Sunday 7 August 2011

Homosexuality and the Sacred Liturgy...



I wasted valuable seconds on Friday reading this article by Louie Verrecchio (an American autodidact) entitled: ''The liturgical impact of homosexuality in the priesthood.'' Thanks to Rorate Caeli for the link! As a Catholic homosexual (though I cordially dislike that label), and indeed someone who feels very strongly about liturgical decorum and tradition, I feel compelled to condemn this travesty of an article. I can honestly say that it has been years since I read something so wholly unscientific, ill-informed, prejudiced and utterly hateful - I daresay not since I was at Sixth Form College reading the propaganda of the $$PX. Not only does the author imply that child abuse is directly linked to homosexuality but also that because of some sense of inherent ''narcissism'' homosexual clergy are inappropriate for the celebration of Mass! In the hope that you may think it justifies my resentment I had begun a commentary on it, though if finished it would not be publishable. If you think it would be worth pursuing please comment.

37 comments:

  1. I also felt as if some minutes of my life had been stolen reading this tosh. What is undoubtedly the case is that the article represents the metanarrative of many "traditional" (I use the word advisedly) Roman Catholics in dealing with the current practice of the Roman Church which is, in reality, antipathetical to Tradition. To this mindset, homosexuality is, pretty much, at the root of the crisis whether liturgical or disciplinary or whatever. Of course that is so much bs (b as in b, s as in s, as a certain priest whom seems to favour this position would no doubt opine). No other explanation for the crisis is given space and speculations (for example, the assertion that the numbers of homosexual clergy rose from the 1950s onward) are represented as facts. But, Patrick, I would much rather read what you have to say that go on writing what could become (a rather timid) rant of my own. This is your blog, after all - and I do hope you will keep it up (so to speak!).

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  2. mystra,

    I found his conclusions nonsensical and offensive. He offers no clear proofs that homosexual men are any more or less ''narcissistic'' than straight men, for example, and repeats the hackneyed and prejudiced arguments that homosexual men are queers who dress like their mothers, apropos lacking in male confidence. Does he not understand the meaning of virtue in the etymological sense? There is more to manliness than the inherent ability to sire children! Instead he relies upon the ''expertise'' of a Dr Fitzgibbons, a quack in the employ of the Vatican who is in a minority of clinicians who think that homosexuality can be cured. What does he recommend? Cold showers and fishing trips with daddy? This Sodomy delusion is anti-Evangelical and entirely repugnant to the revival of traditional Liturgy.

    These people may think they know more about Liturgy than I do but they can't expect me to agree with them...

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  3. Patricius, do you agree with what the current Roman Catholic catechism writers about homosexuality? There's a (in)famous homosexual priest in the Netherlands, who is hated by the 'homosexual community' for advocating celibacy in accordance with the catechism.

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  4. Tom L, no I do not agree with what the contemporary Roman catechism teaches about homosexuality.

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  5. With what exactly you disagree, if I may ask? Or more specifically, what is your view on homosexuality and the Christian religion?

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  6. What a load of s!#t. As a "same-sex attracted person with deep-seated homosexual tendencies" or whatever the Vatican wants to call me today (privately I call myself a "faggot", but that word hasn't been fully reclaimed), I wholeheartedly agree with you Patricius that narcissism, pandering, and insincerity knows not sexual orientation. One of the most grating priest-ringmasters I met in my day was stone cold straight and still used the Mass as his psychotherapeutic-esque platform.

    Articles like these simply reinforce the trad anxiety that a heavily homosexual clergy challenges their animosity and stereotypes about gay men. How can traddie parents lay down the fire 'n' brimstone on their gay high-school kid if the pastor of their parish pins the gaydar? Even worse, how do homophobic parents square their respect for their pastor with his gayness? Better for traddieland to play-pretend the problem away, I suppose, than just get real and recognize that many gay priests are humble, excellent preachers, agile Latinists, and clearly just a cut above the room temp IQ macho types trad seminaries are desperately trying to recruit.

