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October 14, 2003
Sullivan's Travels
Andrew Sullivan reveals the current state of his faith life:
Since the summer, I haven't written about this much, because it felt increasingly inappropriate to bring such deeply private issues into the public arena. But like many others, this past year has been a watershed for me. The combination of the cover-up of sexual abuse and the extremity of the language used against gay people by the Vatican has made it impossible for me to go back inside a church. I do believe that something is rotten in the heart of the hierarchy, that it is bound up in sexual panic and a conflicted homosexual subculture that is a deep part of the Catholic Church. Until that is dealt with, until a new dynamic of hope and honesty replaces denial and authoritarianism, I cannot go on. Am I still a Catholic? I don't think I can call myself such publicly any more. Privately, I think I always will be in some place in my heart. But I cannot enable the vicious cycle of failure and scapegoating that now animates what amounts to the leadership. And I do not believe, as David Brooks seems to, that the legacy of this pope can be fairly judged without taking into acccount the devastation to Catholicism that has occurred in the West under his watch. He has presided over a collapse in the Church's home-base in Europe, and, I believe, has precipitated the death-throes of the Church in America. No doubt many believe that this is the price for fidelity to the Church's medieval sexual ethics. I beg to differ.
Interesting. Some quick points. It's odd to me that he says that his exodus is because of the failure of Church leadership, rather than his fundamental disagreement with what the Church teaches on sexuality. I don't understand why it's so difficult for him to say, "I don't believe this, and I see that they're not going to change, so I'm not Catholic anymore." Why is that he wants to blame someone else for his departure rather than take responsibility for his own beliefs?
And he blames the Pope for the decline of the Church in Europe, a decline which really, if you want to argue about it, began with the French Revolution and the vigorous secularist movements of the 19th century, or even with the Reformation? What kind of stunted agenda-seeking historical viewpoint is that?
There are legitimate arguments to be made on the complex issue of the Pope's leadership, but this is not one of them.
Anyway, it's too bad, but it's not unexpected. Here's what saddens me the most with Sullivan and others...where's Jesus? I'm not saying that if you focus on Christ, you'll automatically and every time wind up okay with Rome - we all have free will and different experiences and viewpoints that make that unlikely, to say the least. But when we struggle with faith - the Christian faith - I think the only sensible thing is to go back to the Gospels and to prayer and the re-connect with Christ. A faith that is based on the efficacy of leaders is not faith, I'm sorry to say. Certainly, our relationship with Jesus is mediated a thousand different ways from Sunday, but still, what I don't see here and in so many other discussions is the question of faith in Jesus - and where that takes us?
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Comments
It could well be argued that Sully ceased to be Catholic the moment that he embraced his homosexuality. Now he's just making it official.
Posted by: Registered Independent Joel at Oct 14, 2003 1:52:09 PM
... and let us never forget that Jesus calls us above all to love. Several members of a support group I lead are gay. Since the group deals with sexual abuse, it becomes a central issue. So ... what to do? The gay members of our group already have lots of Christians telling them that God abhors their acts and that they are going to burn in hell. I decidied to be a Christian who tells them that God loves them and desires that they live with him in heaven.
Posted by: Paul Pfaffenberger at Oct 14, 2003 1:54:34 PM
Although, it should also be acknowledged that when he says "something is rotten in the heart of the hierarchy, that it is bound up in sexual panic and a conflicted homosexual subculture that is a deep part of the Catholic Church," he may be on to something. A "conflicted homosexual subculture" in the hierarchy may indeed have contributed to the sexual abuse crisis of the past decades.
A grain of truth in an otherwise pitiful bout of denial.
Posted by: Registered Independent Joel at Oct 14, 2003 1:56:06 PM
"I do believe that something is rotten in the heart of the hierarchy, that it is bound up in sexual panic and a conflicted homosexual subculture that is a deep part of the Catholic Church."
