one of their many statements that a consideration of empirical evidence demolishes. Part of the evidence in this case is the vast number of outstanding catholic clergy and religious throughout history who were homosexual. Persistence in counter-factual pejoratives is a sure sign of prejudice, unjust discrimination, bigotry and homophobia -- attitudes which are sternly reproved in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They are no sign of fidelity to the Magisterium!
This is becoming silly, but before I retire from the thread:
1) Jason is not my boyfriend.
2) The photoshoot had nothing to do with S&M.
3) I submit freely, joyfully and completely to the authoritative teachings of Holy Mother Church in all matters (including sexuality).
Really, a simple reading of DREADNOUGHT would make these points abundantly clear.
If the course of Fr O'Leary's comments in this thread especially, but in others too, give any indication of what he will post on his blog once the Vatican instruction comes out, I won't even have to lock and load. He'll shoot himself in the foot.
Oops, I thought "my friend" and " my boyfriend" were the same person.
Nothing to do with S and M? Only if you define the latter narrowly, as involving physical pain. That is not the way the term sadomasochism is used by psychologists, or even in the gay world as far as I know.
The following photo http://photos1.blogger.com/img/3...oof%
20gay11.jpg
clearly exhibits masochistic connotations -- soft SM if you like.
It is masochistic (I use the term non-pejoratively) to want to be photographed on all fours,with your pants pulled down, and blindfold or gagged, in the open air. You also use the word "tagged" -- as if labeled by his "owner". All of this is a very standard part of the masochistic repertoire as chronicled by Sacher-Masoch in Venus in Furs. Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis, the pioneers in dicussing masochism, do not confine it to physical pain but also speak of "moral pain" (Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, III, 105) or association of sexual excitement with painful emotions such as anxiety, shame, disgust, the anger of the other (ibid. 168-71); see also Anita Phillips, In Defence of Masochism, Faber, 1998. "Gay dad couchant" can feel the emotions of vulnerability, exposure, shame, quasi-bondage, humiliation etc.
If you really do not see any connection between your photographic practice and the SM culture, I think you are probably lacking in self-awareness. Perhaps you are too extravert, insufficiently introspective to give an accurate, demystified account of the matter?
Liccione, instead of posturing, would you give your own interpretation of Dreadnought's stance. Do you agree that it is entirely in the spirit of the magisterium, or would you see an element of ludic SM fantasy, of which the magisterium would possibly not approve?
Of course you are free to say that ANY response to Dreadnought's daring communications would amount to "shooting oneself in the foot", but that amounts to saying that the closeted, hypocritical, don't ask don't tell approach is strategically the most advisable. If that is your line, you have sacrificed all claim to be concerned with truth.
Clarification, I did not look carefully enough at the photo. The guy starring in the "victim" role is of course not gagged but blindfold.
Stereotype-defying... John Heard stands his ground, what can one say but, AMEN
That is the view of Christopher Blosser and the Ratzinger Fanclub, as reported on the dreadnought site.
To my disappointment, he did not stand his ground but beat a hasty retreat when I pointed out the perfectly obvious connotations of his "gay dad couchant" pic.
Amy Welborn is also a dreadnought fan.
By the way, DREADNOUGHT has a spiritual commentary on his pics that makes very interesting reading:
http://johnheard.blogspot.com/20...e-sing-
for.html
I feel we are back in the world of Huysmans and Joseph Peladan, or of Wilde and "Patience": "then a somethingsomething passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid spleen, an affection a la Plato for a bashful young potato or a not too French French bean." etc.
Here is Dreadnought's explanation of his relation to the Vatican's teaching.
"Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."
Whoa! Those flames licking the bed after a particularly hot fuck are not just from the homo humpy hoo-hah! This is very tough stuff indeed, but there are keys that slot it into the solid, compassionate, enlightened Catholic thinking on human sexuality and normative morality.
For the Church is all about life. Most people think Catholics are sexual prudes, but this is not the case. Catholic aesthetics throb with sexual energy and the intellectual and theological tradition permits and encourages a vibrant, sometimes surprisingly horny sex life. But there are limits. The teachings above slot into the context of the broader teaching on chastity. It is an unmistakeable part of my religion that we believe sex serves a purpose, that we are more than fucking animals, rather complementary, fleshy units who miraculously partake with the Creator in the act of creation via the agency of sexual intercourse. Put simply, by making love humans join with God and make life.
Seen this way, my trangessions against chasity mirror those of any other young man my age who fucks before he finds a wife. Fucking a man is not any worse than fucking a woman at this fundamental level, both sin against chastity. As pointed out, however, the Church knows homos are probably not like breeders, that we're made differently somehow. Without getting into the details Mother Church and Father Pope remind their gay children that this doesn't mean ordinary teachings on sexual morality fly out the window. No:
"2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection."
So much for a Church that hates me! This passage demonstrates that Catholicism actually expects more of me. Good parents ask more from the children they know can excel, for there is not much use relying on the black sheep. But this is precisely what the Catholic Church does, she relies on her pink sheep. She's not sure yet why they're here but she is certain, and this certainty delivers - at least for this homo - a huge shock of love; that they fit into the wider plan for human salvation.
Thus, there is no need to reconcile anything. Just as some Catholics are particularly given over either to lusting after their neighbour's wives, or putting their hand in the till at work, homosexual Catholics must deal with their own peculiar mark
Just as some Catholics are particularly given over either to lusting after their neighbour's wives, or putting their hand in the till at work, homosexual Catholics must deal with their own peculiar mark, that indelible reminder of Humanity's Fallen status. When I fail I examine my conscience and crawl back to God begging forgiveness, just like any other Catholic. Remember pride was the sin that undid Satan, not lust. I have trouble dealing with the latter, but abandoning Christ and His Church would be willingly succumbing to the former.
As far as this homosexual is concerned, one tendency toward sin is enough to worry about.
There is a lot to be said for Dreadnought's position.
But I would worry about the effect on a loving gay couple of their conviction that their sexual expression is sinful and that their sexual orientation itself is intrinsically disordered.
Happily, in practice, the church is far more understanding of gay couples and encouraging of their faithful growth than one would gather from the naked text of Vatican documents.
Would dreadnought be acceptable in a seminary? Why not?
Responding to reports that the Vatican may be close to releasing a directive to exclude most gay candidates from entering the priesthood, leaders of Roman Catholic men's religious orders in the United States are planning to travel to Rome to voice their objections in person.
The trip is one of the steps by leaders of Catholic religious orders to try to reassure priests and seminarians who have been rattled by news of a possible Vatican ban on the ordination of gay men.
Word of the trip, which has not been scheduled, was in an internal letter sent on Monday to leaders of religious orders from the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, the key American coordinating body for more than 250 leaders of Catholic religious orders, like the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Jesuits. The letter was provided to The New York Times by a member of a religious order who said he was pleased by the superiors' actions.
In addition, at least two leaders of Jesuit provinces have written to their priests and seminarians reassuring them that their sexual orientation is not an issue as long as they remain celibate and chaste.
"We're not going to push anybody overboard," said the Rev. John Whitney, head of the Oregon province of Jesuits, which includes 254 men in five Northwestern states.
The Vatican has not even released a document on the issue, which has been under discussion for more than 10 years. Several news outlets, including The Times, reported last week that Vatican officials had said it would most likely be released soon, but no Vatican directive is certain until it is formally promulgated.
Still, several religious superiors said on Thursday that even the anticipation that the church could exclude men from the priesthood because of their sexual orientation had prompted an outpouring of fear and concern among priests - gays and heterosexuals alike. The superiors said their goal was to communicate to their men that they understood the impact that such a directive could have, and to convey that to the Vatican in hopes they could have an impact on the document's contents.
"This is an anxious moment; it creates difficult issues for people," said the Rev. Paul Lininger, executive director of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, who signed the letter to his colleagues and spoke by telephone. "But we want to be able to say to our men that we will be able to talk to various types of parties, and when the time comes we will communicate back to you."
Father Lininger said the letter was supposed to remain private, "because we don't want to inflame situations, but we needed to respond."
That the leaders of religious orders would step forward is not entirely surprising, said R. Scott Appleby, a historian of Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.
"Historically the superiors of religious orders have been more independent of the hierarchy," he said. "They
That was from today's NYT.
"Historically the superiors of religious orders have been more independent of the hierarchy," he said. "They are relatively autonomous and responsible for their own company of priests and brothers, so they're more accustomed to looking out for their own."
Some Catholics have said they would welcome the ban because they attribute the sexual abuse scandal to gay priests who preyed on young men.
But Msgr. Francis Maniscalco, spokesman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the Vatican began examining whether to ordain gays long before the abuse scandal broke in 2002, and not because of pedophilia.