    BTW: I could never be a priest simply because I cannot lie about my sexual orientation. Also, I've had relationships with men (awesome!) and women (okay, so I tried). Still, if they can't accept that I'm not some sort of angelic immaculate cherub, then it's better staying away from the cloth.

    sortacatholic

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  7. Please do comment on the libelous article. One can find homosexually oriented priests at all modern-day spectra - from arch-traditional to arch-liberal , just as one finds heterosexually-inclined priests at all spectra. There is not gay way to celebrate Mass, nor are gay persons more or less narcisistic than other categories of human beings. This sort of article is born out of prejudice, hatred and ill-will. The author perhap does not realise, that a majority of priests are homosexual, always have been and always will be. Both the good preists and the ones. The Church, and the world, would be much poorer without gay perons in general and gay priests specifically. Many religions' clergy have traditionally been homosexually-inclined, for homosexually-inclined men tend to be more sensititve to both the Divine and to the human, and more drawn to Beauty and Love, which are God. If the present-day Church wishes to get rid of her homosexual clergy, then let them be honest about it; let the Vatican demand that all homosexually inclined preists step down upon reception of a just compensation. Let the Vatican tear down St. PEter's Basilica, designed by a gay man. Let the Vatican disown all music and vestemets produced by gay people (mstly priests). Let the Vatican decanonise all Saints suspected of possibly being gay. ETc. etc. etc.

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  8. Pope Benedict (who, ironically, is most likely gay himself) has made it very clear that according to him only straight men may be ordained. His reasoning to support this opinion are as ludicrous and grotesque as they are anti-traditional and insincere. I suggest to all here to read the excellent book ''Question of Truth: Christianity and Homosexuality'' by Gareth Moore, OP. And take a look at this excellent site as well: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pharseas.world/faithful.html

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  9. I certainly don't agree with Pope Benedict. Homosexuality, because if you follow this logic, only asexual men can become celibate (non-married) priests. When a priest is to be celibate, homosexuality probably won't be a burden any more than heterosexuality is.

    I however can not agree with the site listed above. I do not mean to offend, but I cannot approve of homosexual intercourse (no more than any other non-procreative intercourse however), nor can I approve of marriage between two people of the same gender. The first, however, can be confessed like any other sin, and I am also a sinner in various other things, let that be clear. Again, I do not want to offend any of you, but that's just my point of view.

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  10. Honey, Pope Benedict is fabulous from the mozzetta to the Guccis. Seriously, why should anyone care if Pope Benedict or any Pope was or is gay? If Pope Benedict's keeping celibate, it's all good. Personally, I think that Pont. Max.'s gayness is an asset that complements his awesome theological intellect and attention to liturgical detail. Pope Benedict could not be Pope Benedict without the distinctive gifts given to gay men.

    Homosexuality isn't all about sex, unlike many (especially in the Church) who would like to cast it that way. It's a different frame of thought, a different intellectual and psychological mindframe. Like Albertus put it, some of the most novel and monumental feats of human beauty have arisen from the pens and chisels of gay men.

    Tom, I guess that you're straight. We come from worlds that are sometimes mutually opaque. If you'd like to go on thinking that homosexuality is just about sex, fine. Most of the world is beginning to realize that homosexuality is more perspective than mechanics. Yet, I won't challenge your perspective given that your view is consonant with the Church and what I should believe despite lived experience.

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  11. Tom L, I have my foot in both camps you might say. I find the concept of civil partnerships (even for men and women) repugnant and offensive - it is not matrimony and so both parties are simply fornicators, and living in a state of sin. Two men cannot marry (how could they possibly marry?), two women cannot marry. Matrimony is a Sacrament for man and woman who come thereby together to form one flesh and to mirror the Triune love of the Almighty in the bearing of children. A representative of the State giving witness to a kind of pseudo-''marriage'' between two men or two women (which can only undermine the Family and the Church) is merely witnessing a very odd, very wrong, union. Nature turning in on itself, marriage turned inside out - name your cliché. The two parties would do better to enter a monastery and live chaste lives. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Love, and the parties involved cannot possibly hope to live godly, upright lives in the fear of the Lord.

