On Nirvana and the Vatican

'Come as you are
as you were
as I want you to be.'

--Nirvana, ‘Come As You Are’

There has been much hubbub over the Vatican's now officially released statement on homosexuals and their fitness for the priesthood. The New York Times has done its best to drum up the culture war for the better part of a week. Andrew Sullivan is being his usual provocative, intelligent and moderately melodramatic self. One piece notable for both its intelligence and its lack of Doomsday tone was published by a leading Dominican in the British The Tablet.

In the interest of intellectual honesty, I should say up front that I disagree with not only this most-recent document, but with much of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. That being said, I don’t find the release of this document a cause for total despair. Perhaps this is because I am straight. I can certainly understand why homosexual Catholics would be personally cut to the core by this in ways I can only begin to imagine. I hope that the moderate response to the document from the head of the US hierarchy indicates that local bishops will continue to exercise more pastoral wisdom than the Roman Curia has shown.

It is widely reported that Pope Benedict is a man of broad reading and learning, highly cultured, exposed to the intellectual currents of the world while rooted in the Roman Catholic tradition. Given the depth and nuance of much of his writing, the Grillmaster sees no reason to doubt this conclusion. I just never would have guessed he would have the grace to incorporate Kurt Cobain into Church instruction.

'Come as you are' is a downright Biblical directive. So far, so good. As fallen, broken humans, we all have to come as we are into God's presence. The promise of Christ's death and resurrection is that our disorder need not doom us to sowing only more pain in the world. Priests, those successors of Jesus' disciples on Earth today, have an even higher standard of honesty and humility to accept. They, and those considering joining their ranks, must offer up all their sin and human failures to God if they are to join in His service.

To its credit, the Vatican has always, and continues to, recognize the central importance of coming to the process of discernment as we are. This is why it closes the latest directive with a stern reminder that it would be a grave sin for candidates to the priesthood to lie to their spiritual directors or confessors about their sexual orientation. Come as you are is an open, liberating invitation, but it also comes with responsibility.

Unfortunately, the Vatican's decision to ban those with 'deep seated homosexual orientations' may weaken this essential principle of 'Come as you are.' The most honest seminarians, struggling with their sexual orientation and their call to celibacy, will indeed come as they are into the confessional. And they will be promptly sent packing for their honesty. Those more willing to sugar-coat their sexuality will stand the best chance for making it through this newly established gauntlet.

'Come as you were' also comes into play here in a somewhat perplexing way. The new policy allows seminarians to enter the priesthood who have experienced homosexual desires, provided that three years has elapsed since their time of sexual confusion. If, in the process of reaching ‘affective maturity’ the seminarian has overcome his homosexual episodes, then come on in! So long as you don’t support ‘the gay culture,’ whatever that is. The Grillmaster regularly watches The Simpsons and laughs at the homoerotic antics of the barely closeted Mr. Smithers and the officially-outed Patty. The Grillmistress will rest more easily knowing that this may disqualify me from ordination.

The goal of ordaining only those who have reached affective maturity is noble, but the awkward presence of a three year time period ignores the practical reality that all seminarians going through formation must struggle mightily with their sexuality. Straight and gay alike must grapple with sexual desire, and offer that desire up to God in His service.

What cuts to the core of my problems with this document is the last, disturbing line of Cobain’s famous refrain: ‘Come as I want you to be.’ It appears to me that some in the Vatican are revealing their deep desire for a homosexual-free Church. They may talk of the dignity of the homosexual person, but they clearly see such persons as so disordered as to render even their most noble attempts to serve God as a priest hopeless. Their very homosexual identity ‘gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women,’ to use the Vatican’s words. The more I ponder the complete lack of charity in that sentence and the disregard for the lives of thousands of celibate homosexual, the more upset I get.

There is nothing that men and women, gay and straight can relate to MORE than priests who can discuss their struggles with celibacy and sexuality in a mature manner. It is important that seminaries stand as distinct from the pervasive, sexually objectifying environment of modern Western society. This directive is the last way to go about that. Gay priests present eloquent testimony to the need to honestly confront our sexual natures, and offer them up to God. If the Vatican is serious about maintaining the celibate priesthood, it could use all such mature advocates it can get.