I believe the same. That does not mean I condone all of Mr Sullivan's choices, but it is a valid perspective from an intelligent observer. Our focus as Catholics needs to be the restoration of our own house. It is in dire need of repair, and discrediting those delivering the message does not serve us well.
Posted by: Paul Pfaffenberger at Oct 14, 2003 2:02:27 PM
Amy, you posted in July about Andrew's comments on taking the month of August to really try hear God's voice and make some heart-wrenching decisions. At that time, I remembered thinking, "Good. Andrew is going to hike alone across Europe for a month or perhaps will go to a mountain-top cabin away from the media and noise." I think that you also called for prayer on his behalf.
It was in early September that I realized that he went to Provincetown, Rhode Island for August. Alas, I have no doubt that God's voice was difficult to hear over beach parties with dozens of admirers.
Posted by: Amanda at Oct 14, 2003 2:28:02 PM
While Amy makes good points about the seeming lack of focus on Christ in Sullivan's spiritual identity crisis, Sullivan makes equally valid points about Church leadership, particularly the "sexual panic" about the "conflicted homosexual subculture" and this Pope's presiding over the decline of the faith in Europe.
That last point cannot be stressed too strongly. JPII has sat in Peter's chair for 25 years and Catholic faith throughout the developed world has declined in that time. This is an inescapable fact. Yes, people will claim that faith in the Third World has become more intense. But should we be satisfied with growth in one sector and perilous decline in another?
What's truly disturbing is that the middle and upper classes and the well-educated are leaving various manifestations of the faith. While people can blame "secularism", "materialism" and "individualism," they should also blame the Church's inability to communicate the Gospel in an effective manner to such groups. The Gospel is for everybody, not just the poor and outcast. The Gospel is God's way of reconciling humanity through repentance and faith in Christ's atoning, redemptive sacrifice as the "Lamb of God". How many Catholics truly understand this?
European Catholicism is reaping what it has sown. It has sown an obcession with control, whether of marital sexual behavior or geopolitics. It is reaping contempt. God is not mocked; Rome has forgotten that.
Posted by: Joseph D'HIppolito at Oct 14, 2003 3:32:31 PM
Andrew still needs to discover what the rest of us who are gay and still call themselves Catholic have had to learn: our salvation does NOT depend on membership in this church but, rather, on faith in Jesus Christ. We remain Catholic by picking and choosing what is essential to our faith and what is tangential. Before the rest of you say: "Ah ha! ... just another Cafeteria Catholic", let me remind you that virtually everyone who has posted on Amy's site over the past year that I have been visiting has very carefully picked and chosen what they'll assent to and what they won't. Cafeterias have both left and right wings. The major difference, however, is that the left admits it and the right continues to deny the nose on their face.
Posted by: Jimmy Mac at Oct 14, 2003 3:50:10 PM
Very well said, Jimmy Mac, particularly your points about Church membership and "cafeteria Catholicism".
Posted by: Joseph D'Hippolito at Oct 14, 2003 3:55:25 PM
The point is that in the past couple of decades cafeteria Catholicism is much more difficult. The Vatican, under John Paul II and Ratzinger is unflinchingly defending and professing the Church's moral teachings in a way that cannot be ignored or easily sidestepped. In the Kumbaya 70's Catholics came to believe in the primacy of personal conscience without any counterweight of the Church's authority on matters of faith and morals. In the "big tent" of Catholicism in which Sullivan grew up it was easy to openly disagree with the Magisterium without feeling any less Catholic. No more! Sullivan's departure from the Church is a sign of its renewed health and vitality. The fact that someone cannot be comfortable in professing the goodness and positive value of a homosexual lifestyle while maintaining his identity as a Catholic is a cause for celebration. We are moving in the right direction.
Posted by: frank sales at Oct 14, 2003 4:10:39 PM
Oh give me a break, Jimmy Mac. Does what you are calling Cafeteria Catholicism apply to matters of doctrine? And by the way, your faith in Jesus Christ is strongest, and your salvation surest, when you are not cut off from the Real Presence.
