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When Tradition Won't Bend to Our Whims
10/19/2003

It oughtn't be surprising that, in an organization that condemns sin while believing in redemption, there will sometimes arise judgment calls on seemingly minor incidents. One branch of people to whom I am indirectly related tells of a girl who was allergic to something in the communion wafer, but whose pastor would not allow her to have a specially made Eucharist for First Communion, saying that the wine itself was adequate. The family couldn't believe how unreasonable the church could be. I side with the Church on this one and believe that a worthwhile lesson about life and faith could have been learned by the girl.

In another situation, I know of a Catholic schoolteacher who, through a variety of circumstances, policy changes, and ill-fated timing, had to choose between rescheduling a wedding on a few months' notice or losing her contract. She lost her contract. I side with the teacher on this one, thinking that the newness of the policy and the possibility of subsequent rectification left room for compromise.

Andrew Sullivan begins a piece in today's New York Times with a similar anecdote. Apparently, a gay couple received some publicity for their trip to Canada to get married, and they were therefore excluded from their church's choir. I'm on the church's side on this one, and I think the controversy, such as it is, highlights the incompatibility of Catholicism with the ideology that would normalize homosexuality.

Put aside that one could argue with just about every conclusion that Sullivan draws from recent events, having mostly to do with his false characterization of their import. What I find most surprising — perhaps "telling" would be a better word — is what Sullivan doesn't see. First of all, I wonder what conclusions he draws, if any, from the fact that the very same New York Times of which he has become a major critic should print his column on this topic. Obviously, there need be no connection between the two, but it ought to make Sullivan ponder what it means that the Times "gets this issue right," so to speak, from his point of view.

More significantly, Sullivan seems to have shut out of his mind that the Church — which has lived much longer and through many more eras than Sullivan, and which he himself would agree was founded by the Son of God — might, just might, be correct to take the position that it does. That Sullivan has closed his thoughts to this possibility manifests in the fluid recitation of statements that ought to jar in his ears. Sullivan writes:

In fact, it seems as if the emergence of gay people into the light of the world has only intensified the church's resistance. That shift in the last few years from passive silence to active hostility is what makes the Vatican's current stance so distressing.

Earlier in the piece, he tells the reader that the "church has gone beyond its doctrinal opposition to emotional or sexual relationships between gay men and lesbians to an outspoken and increasingly shrill campaign against them." Yet, in the very same paragraph he complains that the "American Catholic church has endorsed a constitutional amendment that would strip gay couples of any civil benefits of any kind in the United States." It must be said that this is the most egregiously stolen base; that the Federal Marriage Amendment would do as Sullivan says is not true; at the very least, it is debatable, not a matter of fact, to be stated as if it were the central intention of the amendment. But even so, why should Sullivan see his two statements as evidence of some shift in Church policy rather than as one following from the other?

I would suggest that the "campaign" against gay relationships is escalating as homosexuals escalate their demands about the degree to which those relationships must be socially sanctioned. A Church can most certainly "love the sinner but hate the sin." It becomes quite another matter when a group pushes to receive public acknowledgement of and benefits for sin.

Sullivan believes that many heterosexual Catholics agree with him that "sexuality is [not] always and everywhere evil outside of procreation," but he says that "they can hide and pass in ways that gay Catholics cannot." Once again, it must first be said that Sullivan has not adequately summarized the Church's position on sexuality, here. But, once again, even so Sullivan misses the obvious parallels. The Church will not excommunicate couples that use birth control, for example, although it discourages the practice. Moreover, it will accept that, in a pluralistic society, civil authorities might do well to keep their hands out of such matters. But where artificial birth control becomes encouraged, subsidized, and even mandated, the Church similarly increases its "campaign."

This leads to Sullivan's most significant inappropriate comparison, the one, as it happens, upon which Instapundit seized:

In an appeal to the growing fundamentalism of the developing world, this is a shrewd strategy. In the global context, gays are easily expendable. But it is also a strikingly inhumane one. The current pope is obviously a deep and holy man; but that makes his hostility even more painful. He will send emissaries to terrorists, he will meet with a man who tried to assassinate him. But he has not and will not meet with openly gay Catholics. They are, to him, beneath dialogue. His message is unmistakable. Gay people are the last of the untouchables. We can exist in the church only by silence, by bearing false witness to who we are.

Frankly, I don't believe that the Vatican would refuse to meet with a homosexual group... that encouraged gays to live according to Catholic teaching. Furthermore, I was as aghast as anybody at that photo of Cardinal Etchegaray raising his hand in victory with Yasser Arafat, but the fact of the matter is that Arafat isn't leading a campaign to change Church doctrine. I imagine a group of Catholics seeking to persuade the Church to accept Muslim religious doctrine would find a cool reception.

To the extent that gay people are "untouchable" in the eyes of the Church, it is because they are the ones who wish to do all of the touching. The Pope sends emissaries to persuade terrorists not to be terrorists; he meets with would-be assassins in the hopes of leading them toward Christ. It is beyond me how Sullivan can conclude that these activities would be parallel to opening the Church up to gay proselytization.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 02:25 PM EST