"The church is not saying anything like that," Monsignor Maniscalco said. "Pedophilia is its own psychosexual illness, and has its own kind of syndrome. This is looking at another issue, which is the training for celibacy and the ability to live a celibate life. We live in an age in which people are told to express themselves, in which the gay rights movement says to come to grips with your orientation and to live it. And in that environment, there can be confusion, even in seminaries."
The provincial of the New York province of Jesuits, the Rev. Gerald J. Chojnacki, also sent a letter to his priests on Monday denouncing any move to exclude homosexuals.
"We know that God does not discriminate," Father Chojnacki wrote. "We know that gay men who have responded to the call have served the church well as priests and religious - and so why would we be asked to discriminate based on orientation alone against those whom God has called and invited?"
He wrote that he had participated in the funerals of "some very fine and distinguished Jesuits" who were also gay men. "I find it insulting to demean their memory and their years of service by even hinting that they were unfit for priesthood because of their sexual orientation," wrote Father Chojnacki, who leads one of the largest Jesuit provinces in the country, with 437 men.
This letter was addressed to "Brothers and Friends in the Lord," and has been circulated even outside the New York Jesuit province by priests encouraged by its message. One such priest shared it with The Times.
Father Chojnacki did not respond to a request for an interview. A spokesman for the New York province, Peter Feuerherd, said the letter had been directed to New York Jesuits "and was intended to address their concerns."
About 15,000 priests belong to religious orders, approximately one-third of those serving in the United States. The other two-thirds belong to dioceses, whose local leaders are bishops. Religious orders also include brothers, who are not ordained as members of the clergy.
Religious order priests serve in many capacities: teachers and professors, missionaries and professionals in many fields and in parishes. There are also contemplative priests and brothers, who devote themselves primarily to prayer.
Many religious
Ecclesia locuta est?
Well, let's wait to see what this Roman document actually says.
Here is the most perceptive thing I have read on the seminary inquiry:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/2...iefs.html?
fta=y
Steinfels says:
Certainly the 33 percent to 40 percent of seminarians with significant intellectual deficiencies include some whose handicaps might be easily remedied, like those for whom English is not a native language. Canceling out that good news, however, is another finding. Even among the academically gifted, as well as among the academically deficient, the faculty teams reported seminarians who "regardless of native abilities and educational experiences" resist "the learning enterprise" because it threatens their "preconceived ideas about theology."
Shouldn't such impressions, which are in fact more widely shared among Catholic seminary educators than anything having to do with homosexuality, loom large in a review of the seminaries? What if it were reported that only 10 percent of those studying for medical degrees were academically or intellectually "highly qualified"? Or that 40 percent of those accepted for law school or for graduate engineering degrees labored under one or more learning difficulties such as to create "special challenges for faculty"? Or that, whether or not they were well equipped for their studies, some significant percentage of students aspiring to positions in medicine, law, engineering, social work, education or, for that matter, the military, displayed an "unwillingness ...to engage in the learning enterprise" that they were undergoing?
Given Pope John Paul II's repeated pleas for the "evangelization of culture," it is surprising that only one question out of 96 explores whether seminarians are "capable of dialoguing, on the intellectual level, with contemporary society." Why not a few further questions like: "Do the seminarians follow current events? Do they read serious fiction and show an appreciation for the arts? Do they display an interest in contemporary science?"
In fact, that single question about dialoguing with contemporary society is followed by, "Do their studies help them to respond to contemporary subjectivism and, in particular, to moral relativism? (This question must be answered.)"
Contemporary subjectivism and moral relativism are not challenges to be dismissed. But what does this defensive tone, the dominant tone of the Vatican guidelines for examining American seminaries, promise by way of a dialogue with contemporary society? What does this defensive tone, which is, of course, the product of conservative and liberal agitation over the sexual abuse scandal in the church, promise for future generations of Catholic priests?
"Ecclesia locuta est? Well, let's wait to see what this Roman document actually says."
If you had just said that from the start, as I had suggested, you could have saved yourself a lot of time in these comboxes -- and avoided showing what's inside your perverted mind to all of us.
Dr Blosser (and fellow horsemen):
I'm taking myself out of this entirely. It's getting downright vile. I'm sick of Fr Joe -- corresponding with him is like nothing I could have envisioned speaking to an alter Christus. In fact, the experience strikes me as like nothing so much as scenes from "The Exorcist". Manic japing at the teachings of his own Church, bitter cackling and revelling in defacing the beliefs of his fellow Catholics, spewing profanities and venom in the faces of his readers and then coyly denying all accusations of heterodoxy and calling it refreshing honesty, even a vile attempt to pull a homosexual catholic from his honest and admirable orthodoxy down into the deviant muck where this priest's mind apparently resides -- priest or not, I'm really disgusted with this man. His deliberate provocations, delivered under the guise of intellectual debate, only serve to degrade us all.
All hail freedom of the press, but I won't have any more of it. I think the time has come to stick this genie back in the bottle and toss him out to sea, but since that isn't my decision to make, I'm simply going to vote with my feet. Good luck to all.
As for Waugh, pb fails to note the homoerotic component in the ardent friendship between Charles and Sebastian, glowingly evoked in the novel. Also the quite kinky relationship between Sebastian and his German lover-cum-master, which is quite of a piece with other such naughtinesses throughout Waugh's fiction.
I may fail to wallow in it, Father, as you do. I don't deny it's there. I do deny the ebulliently positive spin you put on it. Waugh is clearly familiar with the whole homosexual underworld from his own experience. This hardly means that his work is "gay friendly" as you put it in a later post. In fact, this was the chief point of my previous post -- back before your last thirty or forty or so: Waugh is not, as a Catholic convert, endorsing the gay lifestyle you so eagerly celebrate. He is showing how God's grace works through our lives despite the effects of sin -- alchoholism, homosexuality, adultery, and the like. Whatever humor is associated with the showcasing of the likes of Blanche in Brideshead, and however "glowing" the intimacy between Charles and Sebastian in their summer together (with the allusions to homosexuality there), there's no celebration or endoresement of homosexuality to be found here, unless it's through an egregious case of self-delusional eisegesis.
Dear Fr O'Leary,
For twelve years I earned my living as a professional opera singer. Two of those years I worked for the San Francisco Opera Company living both in and on the periphery of San Francisco. I have dozens of homosexual friends. I've shared dressing rooms and hotel rooms with homosexuals. And while on tour, I'e even shared beds with homosexuals. Thus, I'm hardly one who can be accused of "homophobia."
I am completely nonplussed as to how you, as a Catholic Priest, can advocate such a "life-style." Among my homosexual friends I've seen heart-break, spiritual disorientation, purposelessness, depression, disease and addiction all directly relating to their sexuality. I've literally spent hundreds of hours in conversation on the topic with my homosexual friends. Many of them have struggled with their homosexuality recognizing that it's clearly abberant. Few of them are as strident as you. In short, I've seen homosexuality destroy lives and rip people apart emotionally. I completely fail to see why anyone would condone it, much less a priest.
Baffled,
James
But you see, James, homosexuals wouldn't suffer any of those spiritual, emotional, and psychological pathologies if the Catholic Church would just stop saying what Jesus wants her to say about homosexuality . . . .
Hi Jordan,
>>But you see, James, homosexuals wouldn't suffer any of those spiritual, emotional, and psychological pathologies if the Catholic Church would just stop saying what Jesus wants her to say about homosexuality >>
You know, the amazing thing about this is that there are many homosexuals who are not as sure about the morality and sanity of homosexuality as is Father O'Leary.
My homosexual friends have -in heart to heart conversations - admitted that homosexuality is disordered. A good friend of mine (who is a pretty famous operatic tenor) once expressed that even after years of being openly homosexual, he still incredulously asks himself what the heck he's doing with his life. And in times past, he (as well as many other of my collegues at the time) got involved in very dangerous sexual activity such as sex in subways, public parks, gas station wash rooms, porno houses, etc. And this is not some anomaly, I might add.
I honestly feel for my homosexual friends. As a single heterosexual male I know how hard it can be to remain chaste. I couldn't imagine living in a community of men where there are willing participants around every corner. The emotional/mental constitution of women often (although less and less it seems) prevents them from engaging in casual sex. This is not the case in the "gay" culture where passions run free.
I've seen the "gay community" up close. It's a very depressing world. Oddly enough, many of the liberal folks who heartily support "gay rights" have precious little experience with the homosexual culture or never have had substantive friendships with homosexuals. For that reason, when I hear someone wax indulgent on the issue I always ask about their background on the matter.
