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Of course, how could I forget. I don't have to worry about right-wing politics and liberal-bashing; I have to listen to my grandfather talk about all of the homosexuals destroying the Holy Roman Church. I bring fresh bagels to my grandmother, and this is how I am repaid.
I haven't used LiveJournal to talk about my views on the molestation scandals in the Church, although I have considered it. Mostly, I am becoming tired of being forced to explain the workings of the Church, its hierarchy and its teachings to non-Catholics, all of whom have their opinions on what the "real" problem is. And yet none of that can compare to the disgusting view that is held by many very vocal members of that same Church hierarchy that the culpability for this crisis lies at the feet of those ordained men and women who are or may be homosexual.
There aren't to many people in their mid-20s who have stayed Catholic, or who have stayed whatever they happened to be, for that matter. I attribute my perseverence to three people, my father, my pastor and a priest named Peter Liuzzi. (The other thing that was important was the Northridge Earthquake which caused our church to be unusable for a few years, but that's another story, really.") My father was going through his own crisis of faith when I was in my teens, and as a result, he began to read up on many of the more unusual thinkers of Catholicism, mystics like Saint John of the Cross and unorthodox teachers like Anthony DeMello. (DeMello was a Jesuit, but many years after his death, his writings have fallen into disfavor with the Church. I do not fully know the reasoning behind this.) These adventures in religion, which led in and out of the ideas of other religions kept me curious and involved with my religion at just the time that I was growing out of the simplistic theology taught in a Catholic elementary school.
My pastor, Father John Murray, was an amazing portrait of humility. He just really loved God, and people, and life, and just about everything. This was also immensely heartening.
Father Liuzzi was, well, different. Fiercely intelligent, for one thing, and deeply passionate. He was a Carmelite priest who said Mass at our parish occasionally. He was also the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese's Mission to Gay and Lesbian Catholics. The words "thankless job" may come to mind when you hear that, and it was. But Liuzzi
Liuzzi's sermons often revolved around suffering. The suffering of Jesus, the suffering of society, the suffering of the soul. These were not fire-and-brimstone speeches threatening torment, Liuzzi would talk about people who were already in torment. I was an angst-filled teen who was just beginning to harbor the depression that would plague me for many years, and Liuzzi's words made a much bigger impression than safer homilies about how to honor Jesus in the middle-class suburbs. Liuzzi spoke from working with people who were openly despised by many members of there own Church, yet still strove to maintain faith. Many of these people needed faith desperately, they were dying of AIDS.
Fr. Liuzzi is probably the most inspirational Catholic I know. And, yes, he is also gay. He came to grips with this while still a priest, and while still maintaining his vow of celibacy. He is still a priest, and he teaches and writes and continues his personal mission to bring gay Catholics into the mainstream of Catholic life. So when a Cardinal--a Cardinal--declares that the priority of the Catholic Church should be to root out homosexuality from the ranks of the ordained, it makes my want to spit on the entire Vatican.
And even still, the only thing that ultimately keeps me from walking away from the whole thing in disgust is the lesson that I learned from Liuzzi himself: leaving is not the answer. If everyone who disagrees leaves the Church, then there will be no one left to effect change.
And you can be damn sure I'm going to effect.
Blaming homosexuals is becoming the anti-Semitism of the Catholic Church.
--Eugene Kennedy; professor emeritus of psychology, Loyola University
I haven't used LiveJournal to talk about my views on the molestation scandals in the Church, although I have considered it. Mostly, I am becoming tired of being forced to explain the workings of the Church, its hierarchy and its teachings to non-Catholics, all of whom have their opinions on what the "real" problem is. And yet none of that can compare to the disgusting view that is held by many very vocal members of that same Church hierarchy that the culpability for this crisis lies at the feet of those ordained men and women who are or may be homosexual.
