Catholic Bishops show they are heirs of Sodom

In their May 19, 2010 letter to memebrs of Congress, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed their opposition to H.R.3017/S.1584 - better known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, stating, among other things:

". . . we cannot support a bill - such as ENDA in its current form - that would legally affirm and specially protect any sexual conduct outside of marriage."

I challenge the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to point out the exact language by virtue of which ENDA specially protects "sexual conduct."

They can't d it, because it's not there.

The fact is that ENDA will not protect employees on the basis of sexual conduct - sexual activity - on the job, regardless of sexual orientation. This law will not protect people who want to have sex, gay or straight, in the boardroom or in the supply closet, or for that matter, on top of a desk. So where's the "sexual conduct" that is supposed to be "legally affirmed and specially protected?"

Perhaps the Bishops are holding out - maybe they actually want ENDA amended to protect the on-the-job sexual predation of altar servers and Catholic schoolchildren by members of the Roman Catholic clergy? Sorry, but ENDA will not be amended to affirmatively protect any on-the-job sexual activity, not even the sexual activity of Roman Catholic clergy, no matter how much the Bishops hold their breath.

Let me repeat: ENDA will not protect conduct or sexual activity - it will protect people whose sexual orientation and gender identity is different from the sexual orientation or gender identity of other people, from discrimination in employment. There is no "condonation" of any sexual activity whatsoever involved in the bill, not sex between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, a trans person with another adult, or sex among a group of people of the same or different orientations, inside or outside of marriage. It does not protect inappropriate sexual conduct at the office or workplace, even if the people engaging in it are married to each other

All ENDA does is remove sexual orientation (not sexual "conduct" and not sexual activity), and gender identity and expression, as criteria for hiring and firing. It does not allow a preference or special right for one sexual orientation or gender identity over another. Indeed, this bill is the polar opposite of protecting "special rights." (If the Catholic Bishops want an example of special rights, they need only look at their position on marriage - their advocacy for special rights for heterosexuals.)

In that regard, the bishops are as wrong about ENDA as their fearless leader, "Papa" Joe Ratzinger, has been about the Genesis story of Sodom and Gommorrah. (In 1986 he snarkily wrote that "everyone knows" what the story is about, and then used it as an example to condemn homosexuality rather than the real sodomite sin, which is the sort of intolerant bigotry that the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops exemplify in their opposition to ENDA).

The Catholic Bishops show, once again, that not only are they whited sepulchres like the Scribes and Pharisees described in the Gospels, they are also like the Men of Sodom as described in Genesis - intolerant of people who are different.

I've shaken their dust off my sandals years ago.

The Roman Catholic Bishops have an incredible amount of chutzpah, peddling lies about the language of the bill and distortions of their own teachings as a means to an end.

When they teach that a good end does not justify an evil means, are they trying to imply that an evil end (preventing the passage of ENDA) justifies an evil means (lying and deceit to get their way)?

An Open Letter: The "Unchanging" Church and Marriage

April 16, 2009

The Most Reverend Timothy Dolan
Archbishop of New York
1011 First Avenue
New York, New York 10022

Re: The “Unchanging” Church and Gender-Neutral Civil Marriage: An OPEN Letter

Your Excellency:

At the outset, I wish to welcome you to your new post as the apostate* spiritual leader of the millions of Roman Catholics in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York (NOTE: *apostate? This is a technical apostasy only applicable to the members of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, since the Mystical Body of Christ remained with me when Father David Clifford, the associate pastor of my former parish in Valhalla, New York, asked me to not come back in August 1999 because my transition was “causing a scandal in the church.” Prior to that I spent 15 years at that parish as the cantor for the 8:00 AM Sunday Mass, and I sang with the choir. I was involved with the parish Home School Association. I also spent three years studying for the priesthood at a Roman Catholic seminary. But all this is merely a footnote.)

Unfortunately you chose, at a press conference held just before your installation as Archbishop, to make at least two erroneous statements about Church history in a single phrase, namely, that the Faith “remains changeless and has for 2,000 years.”

Let’s take the second error first – the length of time the “Faith” has been around: Christianity was not founded until after Jesus Christ was crucified (and in accordance with the Faith, rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven). One might consider that the “foundation” at the earliest could be considered to have taken place at the original Pentecost – which means you’re over twenty years shy of two millennia. One might date the founding of the Roman Catholic Church to as late as the Great Schism of 1054 C.E., which split a then-somewhat-unified Christianity into two great groups – the rites of the Orthodox Churches and their various Patriarchates, and the rites (now pretty much a single Latin rite) associated with the Patriarch of Rome, who at that point was asserting the doctrine of papal supremacy; that the Pope was no longer primum inter pares among the patriarchal successors to the Apostles. If we take this later date, the Roman Catholic Church, while one of the successors or “daughter Churches” to the Christianity established at Pentecost and first doctrinally formalized at the first Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E., may be conceived, based on the time of this schism, to be something on the order of 45 years shy of one millennium.