James
James Caputo's agony aunt stunt is so ideologically loaded that he cannot expect it to be taken seriously. Pb now writes: "however "glowing" the intimacy between Charles and Sebastian in their summer together (with the allusions to homosexuality there), there's no celebration or endoresement of homosexuality to be found here, unless it's through an egregious case of self-delusional eisegesis." I beg to differ -- there is a celebration of the love between the two men, and to some extent the loss of Sebastian remains a psychic wound in Charles' character -- his first marriage is hell and his relation with Julia has a thin character as well; I remember being struck by a phrase Waugh used about the attraction of Julia for Charles, the "tiny pipsqueak of sexuality" or something of the sort -- not at all an attactive way of putting it. Waugh's early novels, such as Decline and Fall, are full of campy gay fun (his brother Alec wrote a notorious homoerotic novel); later he became sourly homophobic, but Waugh turned sour about everything. His misogynism -- in A Handful of Dust for example -- is partly due to the raw deal he got from his first wife, but partly due to his troubled homosexuality.
Roister's admiration for the dashing young Australian makes me realize what dumdums we Irish are. For a long time we took Vatican teachings literally, and that meant suppressing all sexual life outside of marriage (and even then...). For Roister you can be a deeply orthodox catholic and have a vibrant sexual life at the same time (complete with boyfriend, naughty rooftop pics etc.). Actually I would like to agree with Roister and the other fellow, but they must give me time to get my old-fashioned Irish mind around their sophisticated position!
James Caputo seems never to have met a stable and happy gay couple. I know several such, and I assure him that when society and the law are oriented to promoting such relationships they flourish to the benefit of all concerned.
The trip to Rome of the religious superiors confirms my impression that the Archbishop's announcement that the seminary crackdown would root out all homosexuals, irrespective of orthodoxy or celibacy, has been a public relations disaster -- guaranteeing a huge fall in seminary recruitment. Perhaps the Pope's dialogue with Kung was meant to project a warmer image to offset the damage done by this first major story of his pontificate; if so, it did not work -- Kung is the most famous Catholic theologian, but that is still not very famous; and the Ratzinger-Kung relation is a matter of interest only to cognoscenti -- but every Catholic parent in the world is struck by the image of the church weeding out their sons on the basis of their sexuality. I predict that Ratzinger may find it hard to shake off his nasty image, and may complain that the media has it in for him. The gay purge story has legs, and the Vatican has only itself to blame. Even if the document now unsays what the Archbishop in charge of the seminary investigation so loudly proclaimed, the damage will have been done. Despite the confidence of the gay neocaths here, I think it is still quite likely that the coming Vatican document will say that gays as such are to be excluded form seminaries; after all, as several people have pointed out here, there is a 1961 utterance to the same effect.
For James Caputo's ideological background, see http://www.towerwatch.com/
articl...tee_meeting.htm
I just "stopped in" to see what prompted 98 responses. Now I wish I hadn't.
Makes for a strong case for an antidote for Viagra though!!!
No need of Viagra, Convergent. This homoerotic circle is not genitally active, you know.
"I knew Sebastian by sight long before I met him. That was unavoidable for, from his first week, he was the most conspicuous man of his year by reason of his beauty" (Brideshead Revisited, Penguin Modern Classics, 1964, p. 30).
"He was entrancing, with that epicene beauty which in extreme youth sings aloud for love and withers at the first cold wind" (p. 33).
"That day was the beginning of my friendship with Sebastian, and thus it came about, that morning in June, that I was lying beside him in the shade of the high elms watching the smoke from his lips drift up into the branches" (p. 35). Refers back to p. 26: "Sebastian:s eyes on the leaves above him, mine on his profile... and the sweet scent of the tobacco merged with the sweet summer scents around us and the fumes of the sweet, golden wine seemed to lift us a finger's breadth above the turf and hold us suspended".
" I can see he has completely captivated you, my dear Charles. Well, I'm not surprised. Of course you haven't known him as long as I have. I was at school with him. You wouldn't believe it, but in those days people used to say he was a little _bitch_... I left under what is called a cloud, you know... the process involved a series of harrowing interviews with m' tutor. It was disconcerting to find how observant that mild old man proved to be. The _things_ he know about me, which I thought no one -- except possibly Sebastian -- knew. It was a lesson never to trust mild old men -- or charming schoolboys; which?' (pp. 51-2).
'You see, Charles, I understand _all_ your tastes' (ibid.)
'I want to introduce you to a lot of my friends. I have told Cocteau about you. He is all agog' (p. 52).
Cocteau was gay, of course.
'I think you are very fond of Sebastian.'
'Why, certainly.
'I know of these romantic friendships of the English and the Germans. They are not Latin. I think they are very good if they do not go on too long'
She was so composed and matter-of-fact that I could not take her amiss, but I failed to find an answer...
'It is a kind of love that comes to children before they know its meaning. In England it comes when you are almost men; I think I like that. It is better to have that kind of love for another boy than for a girl.' (p. 9
When Charles meets Julia "She so much resembled Sebastian that, sitting beside her in the gathering dusk, I was confused by the double illusion of familiarity and strangeness"; "as I took the cigarette from my lips and put it in hers, I caught a thin bat's squeak of sexuality, inaudible to any but me" (p. 74).
Homosexual feeling is all aglow, and he sheds tears as he remembers his days with Sebastian.
Heterosexuality is A THIN BAT'S SQUEAK...
pb thinks Charle's homoerotic attachment to Sebastian is "the effect of sin", because for pb homosexuality can only be understood in that way -- Original Sin is the explanation. Maybe Waugh taught the same in his later years of dyspeptic oldfogeydom. That may be why he disowned Brideshead Revisited. Nonetheless, trust the teller, not the tale. And for many a mystified and lonely Catholic boy, the Charles-Sebastian story offered rather helpful recognition of their feelings and their sexuality.
correction, taught shd be thought
As for who Big Gay Al and Mr. Garrison are, Father, you seem to be quite adept at search engines. True, you will be stepping beyond the bounds of Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian gentility, as you put it, but at this point, given your other posts, I wouldn't think that would concern you. Keep in mind that the point of my post was that I much prefer Waugh's old-school take on this whole topic. You, on the other hand, seem to be more of the Mr. Garrison type, for whatever that's worth.
HA, if there is something you disagree with in what I have written, say so, and give reasons why you think I am wrong. They will receive due consideration. Your bad mannered ad hominems are typical of the homophobic style of argumentation that is the staple of this site.
"The trip to Rome of the religious superiors confirms my impression that the Archbishop's announcement that the seminary crackdown would root out all homosexuals, irrespective of orthodoxy or celibacy, has been a public relations disaster -- guaranteeing a huge fall in seminary recruitment."
You may wish for a huge fall in seminary recruitment, but dream on.
Anyway, here's a follow-up from Archbishop O'Brien:
***********
Seminary Reviews Not Just About Homosexuality, Says Prelate
Archbishop O'Brien Clarifies Issues in U.S.
WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPT. 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- It is "an extremely serious error" to reduce the apostolic visitation U.S. seminaries and houses of formation to the single issue of homosexuality, says the coordinator of the visitation.
Military Services Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, who is coordinating of the visitation by the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education of the Holy See, emphasized that point in a statement posted today at the U.S. bishops' Web site.
"The Visitation does take up the issue of homosexuality," said the U.S. prelate. "It is one of the issues of our times. Within this cultural environment, there can develop, even among men preparing for the priesthood, an ambiguity both about the Church's teaching with regard to homosexuality and even whether some homosexual activity could be compatible with celibacy.
"Such ambiguity is not consistent with helping men to develop a mature commitment to living out celibacy every day for the rest of their lives."
The archbishop continued: "It is an extremely serious error for the media or any segment of the public to reduce the visitation to only one issue.
"The visitation is meant to look at the life of each institution as a whole to see whether it is helping to form men who, from a human, intellectual and spiritual point of view, will be faithful to their commitments as Catholic priests and worthy leaders of the communities for which they will eventually be responsible."
His own comments
Archbishop O'Brien clarified the context of his own recent, high-profile remarks in the media.
"With regard to comments of my own which have appeared in the media about not admitting to candidacy for the priesthood adult men who have engaged in homosexual activity or who have strong homosexual inclinations," he said, "I was reflecting my personal opinion and offering a prudential practice based on 12 years experience as rector […] of two U.S. seminaries. As visitation coordinator, I do not speak in an official capacity for either the Holy See or the USCCB [U.S. bishops' conference] on this matter."
The 66-year-old archbishop added: "Recent news stories claim that the Holy See may soon issue a document on the admission of homosexual candidates to the seminary. Such a document has been said to be in preparation for several years as a policy directive for the whole Church.
"Connecting the possible release of this
"Connecting the possible release of this document to either the visitation or the sex abuse crisis in the United States in 2002 ignores these facts."