Back on the Home Court

Even Brent Musburger can't ruin this. I'm sitting on the couch, wearing my pajamas, and watching real, live college basketball. I'm giving way to hoops sensory overload, with three games on simultaneously, and two more to follow. Meaningless pre-season tournaments? Of course. But the approach of winter is a lot easier to accept with the knowledge that Dicky V will be there to keep me company.

It's fitting that I'm presently watching Kentucky kick off its season. It was only because of one particularly rabid Kentucky fan (and his particularly hospitable wife) that I got to watch any college hoops at all last year in Belfast. Those evenings of improvised barbeques, midnight tipoffs, and indoor Nerf-ball H-O-R-S-E were the little tastes of home that made the year that much more enjoyable.

Those memories will always remind me of the rooting power of sports. The experience of a fan is so rich, so sensory, so vivid, and for so many of us tied to the families and friends that it can literally transport you across oceans, at least for a while. Kentucky basketball is just supposed to be played in late March. The Saints need to come back to New Orleans. Loyola and Calvert Hall have to play on Thanksgiving morning. All these things need to happen not because of the result of any silly game. No, they're important because they bring friends and families together, and for a little while can put the carefree smile of a 7 year old on the face of any grown adult.

On Thursday, I'll again make the Thanksgiving pilgrimage with 8000 of my closest friends to watch us beat the Hall in Ravens' Stadium. After having missed it last year, the chance to join that celebration is one of the many things for which I'll give thanks. That, and for the chances I had to stay up watching college hoops with Derek and Sherrill until Belfast sunrise.

On Strange Bedfellows and Their Limitations in the Sack

It’s beyond trite to say that there is a divide between the secular left and the religious right in this country. Hackneyed societal observation, surely unworthy of this august corner of cyberspace. Perhaps you could find something about it in the New York Times. What’s worse, it’s not even accurate.

It is becoming better understood that these supposedly polar opposite constituencies have partnered with significant success over the past decade to achieve mutually desired results, particularly in the international sphere. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom came into being in 1998 because of this seemingly strange alliance between evangelicals and human rights advocates. The International Trafficking of Women and Children Victim Protection Act of 2000 came into being because of cooperation between the Grillmaster’s old boss, Sen. Paul Wellstone and Christian Coalition favorite son, Sen. Sam Brownback, who on paper would seem to give Felix and Oscar a run for their money as ultimate Odd Couple. As the crisis in southern Sudan deepened at the turn of the millennium, involvement from evangelical leaders and secular human rights advocates played a crucial role in brokering a peace deal that has endured reasonably well in that part of the country.

Why bring this up? Well, it’s interesting in its own right, but additionally it may have an interesting domestic analogue in the not-so-distant future. While it is impossible to imagine the secular left and religious right partnering on abortion or gay marriage, one issue may soon provide some common ground domestically: the death penalty.

The left has long resisted the death penalty. While many mainstream politicians lack the courage to oppose it publicly, particularly in the wake of the beating Candidate Dukakis took on the issue in 1988, the activist base against the death penalty has been decidedly lefty (although not at all secular) in its groundings. As Pope John Paul II became clearer in his statements opposing the death penalty in the context of a modern, Western nation-state, Catholic activists in particular found strength and moral power in his words.

In contrast, the Christian Right has generally been the bulwark of death penalty support. Evangelicals have generally either mustered Old Testament arguments in favor of the death penalty, or New Testament arguments drawn from Paul that one should defer to the laws of the state. Conservative Catholics have been more divided, and tended in practical terms to focus their efforts on culture of life efforts that inspired more clear unity, namely around abortion and end of life issues.

It is this conservative Catholic voice that has been changing tone recently. First Things, the undeniably smart journal of conservative Christianity, put an anti-death penalty argument by editor Jodi Bottum as its lead article in August/September. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty in the last year. And just yesterday, at their 2005 Annual Meeting, the bishops approved the most clear-cut statement yet opposing the death penalty in all cases in this country, and calling openly on American Catholics to work to end this barbaric practice. It is titled A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death, and well worth reading. Groups like William Donohue’s ultra-conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights have yet to respond, but I’d expect them to in the coming days.