Posted by: Chris Westley at Oct 14, 2003 4:11:04 PM
You nailed it, Amy. With all of Andrew's conscience-wrestling over this issue, I have rarely heard him mention faith in Jesus Christ. (I thought the same thing when I read comments by some of the VOTF folks about how they couldn't set foot in a church for weeks/months after the scandal broke. They lost faith in their leaders blah blah blah) One wonders where the Eucharist factors in here....
We've all heard Andrew bemoan at length about the Church "declaring war on gays" and "bound up in deep sexual panic" etc. etc. Please. While I agree there is a conflicted homosexual subculture that has factored into the scandal, I'm SO tired of the "sexual panic" finger-pointing. And blaming the pope for the decline in European Christianity.
As you said Amy, a faith that is based on the efficacy of leaders is not faith.
Posted by: Cheryl at Oct 14, 2003 4:20:31 PM
" The fact that someone cannot be comfortable in professing the goodness and positive value of a (homosexual lifestyle) while maintaining his identity as a Catholic is a cause for celebration. We are moving in the right direction."
Hmm... if folks are gonna argue about "cafeteria Catholics", shouldn't there be a menu?
Substitute some phrases for the one in parentheses:
1) "record of voting for pro-choice candidates";
2) "marriage that includes all the loving but proscribed erotic practices";
3) "faith in the separation of Church and State, and in the moral value of freedom";
4) "healthy dislike for the Vatican's arrogance and moral myopia"; or even simply
5) "passing knowledge of the Roman Catholic Church's history"...
Hell, make your own list. But, just for fun, why not do it here?
Posted by: TheAmericanist at Oct 14, 2003 4:26:41 PM
frank sales writes:
>The fact that someone cannot be comfortable >in professing the goodness and positive value >of a homosexual lifestyle while maintaining >his identity as a Catholic is a cause for >celebration. We are moving in the right >direction.
Sullivan has promoted promiscuity as "realism"
in his arguments on same-sex marriage in _Virtually Normal_. I find the idea repellent and condescending. I'm also apalled that Sullivan engaged in promiscuous sex after he discovered that he's HIV positive. He excused this by saying that his partners were also positive and then deluded himself into thinking that he couldn't be susceptible to a more virulent strain of HIV.
In short, I'm insulted that Sullivan portrays himself as "gay."
Posted by: Don't call me 'Francis.' at Oct 14, 2003 4:31:29 PM
I think Sullivan really misses the boat when he claims that the something is really rotten at the heart of the hierarchy. One, he overstates his case (and mirrors the language of Luther who saw absolutely nothing good in human nature). The term rotten implies something much more sinister than sinful. Second, the heart of the Church is Christ (okay, it is not the same as the heart of the hierarchy).
Maybe the hierarchy is in sexual panic and conflicted sexually, but my advice to Sullivan would be to watch television for a week. All one sees is people who are sexually panicking and seriously sexually conflicted. I do not think the Church is sexually conflicted but it is our culture that is conflicted and, therefore, conflicted by the teaching of the Church. Sullivan and his contemporaries (straight or gay) are so conflicted they can not wrap their minds around what the Church actually does teach. The teaching can hardly be deemed conflicted.
Posted by: Mike at Oct 14, 2003 4:40:54 PM
TheAmericanist: If your general point is that criticism of the Church is often well-founded and salutary, you won't get a big argument from me. St. Paul was quite right in taking Peter to task. However, don't confuse this with 1)heresy or 2) a refusal to submit will and intellect to authoritative pronouncements on faith and morals. To take your first example, if every Catholic who advocates, aids or abets the murder of the unborn decided that they could no longer do so and remain in the Church, this would be another example of salutory stain removal.
Posted by: frank sales at Oct 14, 2003 4:42:56 PM
Mike Petrik writes:
The teaching can hardly be deemed conflicted.
