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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.
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