What has changed when it comes to gays and the church in the past 10 years? A decade ago Jeffrey John was forced to decline a position as Bishop of Reading after an outcry over the fact that he was gay. His declaration that he and his partner were celibate did little to lessen the hoo-ha. Celibacy was not enough. Yet now the Church of England has decided that celibacy is quite sufficient thank you.<\/p>\n
Over in the Roman Catholic church the tide is moving in the opposite direction. The Soho Masses for gays and their families which were approved by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O\u2019Connor have just been banned by his successor as Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols. In a move heavy with symbolism he has handed the Soho church in which they took place to the Ordinariate set up by Pope Benedict XVI to poach disaffected Anglicans, many of whom disapprove of the ordination of women let alone gays.<\/p>\n
It is not, in either case, the theology which has changed, but rather the psychology.<\/p>\n
Anglican opponents of celibate gay bishops seem motivated by distrust: \u201cthey may say they are celibate but can we believe them?\u201d The Roman Curia, which one conservative Catholic recently described as \u201cabsolutely paranoid about homosexuality\u201d, on the surface appears to assume bad faith too.<\/p>\n
Weasel words are common in politics but we should not expect them in theology. Roman Catholic apologists have talked about the dilemma of ministering to a group which feels separate without endorsing its members\u2019 separateness.\u00a0Gay Masses risk the growth of a ghetto mentality which is the opposite of Catholic universalism. So ending them is a welcome into the embrace of the whole church rather than an act alienation. Separate worship can only be justified as a transition, as for incoming ethnic groups, like Poles for example. Quite why this ghetto argument is not applied to the Latin Mass Society is unclear. Nor does it address the fact that the Soho Masses are held only fortnightly to allow attendees to worship at their parish Mass on the other two Sundays.
\nSo why these changes?\u00a0 It is hard not to suspect that Church of England bishops have acted out of embarrassment at the ridicule poured upon the Church when it rejected women bishops. The fact that the measure failed \u2013 despite a Yes from two out of three houses in the synod and 42 of 44 dioceses \u2013 looked to the rest of society like gerrymandering which has damaged the Church\u2019s integrity.<\/p>\n
Politics may also explain the Roman Catholic shift. \u00a0The English hierarchy has been under pressure from Rome which has also been unhappy with Archbishop Nichols\u2019 lukewarm welcome for the Ordinariate. That may explain why he has not yet been made a cardinal. Putting the Ordinariate into the very church used for gay Masses kills two birds with one stone.<\/p>\n
It is often supposed that both Roman Catholic and Anglican critics of homosexuality draw a distinction between homosexual acts, which they see as sinful, and \u201cthe homosexual condition or tendency\u201d which is not. But in fact Anglican opponents to celibate gay bishop seems to draw on the same ideological prejudice expressed by the present pope.<\/p>\n
As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he wrote a 1986 Letter to Bishops On The Pastoral Care Of Homosexual Persons<\/em>. It said that, while homosexual acts were \u201cintrinsically disordered\u201d and sinful, even homosexual inclination is a \u201ctendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder\u201d. What the reactionary elements in both churches really want, it seems pretty clear, is for gay men and women in the pews to be cowed, quiet and ashamed.<\/p>\n The Church Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What has changed when it comes to gays and the church in the past 10 years? A decade ago Jeffrey John was forced to decline a position as Bishop of Reading after an outcry over the fact that he was gay. His declaration that he and his partner were celibate did little to lessen the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23,41],"tags":[615,231,719],"class_list":["post-7020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican-communion","category-catholic-church","category-religion","tag-church","tag-homosexuality","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7020"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7202,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7020\/revisions\/7202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}