#466: A Surprisingly “catholic” Encounter

  Catholic spirituality is much like a vast global forest. This is the story of just one tree.

I spent part of the 2016-2017 academic year leading a group of young participants through the RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults).  They were preparing to become Catholics, and my role was to familiarize them with the core elements of Catholic tradition.  One topic was the multiplicity of customs, beliefs, and practices that comprise the rich tapestry of Catholic spirituality. They were amazed to learn how Catholics through history have attached themselves to small practices that shape their faith life in hundreds of varied ways.

My recent trip to France with my wife Anne offered a perfect opportunity to explore one striking example of such practices: the blessing of throats on the feast of Saint Blaise (February 3).

During a day trip south of Paris, we drove to the small town of Milly-la-Forêt to visit a tiny chapel celebrated for its décor, painted by Jean Cocteau. 

We were not even sure the chapel would be open on a weekday afternoon, but as we approached the parking lot I noticed an older man walking away from the chapel carrying a ring of keys to his car.  We stopped and, as I walked toward him, I called out “Monsieur, would it be possible for us to visit the chapel?”

He began walking to us with an apologetic look on his face.  “I am very sorry,” he said.  “I am afraid that will be impossible. The chapel is undergoing renovations, and the technicians are just now at work inside while it is close to the public.”

Even before I could express my own disappointment, our local host Françoise spoke up: “But surely, Monsieur, you cannot refuse these two visitors, who have come all the way from the United States to visit this chapel!”

At this point the man got the first of several surprised looks on his face.  “You are visiting from America?” When we nodded, he went on. “You know, the Americans came through this very village during the Liberations on their way to Paris from the south.  And after the war I became friends with one of the GIs, because he married a local girl and took her back to live in Boston.”

When I quickly observed that we also live in Boston, the man’s face showed surprise a second time.  “No, really? I have always felt attached to the Americans because of Patton’s army coming through here.” I offered the further information that General Patton himself was a resident of the Boston area, and that there is a park named for him on the North Shore where to this day there sits a genuine Patton tank.

The man’s third surprised look was accompanied by a shrug.  “In that case, Madame is correct,” he said, nodding to Francoise. “I cannot refuse you your visit to the chapel.  Follow me.”

As it turned out, the chapel in question is in fact the chapel of Saint Blaise, who was Bishop of Sebastea (in historical Armenia, now modern Sivas, in Turkey) in the 4th century.  When I recalled my childhood experience of the blessing of the throats on the feast to Saint Blaise, the man shifted gears.  From that moment on he would not simply be opening the door to the chapel.  He would be providing a detailed guided tour of the chapel and the surrounding garden.

“Of course, that blessing was done with two candles on the throat,” he said, demonstrating with his fingers set into the shape.  “At the same time the following blessing is given: ‘May Almighty God at the intercession of St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, preserve you from infections of the throat and from all other afflictions.’ That’s because of the legend: Saint Blaise was supposed to have saved a choking child by touching his throat.”

We wondered why the name over the chapel was Saint Blaise des Simples. Our guide explained. “That’s because, in French, “simples” refers to medicinal herbs, plants that promote health.  And that explains the link between the saint and the chapel.  You see, due to his legend, he became a patron saint of good health, especially of healthy herbs--and this village of Milly-la-Forêt has, since the 10th century, enjoyed a wide reputation for the medicinal herbs grown here.  So the link between Saint Blaise and this place made a dedicated chapel a natural idea.”

It turns out that the garden around the chapel is still planted with such herbs, each in a separate plot well tended by the village’s committee of volunteers, of which this man is a leading member.  And each plot is marked with a small sign indicating what herb it contains.

Peppermint

The renovation was necessary to save the paintings that Cocteau was commissioned to make in the late 1950s as a way of providing symbolic imagery for the plain interior of this old stone chapel, which had been abandoned for some years.

Cocteau used simple bold strokes, herbal designs, and earth-tone and plant-tone colors to symbolize the veneration of Saint Blaise.

There is a small statue of the saint with a plant-like bishop’s staff in his hands,

and Cocteau’s own tomb is in the middle of the chapel floor with a simple inscription “Je reste avec vous”--I remain with you.  There is also a small framed photograph of the artist.

Outside the building, our guide took us from one plant to another, explaining what each might be used for.  And at the end of a tour that lasted nearly an hour (during which Anne took the photos featured here), he accompanied us back to the parking lot. Francoise suggested that we might get in touch with his friend after we returned to Boston. 

“Unfortunately,” he said, “I don’t have his contact information with me.” Francoise replied, “Why don’t you give me your e-mail address, and then we can pass that information on to our American friends.”

As he dictated his e-mail address to Francoise, and I watched her writing, I realized I was about to provoke yet another surprised look from our new friend.

“So you are Bernard?” I asked.

“Yes, my name is Bernard.”

“Well, I am also Bernard.”

“”Ah non!  It’s not possible!” his face suggested that we had presented one too many coincidences.  But he also looked very pleased.

After that Anne proposed a picture of Francoise standing with the two Bernards, and then we drove off as he waved his farewell.