That leads us to the second error, that the faith is “changeless.” Of course, this idea of changelessness can be dated, again, to either the formalization of the Faith in 325 C.E. at the time of the adoption of the Nicene Creed, or to 1054 C.E. when the Roman Church used the casus belli of its addition of the filioque to the Creed, changing it from the original. But that idea of changelessness in the faith, regardless of the date to which we can trace it, can only go to the so-called “core beliefs” that are shared by all who accept the tenets contained within the Nicene Creed (for our purposes, while I believe the Eastern Patriarchs were more correct on the filioque controversy, we’ll also leave that controversy to the side).

In your press conference you transferred that concept of “changelessness” from those central tenets of the Faith that are truly (well, except for the Great Schism) unchangeable for Catholic and Orthodox Christians, to those various bits and pieces of Church tradition that have only got only a rather relative and sometimes dubious longevity in practice, and to some of those doctrines adopted at Church Councils (sadly, none since a time prior to 1054 C.E. have been truly “universal” and thus can’t be seen as binding on Christianity – so the universally accepted councils, for those not steeped in Church History are Nicaea I - 325 C.E., Constantinople I – 381 C.E., Ephesus – 431 C.E., Chalcedon – 451 C.E., Constantinople II – 553 C.E., Constantinople III – 680-81 C.E., Nicaea II – 787 C.E.).

For example, the doctrine of papal infallibility dates only to 1870 C.E. – The Immaculate Conception dates only to a papal dogmatic declaration of 1854 C.E..

So let’s take a look at the current “controversial” things to which you seem to want to append the idea of “changelessness.”

Abortion: The Church’s initial teachings on “ensoulment” and abortion are based on writings of Aristotle, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas – all of whom believed that “ensoulment” occurred several weeks after conception. Pope Innocent III, to whom one might ascribe “infallibility” (though there is the story of one Pope trying and condemning a deceased predecessor – try sorting *that* out), made it Church doctrine around the 13th century that abortion was permitted until fetal animation (called “quickening” Aquinas posited that girl souls were implanted at 90 days after conception, while boys got souls after only 40.

Of course, this medieval and Aristotelian-based philosophical stuff ignored the majestic message of Sacred Scripture, in which the infusion of the soul (and the soul’s taking leave of the body) is inextricably intertwined with breathing – the soul itself involves the “breath of God” or “the breath of life.”

It was not until the 19th century that the Church started to change its position on abortion – and, of course, we have Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae that is largely responsible for the Church losing its moral compass on the ideas and concepts of ensoulment and what constitutes a human being. Human life is a continuum, but a human being does not exist until birth and breath. Humanae Vitae prohibited Catholics from the use of any sort of artificial birth control.

It’s clear what the current Church hierarchy teachings are on abortion and birth control – I submit that while these may be binding on those Roman Catholics who accept the apostasy of the Church hierarchy in its misguidance of the flock, it is in no way appropriate for the hierarchy, and that means you, your Excellency, to take action as the agent of a foreign power to interfere with the constitution and laws of the State of New York and the United States as they apply to those citizens and inhabitants of the United States and the State of New York who do not subscribe to your hierarchical apostasy.

Let’s move on to priestly celibacy and the ordination of women. While these are certainly matters reserved to the hierarchy, it is exasperating when you take advantage of innocent Roman Catholics who are supposed to be members of your flock, who have not had the opportunity to take a seminary course in Church History, to misinform them that these things are “changeless” doctrines of the Church. Shame on you, your Excellency!

As you well know, the doctrine of priestly celibacy in the Western Church has its roots in canon XXXIII of the Spanish Council of Elvira (295-302 C.E.) – and this Western doctrine was expressly not adopted at Nicaea I in 325 C.E. – at which the Church Fathers merely confirmed the prohibition of mulieres subintroductas (no women in a bishop’s priest’s or deacon’s household except a female relative. Church tradition discouraging or forbidding priests marrying after ordination does predate the Council of Nicaea I. At various times in the West, similar prohibitions were adopted at various synods. The final thrust in the Roman Chuch came at Lateran Council II, at which the Church pronounced any marriage contracted by subdeacons or any members of higher orders to be invalid – leaving any conjugal relationships by clergy in the Western Church to be seen as mere concubinage. The celibacy doctrine was further reinforced at Lateran IV and Trent.