Sullivan hasn't made this claim. It's your strawman. You'll have to try harder to win the argument.
Posted by: Don't call me 'Francis.' at Oct 14, 2003 5:01:47 PM
A Catholic I know said the Catholic Church should stay out of her sex life. I thought: if the Church can't give guidance about sex, one of the most controversial topics around, then what good is it?
Posted by: TSO at Oct 14, 2003 5:08:39 PM
Joseph,
How do you assess what Amy had to say about the historical context of the Church's decline in parts of Europe, that it stretches back at least to the French Revolution?
While we shouldn't ignore the actions going on now in society to push Christianity to the margins, we also should not place the blame for this movement squarely on the shoulders of society in general, let alone one man, over the past 25 years for this.
Posted by: Sean Gallagher at Oct 14, 2003 5:14:38 PM
I for one find some hope in the fact that Sullivan seemed to struggle with the question. He clearly sees the tension, even if he isn't completely honest about what's causing the break. (But, assuming he truly has affection and love for the Church, can't we cut him a bit of slack and say that the moments right after making a decision like that are probably more guided by emotion than reason?)
But I've got to respond to you Jimmy Mac. I hear this all the time, that there are both left and right cafeteria Catholics. What I never see are examples of it. Mind offering some? And don't confuse difference in emphasis for an example of picking and choosing Catholic doctrines. Show me examples of those "on the right" (whatever you mean by that) rejecting a Catholic doctrine. I think you your examples will be few and far between.
But why bother -- it's not like you actually have a complaint with cafeteria Catholicism.
Posted by: JACK at Oct 14, 2003 5:22:13 PM
I would respond to Jack that George Weigel seems to be eating at a differnt cafeteria than three out of the last four Popes when it comes to just war, for example. There are many others who join him.
http://www.catholicjustwar.org/weigel.asp
Posted by: Joe McFaul at Oct 14, 2003 5:51:14 PM
I suppose the death penalty comes to mind, but Vatican pronouncements on that one are considerably less authoritative than those against contraception.
But somebody ought to speak up for the French Revolution -- or more precisely, if not for the Jacobins at least against the Church's role at the time and later.
It has always bugged me how Leftist intellectuals (notably Marxists) look on the French Revolution as a kind of template for all human politics and even human nature itself, while pretty much regarding the American Revolution (which happened first, fercryingoutloud) as a fluke.
But these intellectual habits are almost inescapable -- even the labels "left" for reformers and revolutionaries and "right" for conservatives and reactionaries come from the French Revolution. Still, just because we all talk so we understand each other doesn't mean we shouldn't make sense, now and again.
The fact is, the Roman Catholic Church was emphatically FOR the royalists and the divine right of kings, and against human rights and the dignity of individuals. The model of the Papacy is royal in character -- and that is not NECESSARILY because that's the way God wants it. (For one thing, it isn't the way the Church started.) That's why the French Revolution was such a body blow to an already hollow institution, the Vatican role in the political and military decisions of Europe. The Church was simply on the wrong side of history --which it refused to recognize until WAY after everybody else knew it. Pius IX actually excommunicated the entire Italian Army at one point, while hiring mercenaries in his utterly losing cause -- shortly before (hand smacking forehead) 'discovering' that the infallibility on matters of faith and doctrine that had long been considered the property of the Church as a whole, actually belonged to the Pope alone... just as he finally lost all his military and direct political clout. (And about time, too.)
I think a big part of Sullivan's confusion is simply that he's a BRITISH Catholic in many ways, formed after and as a result of all this history -- and worse, one transplanted to America. Can't blame the guy for being confused -- the Vatican has never understood that the American Revolution was fundamentally different from all European experience. So for a gay Catholic to try to understand what it means for him to become an AMERICAN Catholic at the same time is a mite more than system tolerances.