"Kung is the most famous Catholic theologian"
Kung is a Catholic theologian???
"every Catholic parent in the world is struck by the image of the church weeding out their sons on the basis of their sexuality"
And you know that every Catholic parent in the world agrees with you how? In addition, I'm curious how you determined that every Catholic parent in the world has at least one homosexual son who is thinking of trying to become a priest. (Hint: this Catholic parent doesn't have any problem at all with the Church deciding homosexuals oughtn't be ordained, if that's what she decides to do.)
"the gay neocaths here"
To whom are you referring?
"This homoerotic circle is not genitally active, you know."
To whom are you referring?
Well, it's been two days since Fr. O'Leary said he was "giving up again" -- and then about two hours later changed his mind, from which time he's posted over 40 comments here.
The archbishop's backtracking was probably done under higher pressure -- he is perhaps the person most responsible for this public relations disaster.
I like Nathan's blogsite. Here is what he said yesterday.
September 30, 2005
Has the Rebellion Begun?
The New York Times is reporting today that the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, which represents more than 250 leaders of Catholic religious orders, is planning a trip to Rome to oppose the upcoming document which will bar the way to ordination for gay men. Meanwhile, The Washington Post is reporting that Fr. Gerald J. Chojnacki, SJ, the Provincial of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), has publicly criticized the new policy, saying that he finds it "insulting to demean their memory [here he is referring to gay priests] and their years of service by even hinting that they were unfit for priesthood because of their sexual orientation."
The New York Times also reported on September 25 that some Catholics are also pointing to Fr. Mychal Judge, OFM, a gay priest who sacrificed his life to minister to those who were injured and dying in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The former city fire commissioner, Thomas Von Essen, a Catholic, said that it would be "a shame" to prevent someone like Fr. Judge from being ordained to the priesthood, and also said: "To sacrifice your life to God and try to do so much good every day and to be prevented from doing that -- it's no wonder they can't get anyone to join the church to become a priest or a nun." Andrew Sullivan agreed, saying that the new policy "captures some of the cruelty and bigotry we see in the Vatican now." Even William Donohue, the ultraconservative president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, couldn't express support for the new Vatican policy.
Although the papacy and its curia have betrayed the Second Vatican Council many times over since its close, I think this may be the point when the faithful -- and by this I mean not only the lay faithful, but also the priests and the religious orders -- will stand up and say: "Enough. No more." Perhaps this will also embolden the bishops to reclaim their own apostolic authority, and the collegiality that was promised them during Vatican II. Wouldn't it be amusing if the flamers were the ones ultimately to cause the papacy to lose the power it has illegitimately claimed for itself since the end of the first millennium? God certainly does have an ironic sense of justice. St. Mychal Judge, priest and martyr, pray for us!
Since discovering that the Vatican would indeed aggressively pursue its agenda of purging gay men from Catholic seminaries, I've been thinking about what all of it means. When first hearing about it, of course, I concluded rather quickly that it meant that Pope Benedict XVI and the world's bishops are a bunch of (insert your favorite expletive here). I have not disavowed that conclusion, necessarily,
"For James Caputo's ideological background, see http://www.towerwatch.com/ articl...tee_meeting.htm"
Very interesting reading, though I already knew James was a Jehovah's Witness before he converted to Christianity. I'm not sure James' renunciation of the false and pernicious religion of the Watchtower is all that helpful at delineating his ideological background.
Why do none of our neocath literati ever refer to Graham Greene? His politics are too left wing for their taste, that is, he had an eye for social justice and American wickedness in places like Vietnam and Latin America. And there is nothing cute and closetty and campy about him.
Actually, if a Vatican document is issued now it may assure the Catholic faithful, especially seminarians and their parents, that gays ARE welcome in the seminary after all. So maybe the present flurry is point of growth for the church.
Meanwhile on the Anglican front the fiercely homophobic bishop Akinola is reveling in schism. His falsehoods about homosexuality go beyond even the extremest utterances on this site. See http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/
"The archbishop's backtracking was probably done under higher pressure"
Of course if you had any evidence that he's backtracking, you might be correct . . .
By the way, I'd already heard the rumors that Fr. Mychal Judge was supposedly unfaithful to his vow of celibacy and committed grievous sins with other men, but I've since learned the rumors were without foundation. Whether or not he struggled with same-sex attraction, who cannot admire and honor his giving up his life while exercising his priestly ministry for the dying -- an excellent icon of our suffering, dying, and rising Lord. I am honored to wear a bracelet in memory of Fr. Judge and those he served that dark and painful day.
You mean the Archbishop still thinks the coming seminary inquity should root out all gays?
You are right -- he does not unsay that he thinks men of "strong homosexual inclinations" should be banished from seminaries. So won't this statement only add more fuel to the controversy? However, in now saying that this is only his own personal opinion is he not giving the green light to those who actually carry out the inquiry to ignore what he said? He also plays down the importance of the mandatory question on evidence of homosexuality, whereas in his previous declaration he seems to stress it heavily. There would be no need for him to make a second public statement at all unless the first one had produced such a backlash. What he and the Vatican should be asking themselves is this: Why do we consistently cause outrage when we talk about gays? Should we not open a dialogue with gays themselves in the hope of producing a more helpful and inspiring message?
Bishops must reclaim their apostolic authority from the curia that has betrayed Vatican II over and over again. Nathan is right about that. But can we expect anything from today's underqualified, spineless bishops? (most of them products of the John Paul II period)
Your bad mannered ad hominems are typical of the homophobic style of argumentation that is the staple of this site.
You are of course free to consider me bad mannered, Father. I am similarly free to savor the irony. As soon as you get to the point -- regarding the visitation, Waugh, or anything else your stream-of-consciousness posts have touched on this time around -- rest assured, I shall give due consideration to responding. As of now, I'm still waiting.
So HA does not have any disagreement with the points I have made? Actually, looking up Mr Garrison, I see that the claimed likeness to me may not have been meant as a put-down. I am so used to put-downs around here that I may be finding them where none were intended.
Let us celebrate the godgiven variety of human sexuality, whether that of Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Michelangelo, Goethe, JHN, Kierkegaard, GMN, Virginia Woold, EFB, RHB, Waugh, Dreadnought, our own. Throwing a tizzie fit because someone suggests that your favorite author might be gay is immature and phobic. If we learn frankly to accept the sexual orientations of ourselves and others (I have said little about the acts that give expression to one's sexuality), then we are perhaps in a good position for that dialogue from which a truly functional sexual ethics can be born. That such a dialogue is urgently required can hardly be in doubt.
GMN shd be GMH.
"Well, it's been two days since Fr. O'Leary said he was "giving up again" -- and then about two hours later changed his mind, from which time he's posted over 40 comments here."
This fickleness of character and indecisiveness is typical of people like him. He seems to fit the stereotype very well.
Throwing a tizzie fit because someone suggests that your favorite author might be gay is immature and phobic.
I agree with this, though I'm not sure how it connects to the rest of the arguments Father O'Leary presented here. To my understanding, Brideshead was largely a lament for beauty destroyed by immaturity and corruption. Its glowing evocation of Sebastian's friendship with Charles – including any homoerotic undertones – are best seen in that light. Given what ultimately happened to Sebastian, the novel can hardly be seen as an apologia for homosexuality, but that is a point Dr. Blosser already made much more elegantly than I could have done.
While we can dispute the inclination of Waugh’s sexual preferences, no one can deny that Sebastian's destructive alcoholism was a vice that Waugh definitely did share, and the novel has at least a few rhapsodies on the heavenly delights of champagne with strawberries and such, if I recall correctly. But again, in considering Sebastian's end, the book cannot be seen as a brief for dipsomania either. As to why Waugh disowned Brideshead in his later years, my understanding – supported by the self-satire in his Sword of Honour trilogy -- was that this was due to its purple prose and purple stylings, and not to any “purple” gender statement. (However little my opinions matter, I think Waugh is much too hard on himself.) Finally, as I recall, it was Julia who broke off with Charles, not the other way around, and afterwards, Charles showed little inclination to renew the relationship with Sebastian that he had previously outgrown, so again, claiming an implicit affirmation for homosexuality in the plotline seems far-fetched.
In any case, this all seems like a digression on a post nominally dedicated to Benson. Indeed, it seems more like a “tizzie fit” of another sort, or at least a shock-and-awe exercise directed at readers far more refined than myself. As such, I am not the only one on this thread with bad manners. (Regarding my own sad lack of refinement, I did do a double-take at Father O’Leary’s reference to Sebastian’s “German lover-cum-master”, so perhaps there is hope for me yet.)
"Why do we consistently cause outrage when we talk about gays?"