Still, the Church in the Modern World may well be prepared for changes in the doctrine – the large numbers of priests who are unable to keep to vows of celibacy and chastity, and who in attempting to suppress their sexual natures turn to alcohol abuse, child sexual abuse, seduction of widows and divorcees, and other matters one might deem to be “scandals in the Church.” While the apostate* Church response to the child abuse scandal has been a witch hunt to remove priests who were naturally endowed with a same-sex sexual orientation, you must know that does not address the root of the scandal.

As to the ordination of women? The early church ordained women. There is evidence in the writings of St. Paul that women were deaconesses, and as late as the 8th century C.E. there were bishopesses, priestesses and deaconesses (in these latter cases, these women were wives, respectively, of bishops, priests and deacons, with whom there were no longer supposed to be conjugal relations, but both husband and wide were to devote themselves to ministering to the flock).

Neither priestly celibacy nor the ban or ordination of women is “changeless” doctrine. However, the apostate hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has the power to change these things, at a Council, or upon a pronouncement by the Pope (neither of which seems to be likely). You, your Excellency, are certainly correct in asserting that you do not have the power to change these things. You do, however, have the power to privately (publicly would be scandalous, of course) express opinions to the Pope and your fellow bishops that a loosening of doctrine in these areas might be beneficial to the Church. (You also may truly believe that current doctrine rooted in long tradition should not be touched.)

Let’s move now to marriage, a matter which I take very seriously. I am most deeply disappointed in your opposition to the state recognizing civil marriage on a gender-neutral basis. I am aware of your history of anti-marriage activism in secular civil matters from when you were stationed in Wisconsin, where you strongly supported that state’s 2006 constitutional amendment prohibiting gender-neutral marriage and abused your episcopal power and authority to silence the vocal moral opposition of nearly 150 of your priests to this immoral, vile and heterosexual supremacist measure.

Based on this, I must come to the conclusion that your Excellency is really not such an Excellent personage, after all. I am well aware that you are constrained to obedience to the immoral and unethical pronouncements of Joseph Ratzinger (the apostate* anti-Pope Benedict XVI, and the chief architect of the retreat from Vatican II’s encounter between the Church and the Modern World) and the apostate* Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the subjects of heterosexist supremacy and the institution of marriage.

You and your apostate* Church hierarchy are certainly entitled to limit sacramental Holy Matrimony to those who are approved and qualified to receive the sacrament by the apostate* Church rules. That is, at least one of the parties must be a Roman Catholic, and the other party, if not Roman Catholic, must solemnly agree that any children of the marriage are to be raised within the Roman Catholic Church in order to receive a dispensation and participate in the Sacrament. Longstanding but not “changeless” Church doctrine also requires the participants in a sacramental marriage to be members of the opposite sex relative to each other. (The early Church blessed same-sex unions, such as that between Saints Sergius and Bacchus, based on Sacred Scripture, which in 1 Samuel 18, we see a sacred marriage covenant entered into between God’s anointed, David, and King Saul’s son Jonathan, while later in the same chapter, when Saul gives to David Saul’s daughter Michal in marriage, accurate translations (such as Darby and ASV) make it clear that Saul proclaims that this marriage to Michal makes David Saul’s “son-in-law a second time” (the first time being in the marriage with Jonathan). This bit of Scripture is not taken out of context – and while it is clear that there are many references in Sacred Scripture to heterosexual marriage, this one reference makes it clear that same-sex marriage covenants, as well as polygamy, are sanctioned by Scripture, though not by current understandings of Church tradition. I grant that Jerome fudged the translation of the Vulgate in this chapter, leading King James, Douay-Rheims and other Vulgate-based translations into confusion, so you might dispute the reference to “son-in-law a second time – after all, it is Church doctrine that the Vulgate is the “official” Bible of the Catholic Church.

So we have long-standing but not “changeless” Church doctrine that deals with the Sacrament of Holy matrimony.

Where you and the apostate* Church hierarchy fall into deep immorality and error, is in the insistence that Church doctrine in the area of marriage must be applied in the secular law, despite the strong American secular traditions of the free exercise of religious belief, and the guarantees of individual rights and equal treatment under the law.

Your proclamation that you “don’t shy away from these things” and will work to oppose the gender-neutral marriage bill that Governor David Patterson is about to introduce, makes you an enemy of the American people and the social contract that is the basis and foundation of the United States of America and the State of New York.

There is an uneasy balance between the “majority rule” of democratic institutions, and the “tyranny of the majority” when democratic rule is misused and abused to create special rights for the majority in oppression of the minority. In this case, your erroneous position on civil marriage puts you on the wrong side of the principles of justice, fairness and equal protection under the law.