    However, I do not agree with the Roman church's teaching about homosexuality, neither the ancestral Sodomy delusion fuelled in the Middle Ages by the Scholastics, nor the arguably worse situation nowadays where the pope of Rome is practically barring homosexually-inclined men from pursuing their vocations. What right has he to do that? Did the Apostles withhold the Sacraments from anybody but those who did not confess Christ? How could you possibly expect me to happily confess that my feelings (to which God alone is Judge, and He is Just) are ordered to the destruction of the Church, society, the family etc; that I am the lowest form of life on this earth, that I am worthy of a thousand anathemas? Superstition and fanaticism!
    Although there had been rulings from the Christian Emperors against sodomy, and the Fathers are quite vituperative about it, St Thomas Aquinas played a distinctive role in the onset of the sodomy delusion. In a crucial passage of the Summa Theologica (I-II, q.31,7) he falsified material which he had borrowed from the Nicomachean Ethics (VII v3-4, 1148b). There Aristotle had explicitly stated that sexual attraction to men (venereorum masculis) could be motivated either by nature (natura) or from habit (consuetudine). In his commentary on the Latin text of Aristotle, Aquinas dutifully admitted that such unnatural pleasures could be sought and experienced ‘ex natura corporalis complexionis quam acceperunt a principio.’ But in the Summa Theologica he suppressed this concession to assert that what is contrary to nature (quod est contra naturam hominis) may ‘become connatural to a particular man’ (fiat huic homini connaturale). ‘Connatural’ does not here mean innate or inborn but is applied to feelings that have so fused with the personality of the individual as to become, as it were, second nature. And so Aquinas superimposed the sodomy delusion upon his exegesis of Aristotle and incorporated this into what would later dominate Latin theology even to this day!

    What are my views on homosexuality and the Christian religion? Well I dislike the label homosexual (a 19th century innovation; hitherto there had been no such label), since I view the human sexual condition as a spectrum of inclinations rather than gay, straight, bi, miscellaneous, etc. Greek love is the highest form of affection known to man, in my opinion. Fundamentally we are all called to chastity, and to put on Christ. It behoves us who are at the superior end of the spectrum (that which makes us interesting!) to channel our inclinations to something fruitful and chaste.

    Albertus, I agree with you that the present pope is probably homosexual. I do not say that as a slight against those blokey Traddies who cringe at such a monstrous idea. It would, as JM says, be in his favour – though I wouldn’t agree that he is as insightful as all that.

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  12. Dear Patricius,
    you write, ''marriage is a Sacrament for man & woman who come thereby together to form one flesh and to mirror the Triune love of the Almighty in the bearing of children.'' I do not believe this modern-day description of matrimony at all. For the Holy Trinity is composed of three males: Father Son and HOly Ghost. The Holy Ghost is neutral in Greek, but masculine in Latin and most other languages. The Father and the Son's mutual Love (in Latin theology) causes the Holy Ghost to eternally spring forthfrom them. If anything, this is a plee and jsutification of homosexual love!
    Dear JS,
    I don't really care whether Pope Benedict is gay or not, though he probably is, and as both of you have written, it is an asset ! However, like so many other gay men in the closet, he has set about to persecute gay people via the nuntii, at national and international fora, and himself being the High Priest of Christendom, forbids the priesthood to others like him. This is called hypocrisy in the highest degree. Or perhaps, by so doing, he hopes to create the illusion that he himslef is not homosexual?

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  13. Albertus, God has no sex so how could you find my description of marriage objectionable?