For the same reason the Sodomites were outraged that Lot wouldn't let them engage in homosexual acts with the two divine messengers who'd come to deliver him from the impendiung destruction of the cities of the plain. Western civilisation is in rebellion against its Christian foundations, and the people of that city cannot bear to hear the truth.
"Throwing a tizzie fit because someone suggests that your favorite author might be gay is immature and phobic."
Of course no one has done that here. We have, however, expressed our disgust and frustration with your constantly turning discussions here to homosexuality. For you, the most important thing about Msgr. Benson and his writings is apparently that many people claim he was a homosexual. That says a lot about you, and none of it is good.
The Vatican has betrayed the "Spirit" of Vatican II.
Laugh out loud.
Ratzinger helpd write the documents.
Our loudly gay friend participated in the Council in what way exactly?
I'm always think I'm going to be happy to see anyone want to discuss Brideshead, which is up there among my favorite modern Catholic novels. I think I'm glad that Fr. O'Leary likes the work. However, what really impresses me is that he still seems to think he can find anything "pro-gay" in the thing. Allusions aplenty to homosexuality, most certainly. But "pro-gay"??? What, no disrespect, father, but are you on crack? How does the fact that the departure of Sebastian left a gaping hole in Charles' soul suggest anything "pro-gay"? Waugh is describing what happens when two friends who love each other, and, furthermore, whose friendship involves homoerotic enmeshments, get torn from one another. Nobody here is questioning that homosexuals cannot develop deep erotically reinforced emotional attachments that ape traditional marriage. But how is this depravation, this depravity of Charles, anything like a celebration of homosexuality? What Waugh is underscoring is the utter spiritual lostness of Charles throughout this novel -- nobody is more lost than Charles (in fact, he is a self-centered and a not very likable character) -- until the end, when, as it were, he is dragged, kicking and resisting, by God's grace not to Julia or to Sebastian or to his wife, but to Himself. "Pro-gay"? About as much as your Papa Razi!
Upon reflection, I realize that referring to anyone as being more along the lines of Mr. Garrison – despite the specific context that I gave the comparison – can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of them deeply insulting. That was not my intent, and rather than attempt to clarify the statement further and risk even more confusion and more digression, I retract it altogether.
"Waugh is describing what happens when two friends who love each other, and, furthermore, whose friendship involves homoerotic enmeshments, get torn from one another. Nobody here is questioning that homosexuals cannot develop deep erotically reinforced emotional attachments that ape traditional marriage. But how is this depravation, this depravity of Charles, anything like a celebration of homosexuality?" AT NO POINT is the friendship between Charles and Sebastian presented as aping anything or as in any way depraved -- except possibly on the lips of the cynical queen, Anthony Blanche; rather the Brideshead family including Lord Marchmain's mistress approve of the mutual love of the two friends -- telling Charles that "Sebastian loves you". The narrator weeps as he recalls the bliss of his youth, under the chapter title ET IN ARCADIA EGO -- which can have too meanings -- "I too had my privileged Arcadian youth" or "Even in Arcady, death was lurking" (I do not know if Waugh was aware of the latter, correct, sense). Jordan Potter has now come around to equating all gays with the Sodomites of Genesis 19 -- which certainly puts him in the camp of the biblical fundamentalists. What a message to send to your gay adolescent son. And then he will go on to stoutly deny that parental homophobia can ever be seen as a cause of adolescent suicide. I think DREADNOUGHT made an excellent remark: if the church criticizes what I am doing, then the fault is far more likely to be in me than in the church. But the church never speaks of gays with the hatred and contempt of people like Jordan Potter. The church is compassionate in its pastoral care for all who cannot live up to its laws, for instance in regard to contraception.
I did not say that the roman curia betrayed the spirit of Vatican II.
They betrayed Vatican II.
How?
By undercutting the single most important concrete prescription of Vatican II.
And you know what that is.
why is New Cath so chronically sour, sullen and bitter? What is really "making his blood boil" , as he puts it, is no doubt his complete inability to address or refute any of the observations put forward here, combined with a touch of homosexual panic. In any case, anger is a poor counselor, and he would do better to calm down before he posts his venomous and often calumnious messages.
I do not think his gayness is the most important thing about RH Benson or anyone else for that matter. I merely pointed out that he lost his Catholic following because he was perceived as gay and that his new Catholic following are trying to banish that perception -- in both cases for bigoted reasons. This does no service to an appreciation of Benson's talents as a novelist.
Brideshead Revisited has great snob appeal -- which goes down extremely well with Americans. I like the novel for the magic that Waugh manages to transmit in its first half. The second half, about the guilt-ridden lovers, the twitch of the thread that brings them back to the straight and narrow, Lord Marchmain's deathbed conversion, Charles' falling to his knees in prayer, does not strike me as good at all. It is an artificial plot, manipulated according to the notions of Catholic apologetics at the time. Waugh did not really face his own inner complexity in this plot, and indeed, great as his achievement is, I do not think he ever wrote the book that would throughly express the rich material buried in his personality. He was an unhappy, querulous man in the end, unable to sort himself out. That makes for a brilliant satirist -- as in the case of Swift -- but not for the highest artistic accomplishment.
For artists who did master and express their inner psychic landscape with all its ambiguities I would point to Flaubert (L'Education sentimentale), Proust, Joyce, Woolf. The Catholic apologetic machinery got between Waugh and the deepest self-understanding. He might have benefited from psychoanalysis, but I suppose he would have pooh-poohed it, as was his way.
I'm not surprised you wouldn't like reading about people converting to the faith, praying, and turning from their sins.
"I merely pointed out that he lost his Catholic following because he was perceived as gay and that his new Catholic following are trying to banish that perception -- in both cases for bigoted reasons."
No, all you did was make sure everyone knew he lost his Catholic following because he was supposedly gay (you didn't say "perceived as gay," you said he WAS gay). This is the first time you've said anything about his new Catholic following supposedly trying to banish that perception. I wouldn't even know of the perception if it weren't for you -- and I couldn't care less if he was afflicted by homosexual urges, since it's seems to be irrelevant to an appreciation of his novels. His supposedly being gay seems pretty important to you, however, since it's you who immediately brought it up and have continued to dwell on it.
"Jordan Potter has now come around to equating all gays with the Sodomites of Genesis 19 -- which certainly puts him in the camp of the biblical fundamentalists."
You have amazingly poor reading comprehension skills, Father.
"What a message to send to your gay adolescent son."
Since I have no adolescent son, I'm pretty sure I have no gay adolescent son. As I've told you before, you need to stop trying to read minds, since you obviously don't have that ability. (Don't feel bad -- not many people do.)
"And then he will go on to stoutly deny that parental homophobia can ever be seen as a cause of adolescent suicide."
Ah, you fancy yourself as having the ability to foretell the future too. But how can you tell my fortune if you don't even know my sign or haven't had a chance to examine the lines of my palm?
A word to the wise: if Fr. O'Leary tells you tomorrow is the day to sell your stock, you'd better not, or you might face financial disaster.
"But the church never speaks of gays with the hatred and contempt of people like Jordan Potter."
And I have not even once in my life spoken of gays with hatred and contempt. God forgive you for your falsehoods, as I pray he also rescues you from your heresies and brings you back to the faith.
"Why do we consistently cause outrage when we talk about gays?"
For the same reason the Sodomites were outraged that Lot wouldn't let them engage in homosexual acts with the two divine messengers who'd come to deliver him from the impendiung destruction of the cities of the plain. Western civilisation is in rebellion against its Christian foundations, and the people of that city cannot bear to hear the truth."Why do we consistently cause outrage when we talk about gays?"
(Outrage from parents of gays, from theologians and religious, from decent Catholics).
Potter:
For the same reason the Sodomites were outraged that Lot wouldn't let them engage in homosexual acts with the two divine messengers who'd come to deliver him from the impendiung destruction of the cities of the plain. IN SHORT ALL THOSE WHO ARE OUTRAGED ARE LUSTING RAPISTS -- not only gays but all who are outraged on behalf of gays. Is this not the language of a cold hatred and contempt? If not, what is it?
Tell the parent of a gay adolescent that her anger at church homophobic teaching is due to her sodomite rebellion against God...
She loves her son, and she loves the boyfriend who brought happiness to her son, and she is angry that the church condemns their sexual orientation as evil and disordered and their relationship as mortal sin.
Neither her son nor his lover are sodomite rapists or anything like it.
Dialogue is the way forward here, not condemnation. Ratzinger's ability to dialogue with Kung gives hope that even now, in the heel of the hunt, he may open a dialogue with the gay men and women and their parents whom he has grievously offended.
That mother and her son (I am thinking of real people, Irish) would CERTAINLY recognize in Potter's language the accents of hatred and contempt. It is always the victims of such attitudes who feel the pain, not the blithe perpetrators.