Your position pits you against the children being raised by same-sex partners in stable relationships. Your position pits you against same-sex partners with long-standing relationships who are forcibly separated under the immigration laws of the United States. Your position pits you against transsexual people – as you well know, the Church held in a sub secretum document published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2000 C.E. (leaked to Catholic News Service in 2002 C.E.) – it’s the Vatican’s position that transsexual people cannot be allowed to marry anyone (male, female, or other), must live lives of celibacy, and may not be admitted to holy orders or even be members of a religious order, congregation or convent (even third-order Franciscans!).

In this area of interference in the civil law, you, your “Excellency,” represent the worst in the abuse of Church doctrine to suborn the processes of secular affairs that have nothing to do with the Church.

While you may have to accept the pernicious and immoral pronouncements of the apostate* Church hierarchy, in particular the vile Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons of July 31, 2003, you are not obliged to blindly follow this. You have a right, as a person who may well have an ounce of moral fortitude in your soul, to take this particular declaration of Church policy in such a way as to permit you to take the high road on this issue and not actually interfere in the process of recognition of the civil rights of the minority. It is not a sin of omission to refrain from taking action to oppose civil laws that would permit government to cease oppressing the minority that your superiors in the apostate* Church have immorally and in an ultra vires manner ordered you to oppress. You may have the moral compass to refuse immoral orders of your superiors – indeed, you have the duty to refuse these orders.

I warn you, however, your “Excellency,” that your interference in secular and civil law in this area will be met with vigorous opposition. If you succeed in your quest to stifle this legislation, you will find me as a strong advocate in opposition to your apostate* Church.

Among the things I might consider:

- laws that would require all of the clergy and members of the hierarchy of your apostate* Church in the United States register as agents of a foreign power. (This thinking is not original on my part – Cardinal Law had to be dissuaded from claiming diplomatic immunity on this sort of basis when his diocesan priestly sex scandal caused him much grief.)

The fact is, the only religion in the world with which the United States maintains a diplomatic ambassadorial relationship is the apostate* Roman Catholic Church, by virtue of its temporal administration of the Vatican City-State. It makes perfect sense to see Catholic prelates who seek to apply principles of the 2003 abomination of a doctrinal message in interfering with American legislative and judicial processes as “agents of a hostile foreign power.” This would not be an unwarranted breach by the State of the separation of government and religion, but an appropriate and necessary reaction to a religious cancer that has already interfered enough in secular affairs.

- laws denying the hostile foreign power apostate* Roman Catholic Church the right to own tax-exempt real estate in the United States, with the exception of embassies and consulates (cathedrals, Episcopal residences and diocesan administrative offices would qualify, assuming we are continuing to maintain diplomatic relations with the Holy See, but not the ownership of parish churches and schools – these would also have no break from local taxation, since they are used by the hostile foreign power to interfere with the internal affairs of the civil law of the United States and the several States; they may even be subject to seizure).

In addition to legislation along one or more of these lines, and the denial of tax exemptions, there are other things I might consider advocating. Since you, and other bishops, on behalf of the apostate* Roman Catholic Church hierarchy officially act in a hostile manner toward the rights and freedoms of the People, as the agent of a hostile foreign power, with the purpose of subverting the American system of government and establishing a sort of Christianist theocracy, I would urge the federal government to break off diplomatic relations and expel all of the hierarchy (or at least those acting in such a hostile manner) from the territory of the United States until such time that the Vatican agrees to not interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States or the several States and at least as to the United States, rescinds the July 2003 document which is the basis for malicious interference in secular affairs.

I admit that these may seem to be somewhat “fringe” positions to take – but they would represent an appropriate response to your proposed active interference on behalf of the apostate* Church in secular matters, if it should be successful (I would not bother to advocate that the apostate* Church be treated as a “hostile foreign power” if you fail, hostile though the hierarchy may be by its actions to people like me). You cannot expect to be able to abuse your position of power as Archbishop of New York without risking the potential adverse consequences of violating the boundaries between Church and State, particularly when the Church you represent is also a Sovereign State in its own right.

Now that I have gotten the unpleasant matters out of the way, I do welcome you to New York. I understand that in areas other than these controversial areas of apostate* Church immorality and hostility to the interests of the people of the State of New York and the United States, you are reputed to be a fine preacher and a prelate who gets along well with your priests, at least with those who are quiet about matters which they might otherwise express disagreement.