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  14. Patricius, I find it objectionable precisely because the Godhead as such has no sex, and thus the Trinity cannot be used as an example of heterosexual human matrimony, at least, not in the sense of a man and a woman uniting physically to produce children. (Though marriage is much more than this, which is why it should be open - albeit under another name perhaps, to same-sex couples). The love of the Three Persons for Themselves can be compared to Love in general, especially friendship love, but not heterosexual intercourse. By the way, God the Father is portrayed in human language, incl. ecclesistical language as Male, as is God the Son, Who, in His Incarnation, is male. Which makes the comparision between the Trinity and hetero-marraige even the more impossible. So it seems to me. Fond regards, Albertus

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  15. Albertus,

    Yeah, I find it exceedingly hard to forgive Cdl. Ratzinger for his vindictively-phrased statements against gay people. It hurts, especially on the 25th anniversary of the CDF instruction Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, and especially the characterization of even the the homosexual persona as an "objective disorder" (section 3).

    In a way I suspect that Cdl. Ratzinger/Pope Benedict is also a victim of this document as well. He must know full well that the affective (not genital) manifestation of homosexuality is a a gift, not a negative-tinged scholastic pawn designed to inflict emotional wounds. This fact is something that Patricius has mentioned, and bears repeating.

    Maybe Pope Benedict suffers inside because of what he has been told to write and say. I don't think he's the big meanie that gay people make him out to be. Rather, could he be a tragic figure, a journeyman out to do his master's command unwillingly but with loyalty? Perhaps his heart has yearned for the companionship we all desire and deserve? Daresay he has yearned his entire adult life, as we all have.

    Hopefully Pope Benedict, in his advanced age, has found a beautiful and mutually-giving chaste love with Msgr. Gaenswein. This is all anyone can truly ask for; the parting glance and touch, the smile of a handsome beloved, da perenne gaudium.

    sortacatholic

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  16. Homosexualitatis Problema can go hang as far as I am concerned.

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  17. sortacatholic: I had a tear in my eye reading your last three paragraphs. No, really, I did. But I also have considerable sympathy for the feelings expressed in your first. I can only add that the publication of a certain document in 2005 was unnecessary and, I think, a bit vindictive.

    Albertus: surely the life springing from the union of man and woman, is a most profound expression of the subcreative vocation of human beings; indeed it is the expression of this aspect of our humanness. No other work so clearly images the creative life of the Trinity. But, the basic problem I have with "gay marriage" is that it sets up an "other" over against a certain order created by God himself; it supplants a human good with a Divine good. I'm afraid that (even as a gay man) it strikes me as rather diabolical; as if Charles and Julia had decided to get married at the end of Brideshead. I rather feel too that the "gayification" of society and culture in general is not a good thing - it takes something away from the homosexual experience and from the contribution homosexuality makes (often critical and super-cultural) to human cultures.

    Nevertheless, I do not know how to understand the Church's teaching about homosexuality (particularly in the aspect which condemns the inclination as "an objective moral disorder", except where this is interpreted in the loosest possible way) and actually it causes me increasing distress, for the very reasons Patrick explains in his long post. For that reason at least (among others) is quite useful to have a discussion like this one...

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  18. How could one think you worthy of anathema, Patricius? Perhaps from your words? You have flown so close to heresy as to blur the edges on more than one occasion, and your insistence that the liturgy is more important than doctrine is like a bad parody of a traddie.

    And given your loose association with logic and reason, who are you to criticise either the work of the scholastics or of the Pope? You are neither a philosopher nor a theologian. Indeed, your only intellectual qualification appears to be a propensity for self-important pedantry.

    "Hopefully Pope Benedict, in his advanced age, has found a beautiful and mutually-giving chaste love with Msgr. Gaenswein."

    And you don't think this looks just a little like unabashed fantasism? From what basis does all of this talk of the Pope's homosexuality come from? Where is your evidence? Note: not the usual well-he-does-things-our-society-associates-with-homosexuality laundry-list of winking suggestions, but facts.

    From the way some of you are wittering on, one would think that it was only gay people who ever produced anything in the history of the world. The basic fact is this: talent has no correlation with sexual orientation.

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  19. Evagrius Ponticus: And you don't think this looks just a little like unabashed fantasism? From what basis does all of this talk of the Pope's homosexuality come from? Where is your evidence? Note: not the usual well-he-does-things-our-society-associates-with-homosexuality laundry-list of winking suggestions, but facts.