The idea that governments (including the Vatican) do not grant rights, that we're born with 'em, and that the only legitimate purpose of governments (including the Vatican) is to protect 'em, is so alien to some that they literally cannot conceive it. I don't doubt Sullivan understands that -- but not in a Catholic context for the simple reason that, there ain't any such Catholic context for that self-evident notion.
Posted by: TheAmericanist at Oct 14, 2003 5:56:59 PM
While I do not believe much of what Andrew said about the problems of the church I do believe that if the Church recovers from the decline since Vatican II that many are going to have a different opinion of JPII than they have now. Since Vatican II the collegiality factor has risen to such great heights that the the only corrective action against laity and clergy seems through indirect comments made by spokesman.
What we are seing in the latter half of the 20th century is another kind of heresy. Call it modernism, media indullgence, secularism but whatever it is the Church has to stamp it out amongst its members first before it can hope to evangelize the rest of hummanity. I think the best term would be the secular reformation of the Protestant reformation.
I don't completely know what is needed. Maybe a new creed, a reaffirmation from all Catholics that they believe in the same things.
What is happening is that the media can now point out all the discension amongst are ranks so that any evangelization that is done is completely wiped out by the discenters. What is needed is for the Church to start functioning like an confident religious institution that is trying to promote its beliefs rather than an indecisive Unitarian meeting house.
The Church reacted to the reformation first by doing nothing; next by closing ranksm, getting the liturgy and doctrine standardized; and finally after that, then to confidently promote the faith throughout the rest of the world. We are going to have to accept that the Church of the future may be a much smaller Church than the Church of today. We don't have the luxury of the Reformation where we had to right off much of the Protestant countries because we still had a great deal of influence pull in the countries that had Catholic majorities. We are just simply going to have to tell people who disagree with Church doctrine to be quiet about it or to leave the Church until the feel that they agree with it.
It is not because I am holier than the Catholic down the street but only because I believe what the Church says and my neighbor might believe that the important thing is JC and not his Church (which is a man made insitution anyway) that I can be a representive of my Church. My neighboor may have a much better prayer life and maybe a much better chance to go to heaven. However, he probably never going to lead anyone into our Church whereas I might be able to convince someone to come to come to Church, so somebody who is holier than I can convince him to stay.
I think a good analogy (I know that people will hate using the analogy of the Church as a company but it a much better way of looking at what the problem is) would be of a company salesman. If I owned a company I'd rather have a bad salesman who believed in the company product than a good salesman who bad mouthed the product to everyone but his customers. Yes, the bad salesman doesn't directly tell his customers that the product is bad, but eventually the bad mouthing gets to to the customers one way or another.
Keeping with the Church as a company analogy, Andrew seems to be a good salemsan who bemoans the company he works for. Many are wishing that he stay with the company but aren't we better off with someone who doesn't believe in the product. I know that Andrew is worse off but at some point we have to say it has finally gotten to the point where it doesn't matter what position our company takes on a issue, there will always be some prominent employee (often in management) who will say the our product is defective, our senior management is too conservative and we aren't just flexible enough. Why would anybody want to join a company like that?
The Holy Spirit guides people to our Church but if you are a potential member and see what some of our members are doing and advocating you might feel that it isn't the Holy Spirit but a lack of focus which is guiding the Roman Catholic Church of today. What does the Catholic Church believe on an issue? Is the Pope right that abortion is wrong or is Sen. Ted Kennedy (hey he's a Catholic, too!) right? Is capital punishment something we should have grown out of as the Pope says or is Justice Scalia right correct in saying that we really don't have to pay much attention to those teachings, especially if we are a judge? Are free markets devoid of both moral and jurdical restraints where the free market is best solution to help mankind or is the Pope (and the previous Popes) when they wanted a way between unrestrained (note that I didn't mention a single individual because I would have to indict the entire neo-con movement to do so and they write so much beter than I do:-) capitalism and socialism?