While I have shaken the dust of your apostate* Church that has rejected me, from the sandals on my feet, I do retain a certain interest in Catholic matters. While my faith has unraveled to the extent that I am more theologically comfortable with Unitarian Universalism than I am with the sort of things I had to suspend my disbelief to accept that are among the minutiae of Roman Catholic teachings, including some things that are articles of faith under both versions of the Nicene Creed (oh, I *could* believe in some of these things, but the Church’s failures in moral theological maters has made me suspect of its authority in other areas in which it claims to be the possessor of the sole and complete Truth – so it makes me question things like the Church’s understanding of the “Virgin Birth,” the “Immaculate Conception,” the “Assumption” and even a truly central tenet such as the Resurrection. These days I think Thomas Jefferson had a better grasp of the Nature of Jesus than any Catholic theologian – but then again, that’s my personal faith development after having been rejected by the apostate* Church).

In any event, I do hope that despite our doctrinal, political, and other differences, that you serve the Catholic population of the Archdiocese of New York in an appropriate way as a good and faithful Shepherd of this large and diverse flock. I may be among the Other Sheep, exiled and outcast from that flock for being different, but that does not prevent me from wishing you well in those aspects of your work that involve ministering to the legitimate spiritual needs of the Catholics under your jurisdiction.

With warmest regards,

s/
Joann Marie Prinzivalli, Serva Servarum Deae
State Director, New York Transgender Rights Organization (NYTRO)

Going toe-to-toe with the Christianists

Today on one of my favorite blogs in the whole world, Pam’s House Blend, we get the otherwise cryptically-named article by Pam Spaulding herself entitled:

And Blankenhorn and Rauch think these people will compromise on marriage?

(The cryptic reference to Blankenhorn and Rauch is to an op-ed piece on compromise in federal recognition of civil unions that ran earlier in the week in The New York Times, A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage, by By DAVID BLANKENHORN and JONATHAN RAUCH
Published: February 21, 2009 )

I won’t go into the proposed “compromise” here – that’s not the thrust of Pam’s thoughtful essay.

What Pam writes about here is the right-wing Christianist rhetoric about gays that rings lodly in the halls of Congress and the inner recesses of our state legislatures. Today’s featured nutcase is Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe, a Republican from Greeley, Colorado.

Renfroe was quoted in opposition to a bill to grant insurance benefits to gay partners of state employees (a bill that passed in the Colorado Senate after his less-than-inspiring speech) as saying “I oppose this bill because of what my personal beliefs are. I think that what our country was founded upon was those beliefs also.”

What are Renfroe’s beliefs? He certainly can’t be a Christian. Then again, even Pope Benedict XVI isn’t really a Christian. People with the sort of belief about LGBT people that Renfroe has, if they claim to be Christians, are lying. They’re Christianists – people who pervert and twist the kerygma of the message of the Good News, and use it as a justification for attempting to take their bigoted feelings about people who are different from themselves, and make their bigotry the law of the land.

How do we deal with the Christianists? Toe to toe on the theological level.

Every time they cite Leviticus 18:22:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination"

We should turn the other cheek with 1 Samuel 18:3:

“Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul”

and 1 Samuel 18:21 (KJV and most other translations are confused):

"And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son in law in the one of the twain,"

giving the impression that David will be marrying one of Saul's two daughters. So let’s not use the old KJV or other mistranslations of this verse. The literal and accurate Darby gives us:

"And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be upon him. And Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law a second time."

The first time was with Saul's son Jonathan, the second with Saul's daughter Michal). That means David and Jonathan were married.

The American Standard version (ASV), also a reasonably good translation, differs from Darby in only two words:

"And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law a second time."

John Nelson Darby was the leader of the Plymouth Brethren movement in the 1800s. He was extremely gifted in linguistics. Darby is reputed to be a very rich and accurate translation. By going to the available original language sources rather than translating from St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate, (Douay-Rheims does the best job of that, but most non-Catholic Christianists think that the KJV was "authorized" by God rather than King James . . . ), Darby gets to the essence of what otherwise looks like a completely fumbled passage. After all, when homophobes do the translating, they're more likely to try to obscure the meaning of anything quite as powerful an example of same-sex marriage clearly stated in the Bible as the sacred covenant between David and Jonathan.

How does this relate to Leviticus 18:22? Simply put, at worst this verse from the "holiness code" relates only to a single kind of male-male sexual activity. Some theologians will also link this prohibition to the story of Sodom, and indicate that it relates only to the practice of anal rape, commonly used in the ancient Near East as a way to humiliate a defeated enemy by "using him as one would use a woman" (which has nothing to do with a loving gay relationship). Others would link it to a prohibition of sacramental religious relations with transgendered priestesses of Near East agricultural goddesses (Astarte, Ishtar, etc.), relating more to Caananite religion as the forbidden "competition" for the Hebrews at the time of Leviticus.