    Gay people (and some straight people) have something called gaydar. We faggots know our tribe. Pope Benedict has a certain jouissance sublimated through a liturgy fully aware of the burden of solemnity and history. Bl. John Paul II, for all his humanitarian work, did not grasp the liturgy as a vehicle of affective and even erotic sublimation. His worship was utilitarian -- the perpetuation of the Sacrifice and the grace of the Eucharist was all that mattered, despite an aesthetic ugliness. Pope Benedict's vision of worship encompasses more than the skeleton of the Holy Sacrifice and Eucharistic Banquet. Pope Benedict understands that the Mass takes place within a complex interplay of artistic styles and sensibilities that both transcend and plot a linear course through time. Is this not similar to the great number of chaste gay priests who channel their erotic yearnings into the most elevating solemn liturgies? Most straight priests I know wear any tattered vestment laid out for them, and pick the quickest route through the Missal.

    I am convinced that Pope Benedict is gay because he is transformed through contradiction of being a homosexual in a virulently homophobic subculture. Out of the ugliness of a vicious dalithood has arisen a limpid expression of the Holy Sacrifice. Only a gay man can understand that the Cross is both the beauty of salvation and the pain of exclusion. The gay priest is charged to show forth the polyvalent beauty of the Sacrifice despite the verbal scourges of unlettered idiots.

    Yes, my analysis of His Holiness and Msgr. Gaenswein is fantasism. Perhaps there is nothing else but a working relationship. It's just that His Holiness and his secretary are together all day, every day, even tea time and the evening news. I just suspect that P.M. is looking for a platonic, non-genital relationship that fulfills his homoaffective needs. Maybe Gaenswein has no attraction to Pope Benedict. That would not affect the significance of the relationship for Pope Benedict.

    It is true that straight and gay people both have created great works. Yet, we gay people have to fight to have our achievements recognized. This is especially true in a Church that seeks to denigrate us at every turn. This denigration, often from the lips of gay men in blatant hypocrisy, rests on the achievements of the homosexual sensibility.

    sortacatholic (I'll let one of us, Steven Morrissey, explain why gay "love" does not exist for the Catholic: it is a cruel mirage, both for all born blessed and cursed with the homosexual sensibility. The pain of male love-futility and companionship-futility is the forge of the most transcendent Catholic liturgy.)

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  20. What do you mean "our" achievements? Why must the world be separated into "gay" and "straight" camps? Why is Michelangelo one of "us"? Who gives a fig about whether a priest or pope likes men or women? This obsession with sexuality is narcissistic.

    Albertus,
    "Many religions' clergy have traditionally been homosexually-inclined, for homosexually-inclined men tend to be more sensititve to both the Divine and to the human, and more drawn to Beauty and Love, which are God. "

    So you condemn the author of the article for painting all homosexually oriented people with stereotypes, and you go out and do the same. You sound pretty "heterophobic" yourself.

    I've seen both "gay" and "straight" priests celebrate sumptuous liturgies, and I've seen both "preside" at ugly utilitarian liturgies too.

    As for "gayness", no Catholic should be using this kind of terminology and labeling.

    As for assuming the Pope is "gay" because he has a sense of liturgical style and likes to wear pretty vestments, well, I'd say that's as beyond the pale as assuming that all homosexually oriented men like to flop around naked at raunchy "gay pride" parades.

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  21. Of course, Patricius, in terms of sin Catholic teaching has nothing to say about homosexual feelings as such. However, the genital expression of those feelings are another matter. Do you agree with the Church that homosexual genital expression is sinful?

    As for all the crying about the catechism's description of homosexuality as being "objectively disordered," simple logic will tell you that if the consummation of a form of eros is everywhere and always sinful, then that form of eros must be disordered. If it WERE ordered by God's design and not a consequence of the fallen world, then its genital expression should not be sinful.

    And "gay" (a term used in secular identity politics and having no place in Catholic discourse) has nothing to do with it.

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  22. James C: As for "gayness", no Catholic should be using this kind of terminology and labeling.