So a few questions emerge. First, can growing conservative Catholic discomfort with the death penalty pressure conservative evangelicals to rethink their defense of it? It was the evangelical movement that was particularly mobilized in each of the three instances of international cooperation I detailed at the start. Second, will conservative Catholics like Donohue actually put their weight into this push, or will they pay it lip service while focusing almost all their energy on that unholy trinity of abortion, gay marriage, and assisted suicide? And third, if the conservative base actually becomes mobilized around the issue, will conservatives and liberals be able to cooperate as they have on international issues?

Unfortunately, I think it unlikely that conservative evangelical leaders will be engaged by this project, no matter how hard Catholics may push. Why this pessimism? One word: Darfur. While evangelical leaders showed admirable engagement when brokering agreement around the conflict in Southern Sudan, they have done disappointingly little as the crisis has moved into the Western, and less Christian, part of the country. In my opinion this indicates that these evangelical leaders, like most political actors, are willing to cooperate when interests align directly, but are uninterested in having those interests challenged or altered by outside forces. For the sake of that always sought after culture of life, I hope I’m wrong.

L'Etat, C'est Quoi?

Comeuppance (n): 1. Getting what’s coming to you. 2. Cosmic karma balancing itself. 3. What Homer Simpson eventually got as Springfield's food critic. See ‘Riots in France.’

Mon Dieu, what’s been going on in France? It’s almost too easy for Americans (and I’m sure my British friends as well) to scoff at the riots that have gripped that country’s slums. After five years of Froggies carping at our wrong-headed war in Iraq, at the poverty and injustice revealed by Hurricane Katrina, and at British food, the other shoe seems to have finally dropped. It’s not that the French tend to be wrong about all these things; they can just be obnoxious and self-righteous about, well, everything.

They should have watched their Simpsons. Homer the food critic was just too smug, too self-righteous, too French, for his own good. He got his comeuppance, and got it good. This week it's been Old Jack Chirac's turn. I find it morally reptilian to feel good about riots in someone else’s country, but even as I lament the destruction, I can’t deny a sense of satisfaction that a major myth of the French state has been laid bare.

Over the last fifty years, the French national model has undergone a fundamental shift. The republican ideal, that all citizens share a civic national identity regardless of color, class, or creed, has morphed into a more traditional ethnic national model in which blood becomes thicker than la république. ‘Real French people’ [Read: Whites] simply do not regard the Arab and African populations of modern France as truly French. The rioters are overwhelmingly native born to French soil, but this matters little. Confined to slums away from the intellectual, commercial, historical, artistic, and even culinary centers of France, these populations have not been encouraged or even permitted to assimilate into mainstream French society.

This is a crucial difference between these riots and race riots in America. When African Americans riot, there are very real and very troubling reasons for their decisions. However, no one would doubt that it is Americans fighting and dying. From what I can tell, the same does not apply in France.

It is disappointing that the one leader in France who seems to understand this is also the one who has stuck his foot farthest into his mouth this past week. Nicolas Sarkozy, the highly ambitious Interior Minister, made a career of reaching out to French Muslim communities, attempting to draw religious leaders into the highly secular French mainstream, and promoting economic growth plans for the suburban slum areas.

So what did this apparently astute leader do in response to the riots? Well, the ambitious politician caved to public pressure, and referred to the rioters as ‘scum’ among other flattering terms of endearment. He may not be the one to reach out to the Muslim community in France, but his ideas are on the right track. For France to survive the massive influxes of immigrants from Arab and black Africa, it has to more actively engage those immigrants in mainstream society, and at least start to confront the elitism and sheer snobbery that seems to be in the water in Paris.

The riots also brush on various questions regarding religion and contemporary French society. While there is no doubt that the riots are not solely religious in nature, it is also undeniable that the vast majority of the rioters are Muslims. They riot because of poverty and discrimination, but they are discriminated against because of their identity, of which religion is a crucial marker. I can’t help but think that France, with its virulently secular public life, is uniquely unprepared to engage with these unsophisticated barbarians who still do things like believe in God. That’s so pre-revolutionary!