The Christianists and their erroneous understanding of Sacred Scripture can be challenged, and should be challenged, on their own theological turf. Too often LGBT people will turn away from Christianity, thinking that the Christianists are the bearers of the Good News. They are not - they pervert the Bible with their Un-Chriatian foul bigotry spawned by Satan. Unless they repent they will be numbered among the goats on the Day of Judgment, asking in their confused false righteousness:

"Lord, when saw we thee . . .a stranger, . . . and have not ministered to thee?

Then shall he answer them saying, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have not done it to one of these least, neither have ye done it to me.

And these shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into life eternal."

- Mt. 25:44-46 (Darby)

This relates back to one of my favorite passages, Isaiah 56. I often will cite verses 3-5, but see 6-7:

Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;

Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.

- Isaiah 56:6-7 (KJV)

Strangers are not only those who are from foreign countries and cultures, but also those in our midst who are different by our natures or circumstances from the majority - whether it be based on race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, etc.

Real Christians embrace the wonderful diversity in God's creation, while Christianists, even the Pope, abhor it. Like the men of Sodom, their desire is to obliterate us, to humiliate us, to deny us human rights and common decency, solely because we are different, because we are "strangers," because we are aliens in our own native land and culture.

Another “Galileo Moment” from the Vatican?

Benedict XVI’s 2008 Christmas greeting message to the Roman Curia and Prelature, given on December 22, 2008, is finally available in an official English text from the Vatican website. Not having an official English translation previously made it more difficult to divine the exact meaning of the Pope’s words.

There is a controversial part of the address which was interpreted in the press as being a condemnation of transsexuality, homosexuality, or both, depending on how the translation was made into English from the previously available Italian or German versions. While I am aware of (and disagree with) the Vatican position on transsexual people from the 2003 Catholic News Service news report of a leaked Year 2000 “sub secretum” document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after reviewing the official English translation, I am not entirely sure that the Pope’s statement really constitutes a condemnation of my people. But the Pope’s talk can be interpreted as an attack on feminism, gay marriage, and “gender” that isn’t based on birth-genital-essentialism.

Here is the relevant portion:

“Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian creed, the Church cannot and must not limit herself to passing on to the faithful the message of salvation alone. She has a responsibility towards creation, and must also publicly assert this responsibility. In so doing, she must not only defend earth, water and air as gifts of creation belonging to all. She must also protect man from self-destruction. What is needed is something like a human ecology, correctly understood.

If the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics. What is involved here is faith in the Creator and a readiness to listen to the “language” of creation. To disregard this would be the self-destruction of man himself, and hence the destruction of God’s own work.

What is often expressed and understood by the term “gender” ultimately ends up being man’s attempt at self-emancipation from creation and the Creator. Man wants to be his own master, and alone – always and exclusively – to determine everything that concerns him. Yet in this way he lives in opposition to the truth, in opposition to the Creator Spirit.

Rain forests deserve indeed to be protected, but no less so does man, as a creature having an innate “message” which does not contradict our freedom, but is instead its very premise.

The great scholastic theologians described marriage, understood as the life-long bond between a man and a woman, as a sacrament of creation, which the Creator himself instituted and which Christ – without modifying the “message” of creation – then made part of the history of his covenant with humanity.

An integral part of the Church proclamation must be a witness to the Creator Spirit present in nature as a whole, and, in a special way, in the human person, created in God’s image.

From this perspective, we should go back to the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sex as a consumer good, the future against the exclusive claims of the present, and human nature against its manipulation.”

Time Magazine’s brief commentary, based on earlier unofficial translations indicated:

“Without actually using the word [transsexual], Benedict took a subtle swipe at those who might undergo sex-change operations or otherwise attempt to alter their God-given gender. Defend "the nature of man against its manipulation," Benedict told the priests, bishops and cardinals gathered Monday in the ornate Clementine hall. "The Church speaks of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this order is respected." The Pope again denounced the contemporary idea that gender is a malleable definition. That path, he said, leads to a "self-emancipation of man from creation and the Creator."”

I think it may be a stretch to call this a “subtle” swipe at transsexuals, without looking at the background that leads ti this conclusion. It would require a misunderstanding of the nature of transsexuality to come to this conclusion. Of course, there is every indication of serious error in the Roman Catholic Church’s approach to transsexual people that involves just such a misunderstanding.