There aren't to many people in their mid-20s who have stayed Catholic, or who have stayed whatever they happened to be, for that matter. I attribute my perseverence to three people, my father, my pastor and a priest named Peter Liuzzi. (The other thing that was important was the Northridge Earthquake which caused our church to be unusable for a few years, but that's another story, really.") My father was going through his own crisis of faith when I was in my teens, and as a result, he began to read up on many of the more unusual thinkers of Catholicism, mystics like Saint John of the Cross and unorthodox teachers like Anthony DeMello. (DeMello was a Jesuit, but many years after his death, his writings have fallen into disfavor with the Church. I do not fully know the reasoning behind this.) These adventures in religion, which led in and out of the ideas of other religions kept me curious and involved with my religion at just the time that I was growing out of the simplistic theology taught in a Catholic elementary school.
My pastor, Father John Murray, was an amazing portrait of humility. He just really loved God, and people, and life, and just about everything. This was also immensely heartening.
Father Liuzzi was, well, different. Fiercely intelligent, for one thing, and deeply passionate. He was a Carmelite priest who said Mass at our parish occasionally. He was also the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese's Mission to Gay and Lesbian Catholics. The words "thankless job" may come to mind when you hear that, and it was. But Liuzzi
Liuzzi's sermons often revolved around suffering. The suffering of Jesus, the suffering of society, the suffering of the soul. These were not fire-and-brimstone speeches threatening torment, Liuzzi would talk about people who were already in torment. I was an angst-filled teen who was just beginning to harbor the depression that would plague me for many years, and Liuzzi's words made a much bigger impression than safer homilies about how to honor Jesus in the middle-class suburbs. Liuzzi spoke from working with people who were openly despised by many members of there own Church, yet still strove to maintain faith. Many of these people needed faith desperately, they were dying of AIDS.
Fr. Liuzzi is probably the most inspirational Catholic I know. And, yes, he is also gay. He came to grips with this while still a priest, and while still maintaining his vow of celibacy. He is still a priest, and he teaches and writes and continues his personal mission to bring gay Catholics into the mainstream of Catholic life. So when a Cardinal--a Cardinal--declares that the priority of the Catholic Church should be to root out homosexuality from the ranks of the ordained, it makes my want to spit on the entire Vatican.
And even still, the only thing that ultimately keeps me from walking away from the whole thing in disgust is the lesson that I learned from Liuzzi himself: leaving is not the answer. If everyone who disagrees leaves the Church, then there will be no one left to effect change.
And you can be damn sure I'm going to effect.
Thank you.
But then, I realized..that I wasn't straight, that not everything I believed in was approved by the church as it is now. I left the church, finding my own faith in paganism - because of its tolerance and openmindedness of other beliefs, sexualities, gender identities and cultures. But I also found myself still very much wanting to help people understand that the teaching of the church primarily should be "love one another."
I am greatly hurt and disturbed by what it going on in the church now. My family is still extremely active in the church and so I hear all the latest in the scandals.
I volunteer for inter-faith organizations and go to masses (when in the area) at a local Universalist Unitarian church. I just want to help the church and its followers understand that the Jesus I learned about loved everyone, regardless of who they are and what they've done. Jesus told us all to forgive... and I think he would understand the idea that our lives here on earth are a learning experience and as we are made in the image of the creator. Just because I'm no longer a catholic, doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the sentiment behind the words. This Father Liuzzi - sounds like someone who I would very much like to know and speak to. Knowing about him, gives me great encouragement that things can change! And it is a daily struggle to stay calm and affect the world in a peaceful, loving manner.. which I see you doing. From reading your journal entries.. I definitely think that you will be in the forefront of the effort to bring humanity together. You will cause positive change. Maybe later - we can work out a way to bring all religions to accept and support one another. ;)
Thank you again!
Hrm
I can believe in a god without a doddering old right-wing anti-feminist drooling idiot telling me to.