    I suspect that you hold the view that vir et mulier implies that men and women have indelible temperaments determined by biological sex. In turn, these biological-temperaments are culture-fair. Indeed, the Vatican has condemned "gender", and the notion of biological sex as a cultural variable, as a component of feminist discourse.(cf. CDF (2004), Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World, I.2-3). Here the Holy Office spares no time in condemning "gender", as men and women must be hardwired to act according to certain norms. Even so, the Vatican's juridical organs nevertheless contradict themselves when they also tacitly approve programs which define culture-unfair "norms" for "typical" masculine behavior. The Catholic ex-gay group Courage, explicity endorsed by the Pontifical Institute of the Family, holds "sports camps" (PDF). In Courage's view, men aren't men without the supposed benefits of a controlled, de-eroticized touch through athletic aggression. What would Courage choose as the epitome of "manliness" if it were magically teleported to Nunavut? (Aside: an article by William K. Black written for the Roosevelt Institute points out some of the logical and even humorous inconsistencies of the Courage sport camp program.)

    What shall we call the subtle differences between men like you James, who are α-vir, possessing the fullness of correct sexual temperament according to the proper sexual division of persons, and β-vir, whose deviation from the correct biological sex norm is objectively malformed, even if the person is chaste or celibate? The CDF proclaims that all men and women have indelible temperamental characteristics across cultures, but Courage gladly endorses culture-specific conditioning (b-ball and American football). What gives?

    Since the Vatican contradicts itself through its juridical organs, we schmos must find a colloquial way to describe the subtle "otherness" discernible in the non-biological-sex-conforming (i.e. gay, the most common term you despise.) Most people would use a term like "gayness" to describe the subtle differences between α-vir and β-vir simply because English does not have the semi-agglutinative properties of German, for example. But, since Catholicism admits no gender and English admits little agglutination, what must the temperament of the "beta male" be called in English Vaticanese? "The affective state of the same-sex-attracted man with deep seated homosexual tendencies that has been corrupted by the feminist discourse of gender"? I can't say the last one without a deep breath at the midpoint. I used to be a pack-a-day smoker. :-)

    sortacatholic (sin taxes do work: can't afford the cancer sticks anymore, could use one after threads like these)

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  23. There you go again, making assumptions. Where did I say I was "straight"? :-)

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  24. James, in the area of Catholic debate, I usually presume the interlocutor is straight unless he/she says otherwise. I did not have to do so in this instance, and so made an assumption. My bad.

    When I cannot avoid speculation on a person's sexual orientation in the context of a Catholic blog, I will suppose that the other person is straight simply because

    1) 90 -- 95% of the world is heterosexual (Suffer breeders, and forbid them not ...)

    2) Call the wrong person a homo on a Catholic forum and observe a texted explosion that makes Los Alamos look like kids playing with firecrackers.

    sortacatholic (do any straight people read Liturgiae Causa?)

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  25. Well my eyes have certainly been opened throughout the last week! Almost it proves my point: most Traditionalists are homosexuals!

    ''Do any straight people read Liturgiae Causa?''

    I really, really doubt it.

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  26. > do any straight people read Liturgiae Causa?

    Yes. I read because people here know something about liturgy. On a recent post at rotate on St. Maximilian Kolbe and the Assumption, they posted the Signum magnum Introit! They further blocked my comment saying St. Maximilian would have never know the Pacelli propers (he was martyred prior to the time they were foisted upon Romans) and it would be better to give those from the Roman rite (which I did). Ignoranuses.

    Incidentally, the married Fr. Anthony Chadwick links here and thus presumably also reads it.

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  27. Ben, you're right about Maximilian Kolbe and the old propers for the festival of the Assumption. Rorate Caeli is possibly the worst Roman blog out there, alongside WDTPRS in terms of conceit, sheer ignorance and sucking up to the Holy Father's proverbial something-or-other. If ''New Catholic' is reading this, I mean you of course.

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  28. Ben, I see your comment on Rorate. It isn't blocked.

    http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2011/08/kolbe-70-i-prince.html?showComment=1312468441564#c1841856675376342585

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  29. I read Liturgiae Causa with considerable interest and am not gay.