There is very little in the way of official and available doctrinal material published by the Church on the subject of transsexuals. The most prominent item is a “sub secretum” document sent by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to papal nuncios in the year 2000, and then distributed to bishops in 2002 (and then leaked to Catholic News Service in February 2003). My only source for the test is the tantalizingly brief CNS report – I have never seen the actual document.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After years of study, the Vatican's doctrinal congregation has sent church leaders a confidential document concluding that "sex-change" procedures do not change a person's gender in the eyes of the church. Consequently, the document instructs bishops never to alter the sex listed in parish baptismal records and says Catholics who have undergone "sex-change" procedures are not eligible to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life, according to a source familiar with the text. The document was completed in 2000 and sent "sub secretum" (under secrecy) to the papal representatives in each country to provide guidance on a case-by-case basis to bishops. But when it became clear that many bishops were still unaware of its existence, in 2002 the congregation sent it to the presidents of bishops' conferences as well. "The key point is that the (transsexual) surgical operation is so superficial and external that it does not change the personality. If the person was male, he remains male. If she was female, she remains female," said the source.

From what I can glean from the news reports, the position announced secretly by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith appears to be a “birth-genital- essentialist” view, that gender identity is determined by the physiology of one’s genitalia at the time of birth. Genitalia develop along one of two duct systems wolffian and mullerian, both of which are present during fetal development. The duct system that remains undeveloped eventually withers away after birth. The result of the Church’s genital-based essentialism is the belief that there are only two possible sex assignments, each based on genital shape at birth.

This genital essentialism fails to take into account the physiological development of the entire fetus. Focus solely on genitals, though, and in better than 99.9% of all people, the other physiological developments, particularly in the brain, are consistent with genital development, and thus, for those people, the Church’s genital-based essentialism actually seems to work.

However, the Church ignores the scientific evidence of different physiological development in the makeup of transsexual brains that leads to a gender identity that is opposite that which is expected based on genital expectations. This leads to an erroneous understanding of te nature of that one-in-a-thousand who does not fit into the societal and Church expectation of gender.

The psychological factor of gender identity has a physiological basis in brain structure, according to the most recent scientific authority. This was first identified in a Dutch study made in 1994. While in most people the brain structures are in accord with the external genitalia, which is not true with transsexuals and transgender individuals.

The physiological situation with genital formation is also not clear-cut in all cases. In addition to male and female, there are intersexed individuals. Intersex is the current term that covers persons formerly identified as hermaphrodites, that is persons with genital structures that contain some of the elements commonly attributable to “male” and some elements commonly attributable to “female” sex assignments. It also includes those individuals with chromosomal variations that vary from standard XX and XY in the 46th chromosome. In addition, there are persons with XY chromosomes who have an insensitivity to androgens, whose chromosomes are technically “male” but whose bodies develop into a “female” form because of an inability of their cells to process testosterone.

The social issues relating to transgender, transsexual and intersexed individuals are not easily dismissed. We are not some sort of new phenomenon, we have been around since the dawn of human history. Scientists, no longer blinded by ancient Aristotelian pronouncements or Victorian Darwinian theory regarding “sexual selection” have begun to observe that binary gender is not the universal rule, even in the animal kingdom, often used as a rationale for observations of natural law.

It is easy for the Church hierarchy to dismiss a tiny minority of people who are different as being “disordered,” rather than recognizing the serious error the Chuch itself has made in its birth-genital-essentialist assumptions.

The Church hierarchy uses a very selective interpretation of sacred scripture to come to the conclusion that humanity is divided into male *or* female.

If we refer to the Bible and other ancient sources, it is clear that intersexed, transgender and transsexual people existed in biblical times. There are over twenty references in biblical texts to “eunuchs.” This is a catchall for a number of different sexual minorities not classified in accordance with the binary in accordance with external genitalia.

The clearest recognition of this comes in Matthew 19:12, in which Jesus is quoted describing different sorts of eunuchs. Some are born eunuchs, some are made eunuchs by human intervention, and some become eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus was careful as to the last, stating that only those who can accept this should accept it.

If we look at the Pope’s 2008 Christmas greeting message to the Curia and Prelature on one level, it would seem to be first an attack on feminist philosophy that stresses equal human rights and dignity. Just in March 2008, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a ruling against “gender-neutral” references to God, such as “The Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier” and reaffirmed the patriarchal formulation of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Cardinal Urbano Navarrete (a Jesuit priest recently elevated to the rank of Cardinal in a rare case of receiving the rank without being ordained a bishop, who is also one of the Vatican’s “experts” on transsexuals) penned the official commentary of the ruling. Any baptism using a gender-neutral inclusive formulation has been ruled to be invalid.

