Cabals

Wouldn’t you think, in this age of synods, that cabals would be out of date? Wikipedia describes a cabal as “a group of people who are united in some close design, usually to promote their private views or interests in an ideology, a state, or another community, often by intrigue and usually unbeknownst to those who are outside their group. The use of this term usually carries negative connotations of political purpose, conspiracy and secrecy.”

We saw a little cabal in the USCCB last fall, when a small group established a committee to critique newly elected President Biden and suddenly presented it to the whole body. The same kind of thing happened last week in the Vatican. Members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) developed a document and waved it in front of Pope Francis. They had not followed the usual procedures of hearings and discussion. I’ve seen enough TV to understand entrapment; that’s what I hope this was. Could the Pope have said something like “I think this is premature”? He didn’t. He assented.

The subject was church blessings of LGBTQ unions, and it makes an interesting contrast with the way the German church is addressing the same issue. There, the Synod process is openly discussing sexuality. Everyone, lay people to bishops, is supposed to present their views and develop a consensus. As I keep saying, the Pope has great confidence in this process but can’t quite bring himself to accept the conclusions of all that democracy. 

I was tickled by Francis DeBernardo’s first statement because he used the perfect analogy: “The Vatican issued a dubium in 1995 that the ordination of women was not allowed and that no discussion of it could happen.  That strategy did not work, and the discussion of ordaining women in the Catholic Church is as alive as ever.” More alive, I’d say. And I would have been very happy if the critical response then had been as robust as the response to this document has been.

Of course we expect the LGBTQ community to rise up, and it has. Most useful has been New Ways Ministry’s wide circulation of their blessing ritual and other resources. Marianne Duddy-Burke of DignityUSA is quoted in The Washington Post and The New York Times. I want to highlight other LGBTQ people in the Catholic reform community who have spoken out, like Jamie Manson at Catholics for Choice and Russ Petrus at FutureChurch. Where would we be without their leadership?

In contrast to the public timidity following the statement on women’s ordination, high-ranking clergy also have been willing to respond. In Germany, of course. The bishops’ conference president, Bishop Georg Bätzing, said that shutting down the debate “is, however, impossible, as the issue is being intensively discussed with good arguments, and theological inquiries concerning today’s pastoral practice cannot simply be got rid of by laying down the law.” My sentiments exactly! 

But others as well. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich is a bit more circumspect: “This should prompt us in the Church… to redouble our efforts to be creative and resilient in finding ways to welcome and encourage all LGBTQ people in our family of faith.” La Croix International quotes Antwerp (Belgium) Bishop John Bonny: “I feel ashamed for my Church. I mainly feel intellectual and moral incomprehension” and Brisbane (Australia) Archbishop Mark Coleridge: “A Church that says we can’t ordain women is equally obliged to ask how we might include women in leadership…a Church which says we can’t bless same-sex unions is equally obliged to ask how we might include same-sex couples.” These bishops put the onus on the Vatican to be consistent and do something positive.

Low-ranking clergy, too, are critical in public, like Austrian Helmut Schuller, who toured the US as part of the Catholic Organizations for Renewal “Catholic Tipping Point Tour” in 2013. He was one of the founders of the Parish Priests Initiative, which now has 350 members and 3000 lay supporters, according to Reuters. Schuller’s activism got him demoted from monsignor by the Vatican, but he continues to speak out: 

We members of the Parish Priests Initiative are deeply appalled by the new Roman decree that seeks to prohibit the blessing of same-sex loving couples. This is a relapse into times that we had hoped to have overcome with Pope Francis. We will — in solidarity with so many — not reject any loving couple in the future who ask to celebrate God’s blessing, which they experience every day, also in a worship service.

That’s what it’s all about, the blessing of love in ordinary lives. The sterile language of the document about “sacramentals” does not do rituals of lived faith any justice at all. The “respect” it says should be accorded to LGBTQ persons is so out of touch with the reality of these families that it’s laughable. The hurt is not overcome by protestations that individuals can be blessed if they are not in sin. How dare they judge! I always get the idea from Francis that the sin he is referring to is his own as well as ours; there is none of that in this document. It does make me smile, however, that the photos accompanying these stories have the Pope and all the Vatican clerics in the pink vestments of Laetare Sunday; if it’s not to be purple, pink is really good! 

Go to the DignityUSA and New Ways Ministry websites for more responses from theologians and laity as well as clergy. The only good thing about this cabal is that it brings out the support and love of the greater community. The conclusion of a virtual synod is emerging: we bless everyone in this church!