On modern "reformers", such as O'Leary:
"The reformers that Borromeo opposed [...] tried to reform faith and discipline according to their own whims. Venerable Brethren, it is no better understood by those whom We must withstand today. These moderns, forever prattling about culture and civilization, are undermining the Church's doctrine, laws, and practices. They are not concerned very much about culture and civilization. By using such high-sounding words they think they can conceal the wickedness of their schemes.
"All of you know their purpose, subterfuges, and methods. On Our part We have denounced and condemned their scheming. They are proposing a UNIVERSAL APOSTASY even worse than the one that threatened the age of Charles. IT IS WORSE, We say, BECAUSE IT STEALTHILY CREEPS INTO THE VERY VEINS OF THE CHURCH, hides there, and cunningly pushes erroneous principles to their ultimate conclusions.
"Both these heresies are fathered by the 'enemy' who 'sowed weeds among the wheat' in order to bring about the downfall of mankind. ... ALTHOUGH THE WILD INNOVATORS OF FORMER TIMES GENERALLY PRESERVED SOME FRAGMENTS OF THE TREASURY OF REVEALED DOCTRINE, THESE MODERNS ACT AS IF THEY WILL NOT REST UNTIL THEY COMPLETELY DESTROY IT.
"WHEN THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION ARE OVERTHROWN, THE RESTRAINTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY ARE ALSO NECESSARILY SHATTERED . Behold the sad spectacle of our times! Behold the impending danger of the future!"
Sancte Pie, ora pro nobis!
In sublime disregard of theological hermeneutics, New Catholic feeds us Editae Saepe (Pius X) -- a dead letter, stillborn.
Let the dead bury their dead.
Rancid texts used for purposes of spiritual abuse are not of Christ or his Gospel.
especially when used to contradict the mind of the Church as expressed in Vatican II
We in Ireland know to what crimes and misery the parroting of such abusive rhetoric led.
New Catholic, do you love Death or Life?
What will you quote at us next? The charters of the Spanish Inquisition? The documents denouncing Copernicism?
Ha! Ha! It seems I hit the jugular of an irritated heretic! No text fits you as well as these paragraphs of our dear and holy pope, Saint Pius X, of blessed and glorious memory.
"...these heresies are fathered by the 'enemy' who 'sowed weeds among the wheat' in order to bring about the downfall of mankind..."
Yes, very true! After these past few months, I am convinced that what you need, O'Leary, is a good old exorcism. Your words, your demeanor, your behavior are clear signs of a soul in peril and under siege.
Could anyone please send Fr. Amorth to Tokyo to heal this man?
The Roman Catholic Church no longer refers to the churches of the Reformation as heretical. It is not good to try to live in a time warp.
To say that Protestantism was fathered by the devil is, according to current Vatican thinking, an anti-Christian statement.
Dominus Iesus, authored by Ratzinger, says that while Protestant churches "suffer from defects" they have not been "deprived of
significance and importance in the mystery of salvation."
Cardinal Kasper observes, “The trenches of the Second WorldWar and the concentration camps of the Third Reich were the birthplaces of ecumenism.Christian confessors, Catholics and Protestants, were imprisoned together with Jews.Their shared opposition to an inhuman and criminal regime revealed the depths of whatthey had in common-and showed that this was greater than what divided them.” The fledgling ecumenical movement in Europe and elsewhere from the 1920’s untilthe 1950’s was met with cool and sometimes suspicious reserve Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII. In 1960, Pope John XXIII established the Secretariat for Christian Unity and in 1962, non-Catholics were invited to the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council II as observers -- a dramatic shift in attitude. The Decree on Ecumenism speaks about the love andreverence for the Word of God, the Sacred Scriptures that is so prevalent among the ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation. Protestants "are accepted as brethren by the children of the Catholic Church." Christ's one Church "subsists in the Catholic Church, but many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines. Since these are gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling toward Catholic unity.” (Lumen Gentium)
The Decree on Ecumenism’s discusses the Protestant communities' roles in promoting the holiness and growth in the Christian life as their members journey on their pilgrim way toward the Kingdom of God. “Thedecisive element of the Second Vatican Council’s ecumenical approach is the fact that the Council no longer identifies the Church of Jesus Christ simply with the Roman Catholic Church, as had Pope Pius XII as lately as in the Encyclical, Mystici Corporis in 1943. The Council replaced ‘est’ with ‘subsistit in’: the Church of Jesus Christ subsists in the Catholic Church which means that the Church of Jesus Christ is made concretely real in the Catholic Church.” (Kasper) Outside the visible structure of the Catholic Church, there are not only individual Christians who bear that proud title by virtue of their Baptism. There are also Christian communities that possess elements of the Church of Christ. “The brethren divided from us also carry out many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. ...These liturgical actions most certainly can truly engender a life of grace, and, one must say, can aptly give access to the communion of salvation.” (Decree on Ecumenism, 104) “It follows that the separated churches and communities as such…have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church”
Pope John Paul II proposed four steps that Christians should take to advance further their ecumenical journey together: 1) they should continue theological dialogu
Pope John Paul II proposed four steps that Christians should take to advance further their ecumenical journey together: 1) they should continue theological dialogue; 2) receive the results achieved; 3) renew their commitment to prayer and interior conversion; and 4) jointly reassess how the Bishop of Rome can best exercise his ministry of unity. He invited all Christians to take a new look at how the Petrine ministry might be exercised in the future.
You are so pathetic... This is not about Protestants (though the Protestant heresies were certainly fathered, as all heresies, by the Enemy), but about you, to whom, as a shameless Modernist, the words of Saint Pius X, the holy Pope Sarto, are addressed.
Vade retro, O'Leary! Go find an exorcist!
"Is this not the language of a cold hatred and contempt? If not, what is it?"
Like I said, your reading comprehension skills are abysmal -- but then we all know that sin makes one stupid.
Priests who publicly profess doctrinal error have no place to lecture others about right and wrong, truth and error. Get your own house in order first, Father, and then you can try and clean up others'.
And with that, I conclude my participation in this non-discussion of Msgr. Benson's works. Feel free to continue this debate with your own navel if you wish.
Doctrinal error?
Again you mix everything up.
Latching on to outdated texts and using them in a fundamentalistic, anti-ecumenical, anti-freedom or conscience, anti Vatican II manner, is the path to doctrinal error.
My own views are mostly within the moral and pastoral vision of Catholicism as integrally grasped.
On some points, with most liberal Catholics, I say there is a need for further discussion and development -- points which concern non-infallible teachings such as the intrinsic evil of artificial contraception and homosexual acts within the context of a loving relationship. However, these points are not at the centre of the points I am making here -- the basic point being that we must honor the experience of gay catholics and enter into dialogue with it.
For New Cath and Potter to accuse me of doctrinal error is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black but a case of the blind man calling an elephant a snake because he had felt its trunk only.
New Cath confuses Modernism with the "modernity" that older popes ranted against. Today the Church and I myself firmly reject Modernism but we have developed a much more open and dialogal attitude to modernity, as shown by the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes.
The betrayal of Vatican II by the Roman Curia in recent years centers on their failure to implement the conciliar ideal of collegiality. But it is also laced with a new failure to engage modernity, as is seen particularly in a complete failure to hear or engage with the cry of gay people for humanity and justice.
Again and again I challenged Potter to name a single doctrinal error which I have committed.
Again and again he replies with "the ordination of women" -- though in reality this is hardly an issue I have argued at all. It was Neo Catho or Garton-Zavesky's idea that I was a foremost proponent of women's ordination because they noticed I had an essay on the women's ordination site -- what they did not notice is that the essay in question is reprinted from elsewhere and has nothing to do with women's ordination. In any case, it is silly to call this a doctrinal error. Like most liberal catholics I believe that the ordination of women is a possibility that should not be ruled out of court, given the crisis of ministry in the RCC. I think it is obvious that the Tridentine model of the all-male, celibate priesthood, to which conservative Catholics cling for dear life (more for psychological reasons than from any theological ones) has played itself out. The extreme stubbornness of the Vatican on every aspect of ministry, except the ordination of married men from other churches (and even more widely in cases of pastoral necesssity as proposed by Paul VI to the 1971 Synod who turned it down) is one of the reasons for the poor functioning of our church; again, when I look at our sister churches I see no such problem, but a vibrant joyful motivated ministry.
I think it is a theological mistake to throw around the word HERESY in regard to moral issues such as contraception. There is a condemnation of "laxist" propositions in Denzinger, but it makes no reference to the concept of heresy.