No, while I will mourn for the personal tragedy of Andrew not stepping in our Church anymore I will not mourn for the loss to our Church. Yet, I will have to say he is right in saying that Church history may not look as adoringly on JPII as it does today. Using that horrible company metaphor, if we started talking about a former CEO's accomplishments and said that he was a personaly a very good man, a great writer of position papers and was an incessent traveler to branch offices what would the reaction be. Probably the reaction would be "that sounds very good but what were the sales and profits during his tenure." In the same way won't Church history be less kind to JPII if one of his sucessors discovers the magic recipe of declining Mass attendance and vocations in Europe and North America?
Posted by: David Hart at Oct 14, 2003 7:01:03 PM
Interesting thread. All the usual suspects ride their hobby horses while purporting to comment on Sullivan's self excommunication, so I may as well mount up myself. Sullivan prefers his sin to his religion. This has been self evident for years. The mystery is that it took Sullivan so long to leave. The Church, as has been often said, is a hospital for sinners. Sullivan's attitude to the Church was like a patient with a serious disease asking his doctor to not only cease treating him but also to cease treating all his other patients and to proclaim the illness as a good thing. Since the Church did not join Sullivan in his make-believe world Sullivan has separated from the Church. I predict the Church will do fine without Sullivan; I am not so sanguine as to how Sullivan will do without the Church.
Posted by: Donald R. McClarey at Oct 14, 2003 7:13:51 PM
A. Sullivan leaving the church may be a good sign that the center is still holding.
Posted by: John at Oct 14, 2003 7:53:09 PM
(First of all, Amanda, Provincetown is in Massachusetts, not Rhode Island. It is at the tip of Cape Cod and is, so I have heard, a favorite destination for the gaily inclined.)
I would like to say that I believe I have at least a "passing knowledge of the Roman Catholic Church's history" (I even have a Ph.D. to prove it) and I am still a faithful Catholic. I know a bit about the French Revolution, too, and the whole question of the relationship of the authorities in the Church to the French (and American) Revolutions is a complex one. But there is an underlying principle that underlies the French Revolution, and is not entirely absent in America, of the primacy of the political process. Rousseau argues in The Social Contract that all religions should be tolerated, except those that admit an authority higher than that of the General Will. That would be the Catholic Church. The hostility of the Church to the French Revolution was founded in the insistence by the National Assembly that the Church function at the will of the Nation.
In America we have been so taught to revere democracy that we forget that while democracy is a very good system of government, it is not the ultimate source of moral or even scientific truth. Socrates (if Plato's portrayal of him is accurate) recognized this, and the people of Athens executed him because they accurately perceived that his ideas were a danger to democracy. Since the French Revolution, the State has become increasingly totalitarian, whether that power is exercised by representatives elected in competitive elections or by the leaders of a single ideological party. In America, it has been slower coming, but it is very much here.
Mais revenons à nos moutons (pour mieux dire à notre agneau perdu)--to believe Mr. Sullivan and others who make a similar argument, one might think that the Church suddenly decided to teach that homosexual activity was wrong sometime in the last 25 years. Hardly. If someone gave him that impression, they were doing him a disservice. And as for the devastation of the Church, I would contend that the devastation occurred under the watch of Paul VI, although how much of it was owing to his leadership I will leave to God to decide.
What Jesus Christ, through His Church, asks of Mr. Sullivan is the same thing He asks of me and of every other child whom He receives: that we die to ourselves, take up our Cross daily, and follow Him. It means putting Him first, ahead of our possessions, our comfort, our sexual urges, our desire for control. For me, and for Mr. Sullivan, it means that He is calling us to refrain from exercising our sexual appetites (even though the directions of the appetites are different, the call is still the same), and to repent when we fall. To be Catholic means to take that easy yoke and sweet burden. It means to make use of the means of grace provided to bear it. It is Christ Mr. Sullivan is spurning, and as a friend said to me just before my conversion some thirty years ago, "Turn your back on Jesus and you'll be refusing the best friend you could ever have."
Posted by: Henry Dieterich at Oct 14, 2003 8:10:49 PM