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Since I've been gone -- that is, not regularly attending any church, though I certainly do go occasionally, most often when home with my parents -- a lot of my views about the world have changed. Some of the things I accepted dogmatically as a child and teenager I've now come to doubt, especially the church's teachings on some aspects of sexual mores, the having of children, and the proper roles of women. This has affected my own personal behavior a little, but in broad outlines I tend to stick with what I was taught. It does make me pretty darned reluctant in judging anyone else, though. From this position I can see clearly lot of things that bother non-Christians about the church especially as an institution: how cold! how judgemental! how smugly self-righteous, how eager to bring everyone in line, how distant from the initial precepts of love for all humanity!
As a student of the ancient world, I can also see a lot of the places from which the less appealing aspects of the church originated: the enforcement of a patriarchal order, the misogyny, the glorification of austerity-- all these and many other things have visible, unmistakable roots either in the prevailing culture of the Greco-Roman world, or in the circumstances that brought pressure on the early church.
At the same time, I am beginning to feel-- more and more acutely -- the need to return to a Christian community more fully. I cannot honestly do so, though, without bringing back with me all my doubts and reservations. To be fair, I was never really the Unquestioning kind; in Sunday school we were supposed to memorize a Bible verse every week and report it back on Sunday. I made a point of memorizing Bible verses that were maximally contentious and problematic, about slavery, obedience to the government, women and family, etc. It was interesting to me to see my teachers squirm at this, but they were decent and thoughtful people and rose to the challenge, generally, though they might have resented my bravado a tiny bit and wished that I'd stick with the Beatitudes. Or the lineage of Jesse, even.
But I feel more troubled now than I did then. On the one hand I appreciate that part of what the church is for is to support its members in a Godly way of life. More than to wag its finger at the rest of the world, I think. Which is a good thing, if only I could be sure I agreed about what that way of life was. Some bits I feel surer about than others.
That's okay, though. The church isn't perfect. I used to think that God wouldn't let the institution of his church go seriously astray; that in that matter, if in no other, he would interfere with a firm divine hand to assure that those who sought him earnestly would be rewarded with trustworthy revelations and a right dogma. Don't believe that any more. I've met too many people seeking God, or whatever moral center they could put a name to; they came in a variety of religions and agnostic and atheist philosophies, and I doubt neither their sincerity nor their worth. And I've also seen too much of how the church messes up in small and large ways.
So the best I can do is approach the institution with the awareness that it is flawed, and that I cannot necessarily find in its teachings a perfect corrective for my own flaws. It's still likely to do me more good than trying to walk the path I have to walk alone.
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I think you mean "brightened".
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My experiences
That is to say: I have fairly unambiguous and positive feelings about Jesus, but I find it difficult to reconcile the teachings of Christ with those of the modern Church. Or in fact a large chunk of the Church post-Constantine.
I grew up in a Pentecostal church which had done a fairly impressive black hole imitation: it had imploded, generating its own gravitational field which was so intense nobody could leave, no signals could enter, and time had kind of slowed near the event horizon, leaving everyone trapped in the 1940s.
By way of example: I didn't watch TV or a movie or listen to mainstream popular music until several years after I had left this church. Around 1993, I believe, when I was 22. I spent most of the rest of the 90s playing cultural catch-up.
How we came to leave that church was an interesting story in itself and far too long for this forum, but it left me with the distinct impression that like most things, the Christian Church has both a dark side and a light side, and sometimes they're so closely intertwined that it's almost impossible to tell the difference when you're close to them.
And yet... I still believe in Christianity as a positive force in the world. Only, I'm starting to think that the Church that will actually heal people will look almost nothing like the kind of churches we see today, which seem to spend most of their time actively repressing the human spirit in a misguided attempt to Fight Evil (tm). There are Christians I know who have managed to rise above this and seem to have access to enormous reserves of inner kindness, strength and faith; these people are some of my heroes. I have other heroes who would not call themselves Christian, but to me they also model aspects of the character of Christ which I would very much like to emulate.
It is an interesting time, I think, in which to be religious.