Why not stick to the current expression, "dissident", for those Catholic theologians who publicly question the truth of church teachings on moral issues such as contraception. I don't think the Vatican ever used the word "heresy" in regard to moral theologians they have condemned, such as Charles Curran.
And let us not forget Karl Rahner's prophecy that the heresies of today are most likely to come from the right. This prophecy is surely fulfilled in the rise of fanatical fundamentalism on every side, with the consequences we see.
Champions of sodomy laws, for example, are very close to the Taliban who are very close to terrorism.
Enthusiastic quoters of long-extinct documents against Protestants etc. are fomenters of religious violence.
The non-ordainability of women is an infallible and unrevisable doctrine according to the Letter by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Prefect, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
October 28, 1995:
In response to this precise act of the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, explicitly addressed to the entire Catholic Church, all members of the faithful are required to give their assent to the teaching stated therein. To this end, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of the Holy Father, has given an official Reply on the nature of this assent; it is a matter of full definitive assent, that is to say, irrevocable, to a doctrine taught infallibly by the Church. In fact, as the Reply explains, the definitive nature of this assent derives from the truth of the doctrine itself, since, founded on the written Word of God, and constantly held and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary universal Magisterium (cf. Lumen Gentium, 25). Thus, the Reply specifies that this doctrine belongs to the deposit of the faith of the Church. It should be emphasized that the definitive and infallible nature of this teaching of the Church did not arise with the publication of the Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. In the Letter, as the Reply of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also explains, the Roman Pontiff, having taken account of present circumstances, has confirmed the same teaching by a formal declaration, giving expression once again to quod semper, quod ubique et quod ab omnibus tenendum est, utpote ad fidei depositum pertinens. In this case, an act of the ordinary Papal Magisterium, in itself not infallible, witnesses to the infallibility of the teaching of a doctrine already possessed by the Church.
THERE ARE SEVERAL QUESTIONS ONE MIGHT ASK HERE. First, if the doctrine is infallible because taught by the universal magisterium, why has there been no consultation of this magisterius to confirm that that is in point of fact what they do teach. Many bishops are quite open to the possibility of women priests, and even if they have never been positively in favor of women priests there is no evidence that they taught the non-ordainability of women as a matter of doctrine. Second, can the Pope declare something is taught be the universal magisterium and therefore infallible without further ado? This is like exercising papal infallibility without taking responsibility for it. The Pope consulted the universal magisterium before proclaiming the two Marian dogmas of 1854 and 1950 - but he did not say, 'these dogmas are infallible because held by the universal magisterium'.
Thirdly, can the CDF declare a papal document to be infallible if the Pope himself does not? Is that not another way of eluding responsibility?
"magisterius" shd be "magisterium"
"be the magisterium" shd be "by the magisterium"
Hugh Benson frequently sporting through Lesbian Marie Corelli's groves with a boyfriend hand in hand... Jordan Potter brought this to my attention. Surely it is not an unpleasant picture except in the eyes of the jaundiced?
I admit not reading all the posts on this thread but there does not seem to be any mention of the "gay gene". For an update, see the article published in the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning entitled "Straight science needed on gay issues". http://www.philly.com/mld/philly...nt/
12802282.htm
The last paragraph from the article poses some interesting questions:
"Scientists say it's next to impossible to get federal funding to research anything related to sex, and especially homosexuality. And yet our political and cultural debates often hinge on such issues. Should we allow gay marriage? How do we prevent HIV infection? How do we educate our children so they don't contract and spread this epidemic? How can we deal with antigay discrimination?"
O'Leary wants to see the love of Sebastian and Charles (especially the hint of homoeroticism in it) as pure and beautiful. That's why he loves the first half of Brideshead and loathes the second half, where the guilt, repentance, and conversions come. He says that Waugh "did not really face his own inner complexity in this plot." For Waugh to have "faced" this complexity, doubtless, would have meant (according to O'Leary) for him to have concluded his novel with a no-holds-barred celebration of homoerotic love without rejecting, somehow, the substance of Catholicism -- that hot tub fantasy in which O'Leary continues to wallow. He calls upon Lord Marchmain's mistress's words for approval of Charles' and Sebastian's love, seemingly missing completely her observations about their loves immaturity, something for the young and not-yet-quite-grown men. Indeed the whole first half of the novel evokes the naive romanticism of adolescents trying to hang on to their childhood, skirting the edges of an adult world of responsibilities and helping themselves to his daddy's wine cellar.
The melancholy of Sebastian is due not only to his parents' divorce and the falling apart of his family and happy memories of youth, but to the clear discrepancy that subsists throughout his time with Charles between his religious convictions and the direction of his life. Cordellia later sheds considerable light upon this.
What O'Leary doesn't like about the latter half of Waugh's novel is exactly what he does not like about Dreadnaught, namely the conviction that the Church after all is right about her teachings and that we are accountable to her. That, in O'Leary's view, is where Waugh and Dreadnaught and I and most of the other commentators here are simply mistaken, since we do not share his fanciful notion that Church teaching can be arbirarily up-dated to suit his and anyone else's proclivities.
And this from my wife, a great fan of Waugh and lover of literature, regarding O'Leary's reading of Brideshead: Anyone who thinks Waugh was homosexual has no understanding of his venomous treatment of women, which could only have come from intimate acquaintance with a woman he once loved -- probably his first marriage.
Again and again I challenged Potter to name a single doctrinal error which I have committed.
Again and again I note this is an utterly futile. If a heretic can stand beside you and recite the Nicene Creed word for word, you're not going to spot his heresy in the "letter" of his credo. It's going to come in the "spirit" of his understanding of the words -- in this case, the so-called "Spirit of Vatican II."
O'Leary wants us to back off from the strong word "heresy" and substitute the more tasteful term "dissident." That's just the trouble with this diet of fruit cocktails. Where's the beef? "Heretic" is a fine, fullsome word, and I recommend against decommissioning it.
O'Leary adds: "And let us not forget Karl Rahner's prophecy that the heresies of today are most likely to come from the right ... Champions of sodomy laws, for example, are very close to the Taliban who are very close to terrorism."
How quick to defend the rights of anal sex. How slow to defend the rights of family communities to keep such filth at bay. Meanwhile, not a word from him about the 4000 human beings slaughtered daily because of sex outside of the committed traditional matrimonial covenant of love.
He is more than a heretic. He simply revels in the prospect of turning souls from Christ, and from the teacings of the Church, which come from Christ through the Holy Spirit. I don't think "heretic" comes close to covering it. He is as dangerous, in his way, as Shanley, in his: both wallow in corruption, and delight in dragging down other souls into their muck.
A waterfall of words and phrases,
Flowing from the well-used mouths
Of ecclesial disgraces.
Solipsistic fairies roar
With pelvises all cheery.
Orgasms in the Church galore,
Where'er is found O'Leary.
"Benson, Waugh and Ratz are queers!
'Long with every writer here,
Better keep it all sincere,
Or you'll miss out on the gay frontier.
"Hey, if you think this much too frank,
You only have yourselves to thank,
For repressing gropes and spanks,
In favor of, 'He'll walk the plank!'"
But spare us all your sermons, dad,
This all is so, like, last year's fad.
No matter how you tit for tat,
We'll know that much is wrong with that.
("Memento mori" tends to spoil
The seed that's tilled in barren soil.)
Mr Hearn,
I will extend love, compassion and acceptance to you, provided you renounce your assent to orthodoxy, and join me here in the swill-hole.
I'll be your pal, and all it will cost is your immortal soul -- how's that for a bargain?
Toodles,
MITM
Dear Father O' Leary,
You had said:
>>James Caputo seems never to have met a stable and happy gay couple.>>
I have met some happy "gay" couples. I was commenting on a general impression I've gotten of the "gay" community in my years in the performing arts.
And yes, I was reared as JW, got baptized at age 25 and left via study of scripture at age 26 1/2. After some ten years of studying Christian history, I converted to Catholicism. I have been a professional cantor in the Church for some 6 years.
I'd be more than happy to tell you what I witnessed among the "gay" community. Like I said, I have dozen of homosexual friends. So, mine is not an armchair theory.
>> James Caputo's agony aunt stunt is so ideologically loaded that he cannot expect it to be taken seriously.>>
You've got to be kidding me! I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, Father O'leary. I'd be more than happy to share some of my impressions and conversations I've had with my homosexual friends.
James
"What O'Leary doesn't like about the latter half of Waugh's novel is exactly what he does not like about Dreadnaught, namely the conviction that the Church after all is right about her teachings and that we are accountable to her."
Really? I actually praised Dreadnought's statement that if the church disapproves of our behavior it is more likely that the church is right. What I queried in D is his representation of the church's teaching -- I do not think Cardinal Ratzinger would have blessed his celebration of gay feelings and erotic pics.