On another level, the Pope’s Christmas greeting to the Curia and Prelature is yet another of the Church’s attacks on gender-neutral marriage. The Church can only legitimately speak to sacramental marriage for members of the Church, and not to the secular civil recognition of marriage and marriage rights. For the Church to go beyond the sacramental issue and to widen the scope to insist that its official prejudice be inscribed into secular law, is an outrage, especially in nations such as the United States that recognize the free exercise of religion, and prohibit the government from imposing a religious belief on the people as a matter of law.

If the Pope’s statement Is to be construed as an attack on the transgender community, it requires an acceptance of the prerequisite genital-based “gender essentialism” which is the first fallacy in the Church’s gender identity structure. And we know from what little material there is that is available, that this is the Church position – so I must conclude that even if the language may make it seem a bit less clear, the Pope’s message may fairly be construed as yet another demeaning of the transgender community.

The scriptural reading on which we should meditate when we read the Pope’s message is Matthew 7:15-27 (Douay-Rheims translation):

15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16 By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.

20 Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.

21 Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

22 Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name?

23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.

24 Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock,

25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock.

26 And every one that heareth these my words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand,

27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof.

Benedict XVI is one of these false prophets – he wears the mantle of the shepherd of the flock, but by showing that he has little concern for different sheep, he reveals his ravening wolf nature. By basing his, and the Church’s, arguments on false premises that are against scientific wisdom, he is like the tree that bears evil fruit, or the man who builds his house on a foundation of shallow sand without deeply-rooted pilings.

The message as against feminism? The Catholic Church bears the evil fruit of patriarchal domination. One need only read German Theologian Uta Ranke Heinemann’s work “Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven” to get a grasp of the sexist misogyny that has gripped the Roman Church from the time of the Church Fathers in the fourth century.

The message as against gender-neutral marriage? Many of the documents issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the issue of homosexuality are based on false interpretation of sacred scripture.

The message as against transsexual and transgender people? The foundation of the Church’s “sub secretum” teaching is founded on the shallow sand of an ill-conceived understanding of natural law, based more on Aristotle and “Scholastic theologians” than on the observations of modern science. It is a teaching that, like the condemnation of Galileo, will not stand up to the rain, the flood, and the wind of rational scientific inquiry.

When God created human beings, we were created “male and female” in the image and likeness of God – this means that God is “male and female” for us to be created in God’s image. And each of us, individually, is not only male or only female, but is “male and female,” just as God is. Indeed, some may be “mostly male” and others “mostly female” and still others may have distinct parts that developed ion different directions. But we are all children of God.

Benedict’s word’s are truly based on “antiquated metaphysics” and are not rooted in science or natural law. When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as “man and woman,” Benedict means rather “man *or* woman” – and he disregards the “language of Creation” found in his own Sacred Scripture.

In the past year, a Reform Rabbi from Pleasantville, New York, reported on his discovery of a hidden Name of God found in the Tetragrammaton (the four letters that represent “the Name of God” – usually rendered in English as YHWH). The Rabbi realized that if the Tetragrammaton were to be read and pronounced *backward* it would result in the Name of God working out as Hebrew (hu/hee) for “He/She” – which correlates directly with the clue found in Genesis 1:27 – that “male and female” is the image and likeness of God.

Rabbi Mark Sameth writes in his article, after thirteen years of research, “If we read the text as a mystic might, paying extremely close attention, assuming that the text conceals more than it reveals, we may find hints regarding God’s androgynous nature, so to speak, peeking out through the surface level of the Torah.” He comes to the conclusion, correctly I think, that the God of the Israelites was not a masculine, patriarchal deity, but a he/she bi-gendered God. This is a far cry from the sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic utterances of Benedict XVI – stated in soft tones and with great apparent concern for the welfare of humanity, but with the sharp teeth and fangs showing beneath the mantle.

Against this backdrop of an all-inclusive God, the Roman Catholic Church’s ruling clinging to masculine-gendered terminology for the Trinity even more “antiquated” and illogical. Of course, recognizing a bi-gendered God might mean that the Vatican would have to revisit the idea of the eligibility of women for the priesthood, and the eligibility of transgender people for any kind of religious vocation.

The Roman Catholic Church eventually “got it” when it came to Galileo, even if it took nearly 400 years for Benedict XVI’s predecessor John Paul II, to get around to apologizing for the Inquisition’s actions under Urban VIII, and rehabilitating Galileo, previously found to have been a heretic.

Perhaps Benedict XVI could learn from this quote from Galileo “The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach how to go to heaven and not how to go to the heavens.”

Maybe Benedict might work on helping Roman Catholics make their own marriages work better, rather than imposing on a secular world the narrow, ill-conceived antiquated, outdated and and unscientific views of the Church on the rights of women, gays and trans people. When the Church meddles with Caesar, it is as bad as Caesar meddling with the Church.