    Rorate Caeli is always good for a laugh if one wants to see how ignorant people can be.

    Ben - an excellent point.

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  30. James C., thanks for alerting me! It must have spent several days in moderation because I had been checking it for quite some time.

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  31. Well, as Shakespeare wrote: a rose by any other name. When i was younger, i was embarasssed by the word ''gay'', because i was very busy hiding my sexual orientation from Church, society and the world in general. Though in my heart i always knew, that to God it did not matter at all what i was.I was never afraid of Him; i was only afraid of the world, of it's merciless opinion of me, and therefore of my own self, that i might accidentally give my self away, and find myself either imprisoned, committed to an asylum, beaten up, killed, sacked or ostracised - for being that distatseful thing: homosexual. Since i have come to accept myslef for what i am (in the year 1999), i prefer the more positive word gay. And i certainly don't care what the Vatican homophobes have to say about my choice of terminology! Nor do i any longer fear the world's opinion of me, nor myself. The only negative feelings i have now are, thank God, not directed inwards, but outwards, of anger, hurt and shock towards the hypocritical neo-conservative Vatican establishment for continuing to try to put people like me back into hiding - or worse. As a Catholic, i have been twice now ostracised by the Church: firstly, as someone who deeply loves the Mass, and since the very introduction of the Novus Ordo has rejected that ersatz-liturgy and stayed true to the ''ritus antiquior''; and secondly, since the reign of John Paul II, as a gay person. And as a priest, i have been rejected most recently for a third time by pope Benedict, who in 2005 forbade the ordination of non-heterosexual men to the preisthood, and who, last year, in his German interview-turned-into-book, went into detail regarding this prohibition, which he bases upon arguments taken from a whole new science called theology-fiction... What to do? It is too late return to a time when i was not a member of the Catholic Church (which i had no say in whatseover, of course), and it is too late to return to a time when i was not ordained (just before the unhappy reign of John Paul II reign, who, in is heretical Theolgy of the Body turned heterosexual intercourse into the reason for existing, and into the supreme dogma, alla mormon). As much as i love the Mass and the priesthood, i would today never in good conscience allow myself to be ordained to any order by a Catholic Bishop, knowing that i am not wanted, and am considerd ''a burden'', a mistake, even a curse by the Church which i officially represent. THe present-day Catholic Hiearchy does not deserve its priests, nor even its laity. I say, if they really want only staight men to be ordained, then they very soon better start ordaining men who are married with children (though even that is not a 100 percent guarantee).

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  32. Albertus,

    You are wanted.

    Read Acts 8:26 -- 40 (Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch). The eunuch's erudition, and maybe his sexual status (hmm ...) convinced him that the spiteful words and abuse directed at him all his life were not to be borne alone but to be united with the sufferings of the Agnus Dei. The sane homosexual priest, secure in an adult sexuality but starved of adult male companionship, might likewise unite the Canon to his Cross.

    Gay men are dalits and brahmins both. So many gay men daily re-present the living Lord in the Mass, and then are crudely shorn like sheep and defamed by idiots. It is remarkable that a religion and its devotees both exalt their clergy to the greatest heights and then denigrate a priest's most intimate yearnings for even chaste companionship.

    May we flood the Church with many more Ethiopian eunuchs!

    sortcatholic

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  33. Patricius scripsit:

    "Well my eyes have certainly been opened throughout the last week! Almost it proves my point: most Traditionalists are homosexuals!

    ''Do any straight people read Liturgiae Causa?''

    I really, really doubt it."

    Yes, Patrick.

    Good wishes,

    Bryan

    PS: We will be judged primarily on our actions: feeding the hungry, clothing the poor etc.

    Interest in the Liturgy can become an obsesion for some men. Men who are inclined to fault-find, like engineers, scientists and statisticians often apply this fault-finding skill to the liturgy and their relations with others.