I criticize the end of Brideshead on literary grounds -- the plot is too artificial. Of course I love great conversion narratives, such as Augustine's or Joseph Malegue, where there is a real confrontation with the full reaches of the process.
"That, in O'Leary's view, is where Waugh and Dreadnaught and I and most of the other commentators here are simply mistaken, since we do not share his fanciful notion that Church teaching can be arbirarily up-dated to suit his and anyone else's proclivities."
It is not a question of suiting proclivities but of respecting human beings. I am not a moral theologian and do not particularly wish to contest moral doctrines, but I do see that church teaching as currently expressed in a non-dialogal way has fueled vicious homophobia in practice. If the church spoke as understandingly and dialogally to gays as to married couples practicing contraception I would be quite happy.
The church teaches that the homosexual orientation as such is intrinsically disordered.
Dreadnought disagrees:
Emphatically and loudly NO! I celebrate what God has wrought in me, however he has done it and for whatever purpose. It would be mean hearted and schizophrenic to hate something about myself.
On the rumored seminary document he writes:
A ban on the kind of men apparently described in the document 'men with deep-seated homosexual inclinations' does not in any way prevent the entry of same-sex attracted individuals. This is a profound point that DREADNOUGHT has made before. The document does not represent a change in Catholic teaching, indeed it reiterates instructions promulgated by Pope John XXIII and others and accords with wider Church teaching on human sexuality. It is tied to a legitimate and overdue 'purge' of heterodox, heretical and to put it blankly, abusive individuals who have infiltrated some Catholic seminaries, particularly in the West.
Similarly, the document cannot, in a fundamental sense, refer to 'homosexuals' at all; despite the English translation we get. Like all Vatican documents, it must accord with Catholic teaching on human sexuality. Currently, and humanely, that teaching does not segregate humanity into separate classes/genders on an ontological level based purely on where one chooses to insert one's cock.
NOT QUITE TRUE -- the Vatican documents recognize constitutional and exclusive homosexual orientation and describes precisely this as objectively disordered.
In light of the above, the 'psychological' deficiency mentioned does not agree with historical categorisations of same sex attraction as a mental disorder. Rather, it refers to a psychosocial orientation, sometimes derived from same sex attraction and / or 'homosexual acts' that necessarily excludes some individuals from the priesthood. Put simply, this rightly excludes Stonewall-informed proto-seminarians more at home in a DignityUSA meeting than a rosary chapel. It does not, and cannot exclude seriously pious, Christ-infatuated, sometimes same sex attracted young men.
WISHFUL INTERPRETATION...
All that heavy weather about gayness is absurd. The best thing is just accept gayness as a psychological reality, and proceed to talk about sexual ethics in the same matter-of-fact and common sense way that one would in the case of heterosexual orientation.
There is nothing special about being gay. Making it a huge problematic issue is completely unnecessary. It is a hang-up.
If you think that Christian ethics demands total continence of gays, well say so, and don't make a needless song and dance about it. If you are arguing for some leeway to accommodate faithful gay couples, for example, the argue that coolly -- either as pastoral accommodation or as a proposed development of the ethical doctrine itself.
the argue SHD BE then argue
It was an attack on, and misrepresentation of, secular humanism. Secular humanism does not promote selfishness, which is no more acceptable to the secularist than it is to the religious believer.
But bad and all as the situation is where secularists, Protestants, and followers of other religions are concerned, pity the homosexuals.
Respecting difference where gay people are concerned means accepting a Catholic view that you are, to quote from Cardinal Ratzinger in 1986, the subject of "a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder".
Now it appears he is about to ban gay men - even if celibate - from training for the priesthood.
A Vatican document on the matter is expected to be approved by him at the end of October.
Various studies have shown that a significant proportion of men who enter seminaries are gay.
Fr Donald Cozzens, former rector of a Catholic seminary in Ohio, wrote in his book The Changing Face of the Priesthood (2000) that about half of priests and seminarians were gay.
In March 1997 and before she was nominated for the presidency, Mary McAleese wrote in the Tablet that "women have observed the enormous drain of heterosexual males from the priesthood and the growing phenomenon of gay priests".
The Vatican intends to address this by stopping gay men from entering seminaries. But what of existing gay priests?
In April 2002 Pope Benedict's spokesman, Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valls, suggested that, just as a marriage can be annulled if the husband turns out to be gay, the ordination of gay men might also be made invalid.
What then of the church if the Vatican is to annul the ordination of gay priests?
Richard Sipe, a former Catholic priest and psychotherapist in the US, has written a number of books on clergy and sexuality issues.
He has said that if gays were to be banned from the priesthood "it would mean the resignation of at least a third of the bishops of the world". He added that this would go "against the tradition of the church; many saints had a gay orientation, and many popes had gay orientations".
The Vatican may be about to make itself look ridiculous.
Many would hold that at the root of all of this is a deeply-flawed thinking which strips people of their humanity, reducing them to a "disorder". It seems more barely-masked prejudice than truth.
The Catholic Church should know better. It has had similar experience with another minority.
Up to 1962, and despite the Holocaust, it retained the phase "perfidious (treacherous) Jews" in its Good Friday liturgy.
John Paul began the end of millennia of suspicion when in 1986 he was first Pope to visit a synagogue (in Rome).
In 1979 he visited Auschwitz. In 2000 he asked forgiveness in Jerusalem for the church's role in the persecution of Jewish people down the millennia and prayed, in Jewish fashion, at the Western Wall.
The
McGarry (whom I had thought to be homophobic) ends his Irish Times piece quoted in the previous post by predicting a day when the church will apologize to gays as it now does to Jews.
All of you who go on about homosexuality being a disorder, please be careful -- you don't want to end up on the wrong side of history! Remember all the worthies of the past now tagged as antisemites -- do you in turn want to be remembered as the moral equivalent of antisemites?
Posted on Bettnet 10/4:
You know, I’m having trouble with this ethos of “being nice” and not talking about the elephant in the middle of the room. No more. We’re at a point where allowing ourselves to be bashed any longer is tantamount to acceptance of the slander.
First, I’m not going to use the term “gay” ever again—not even in the presence of dedicated “gays.” There is nothing remotely “gay” about what they do. Let’s talk reality here. This is all about (from the male perspective alone) one man inserting his sexual organ into various orifices that are designed by God for anything BUT such a practice. Inserting one’s sexual organ into someone else’s mouth is disgusting enough sufficiently a perversion of the intent of the mouth (i.e. for nutrition and speech), but the insertion of one’s genitals into the anus of another is downright revolting. The filth, germs and disease that are the result of this degradation should be obvious to anyone who considers it (ugh—which is why many don’t). The euphemization of the reality of sodomy (morphing “anal copulation” into “gay") has made it more, shall we say, palatable to the great masses who never think about what they opine. This act of linguistic gymnastics must end. Now.
Secondly, why does no one ever ask (and answer) the question of why people like Rohr are so fanatical about the preservation of “gay-dom” in religious life? Who does “ministry to alcoholics?” Answer: recovering alcoholics. Who spends all their time doing “ministry to circus performers?” Answer: those who have an overwhelming desire to be in the circus themseles, but find themselves “stuck” in the priesthood. Who does any specialized ministry (to the exclusion of normal parish work)? Those who have an inordinate attachment to those to whom they “minister.”
So why don’t we all just call a spade a spade? Why do we tiptoe around making the legitimate assumption that many (if not all) of those who obsessively defend so-called “gay rights” and so-called “gay marriage” are, in fact, homosexually oriented (if not active) themselves?
I’m sick of having the good name of priest usurped by pretenders who think that their personalized eisegesis of Scripture (and Tradition, when you can get them to admit that it exists)gives them free rein to preach a different Gospel than that of Jesus Christ.
There. Now I’ve said it.
Posted by: Fr. Jim Clark on Oct 04, 05 | 2:14 pm
Conan,
Well said!!!
In case some did not read the recent article on the "gay gene".
For an update, see the article published in the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled "Straight science needed on gay issues". http://www.philly.com/mld/philly...nt/ 12802282.htm
The last paragraph from the article poses some interesting questions:
"Scientists say it's next to impossible to get federal funding to research anything related to sex, and especially homosexuality. And yet our political and cultural debates often hinge on such issues. Should we allow gay marriage? How do we prevent HIV infection? How do we educate our children so they don't contract and spread this epidemic? How can we deal with antigay discrimination?"
Nothing gay about gayness? But there is a lot of pleasure and a lot of affection in many gay people's lives -- see dreadnought's site.
As to organs and orifices, I saw a report yesterday that oral sex is now hugely popular among American heterosexuals.
A third of the Bishops might resign? Is that a promise?!
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