    Too often we hear Catholics stating their uncharitable criticisms (indeed condemnations) of others with the Incipits:

    1. If I were her I would....
    2. I cannot understand why he has....
    3. They should be doing....

    I fear that those inclined to Trad. Catholicism behave and speak as if they were INFALLIBLE and therefore able to Judge the behaviour of others.

    In other words, since they are so pround that they believe all that the Roman Church teaches they believe that they have special faculties or wisdom.

    This special wisdom, only granted (as it were) to Trad Catholics and Irish RCs, allows them to carp obout the behaviour of others incessantly.

    They never seek to understand others since they are infallible and have special wisdom and understanding.

    to be continued...

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  34. I would suggest that many of the problems the Church has faced in the past ten or twenty plus years stem from Clerical ambition.

    Priests who are ambitious and want a red pom-pom or a Mitre are prepared to do almost anything or remain mute in the face of atrocious behaviour.

    Do homosexuals seek positions of influence in the Church in order to groom younger clergy? I think there is good evidence to say that this is a highly probable thesis.

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  35. Nil sub sole etc..

    "What efforts do such men make to acquire reputation by their sermons from the size and wealth of the cities and splendor of the great churches in which they preach? But since among the truths revealed by God there are some which frighten the weakness of our corrupt nature, and which therefore are not calculated to attract the multitude, they carefully avoid them, and treat themes, in which, the place accepted, there is nothing sacred. Not seldom it happens that in the very midst of a discourse upon the things of eternity, they turn to politics, particularly if any questions of this kind just then deeply engross the minds of their hearers. They seem to have only one aim, to please their hearers and curry favor with those whom St. Paul describes as "having itching ears." [II Tim. vi:3] Hence that unrestrained and undignified gesture:

    1. such as may be seen on the stage or on the hustings,
    2. that effeminate lowering of the voice or those tragic outbursts;
    3. that diction peculiar to journalism;
    4. those frequent allusions to profane and non-Catholic literature, but not to the Sacred Scriptures or the Holy Fathers;
    5. finally that volubility of utterance often affected by them, wherewith they strike the ears and gain their hearers' admiration, but give them no lesson to carry home. How sadly are those preachers deceived! Granted that they receive the applause of the uneducated, which they seek with such great favor, and not without sacrilege, is it really worth while when we consider that they are condemned by every prudent man, and, what is worse, have reason to fear the stern judgment of Christ?"

    Benedict XV - opm.

    HUMANI GENERIS REDEMPTIONEM: 10
    Given at St. Peter's, Rome, on the fifteenth day of June, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the year nineteen hundred and seventeen, in the third of Our Pontificate.

    http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xv/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xv_enc_15061917_humani-generis-redemptionem_en.html

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  36. I think that this Maxim of St Ignatius sums up my feelings about the traddies at Maiden Lane, Spanish Place and elsewhere:

    " The more alert a man is to the defects of others, the more negligent he is in observing his own."

    Self-righteous, critical and gossipy Traddies who form cliques and refuse to speak with outsiders are not attractive characters. These men, be they homosexuals or not, form strong tribes with their own codes and customs. However they do not evangelise and outsiders do not wish to join them, and ever if they did try to join them they would be scandalised by the clique's internal rules.

    Perhaps this is why so few new faces are seen at Trad Masses?

    The Mass you love...

    Above all things Charity - the Law of Charity opposes the destructive sin of murder that is found when people gossip and commit calumny.

    I would like to hear some preaching against Gossipers - especially the male of the species!

    BTW: At Maiden Lane why can we not have some windows or doors open when the thurifer is gassing the Church with cheap, pungent and disagreeable incense?

    The closed door of the Church symbolises the closed mind of the Traddies who frequent that Monday Mass.

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  37. In support of Patricius, that the Liturgy is more important than doctrine, even dogma, is the saying ''Lex orandi, lex credendi''. One cuold site many theologians and Saints both eastern and western , but the following Russian Orthodox theologian put it most succintly:

    Christianity is a liturgical religion. The Church is first of all a worshipping community. Worship comes first, doctrine and discipline second.

    George Florovsky, theologian

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