The Two Bernards and Francoise (Anne Connaughton photos)

It struck me, as I reflect upon this visit, that a sort of instant bond between total strangers had sprung up simply due to two converging factors.  First, was the fact that a war had brought someone from my hometown to his hometown, thus creating a physical link that none of us knew in advance.  Second was the fact that, as Catholics, we strangers already shared--before we even talked about it--a tradition that included one particular spiritual practice, which had in turn given birth to this chapel and created a common interest among us. 

We call that war "World War II" precisely because it engaged people from such far reaches.  And we call the Church “catholic” because it aspires to be a universal community that embraces the entire human race across the globe. 

In the final analysis then, it is actually not so very strange that a 4th century bishop from what is now Turkey would inspire a modern artist’s work in a building in what is now central France, and then trigger a new friendship between a resident of the village and two visitors from across the sea. In that sense, it is not too surprising, after all, that someone who spent his life in a small French village, volunteering his time to attend a small herbal garden around an ancient stone chapel, would one day come across two visitors from 3000 miles away who shared his interest in honoring a saint who himself had lived long ago and far away.  It's a very catholic (and Catholic) thing.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2017

#436: Public Officials Cannot use Faith to Justify Violating their Oath of Office.

   The  public memory of most people is pretty short. Too often, if it happened before you were born, it's in the history books but not in your mind. Yesterday this public amnesia led to a crisis that never should have happened.
 
    Rowan County (Kentucky) Clerk Kim Davis was jailed after U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning found her in contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and for saying through her lawyers that she would not authorize any of her employees to issue licenses in her absence. 

    "My conscience will not allow it," Davis told Bunning. "God's moral law convicts me and conflicts with my duties."

    Of course, Davis is entitled to her beliefs--and many Catholics join her in believing that same-sex marriage is wrong (although, as I've often written, they may fail to distinguish the Sacrament of Matrimony from mere civil marriage). Same-sex marriage, though legal, remains controversial. But the conflict between faith and official duties should NOT be a matter of controversy these days, even if the likes of Ted Cruz claims that  “This is wrong. This is not America." He is a Presidential candidate, yet he too forgets the lesson of the 1960 Presidential election.

   Fifty-five years ago next week (September 12, 1960) John  F. Kennedy spoke before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers concerned that a Catholic President would impose his religious beliefs on the rest of the country. JFK took the opportunity to spell out his views on how public officials manage to balance faith and their duties. His explanation stands as the moral standard for all officials today:

    “I do not speak for my church on public matters,” Kennedy said, “and the church does not speak for me.” He said that he would always make his decisions “in accordance with what my conscience tells me." 

    Finally, Kennedy acknowledged the possibility of a circumstance where his Catholic conscience might conflict with his oath of office. “And if that time should ever come,” he said, “when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office.”

    Kim Davis, like JFK, was an elected official who had  to take an oath before assuming her office. She now says her faith "conflicts with my duties." I respect both her faith and her acknowledgment of such a conflict, which JFK also recognized.

   But JFK had it right: in case of such a conflict, if a public official cannot perform according to their oath, they must resign. We can accept that Ms. Davis cannot, in conscience, do what God forbids. But she also vowed to follow the law, and if she cannot, she also cannot claim that breaking her oath is God's will. She cannot violate her conscience--but neither can she violate her oath of office. Her moral duty, therefore, is to resign. 

    In America, public officials have a right to their personal faith, but they cannot hold the law hostage to that faith. They must follow the law, or relinquish their office.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#421: Would Jesus Send Them Back?

As tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors flood across our southern border, Americans face a growing moral challenge.  And this challenge touches on both our national character and on  Catholic identity itself. 

When Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick offered temporary shelter to 1000 immigrant youths, he unleashed a firestorm of protest in supposedly “liberal” Massachusetts.  Officials of the towns where Patrick proposed sending children for shelter said that their communities should not be burdened with the responsibility, explaining “we need to take care of our own.”

When Patrick compared the current crisis to the case in World War II, when a ship carrying Jewish families was refused entry to the United States (and those families mostly ended up in NAZI death camps), people howled that the comparison was inappropriate.  Letters to the editor argued that we should “send them back where they belong.” And on Saturday, July 26, thousands cheered a “Stop the Invasion” rally at the Massachusetts State House, chanting “Send them home!  Send them home!”

For many, it seems, these children are simply “illegals,” case closed.  As one rally speaker explained:

Our government sees no difference between law-abiding, freedom-loving, taxpaying citizens and lawbreaking aliens.

All this makes me fear that, as the ghost of nativism rears its ugly head, our national character might be recoiling from generations of social progress.

The fact is that hospitality to migrants in trouble is a longstanding tradition in this country.  I recall my third grade teacher announcing the arrival of Hungarian children in her hometown.  Refugees from the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, they came to the U.S., often unaccompanied, because it was not safe to stay home.

To an 8 year old like me, this announcement contained three life lessons.  First, the world beyond our borders was sometimes dangerous.  Second, our nation is seen to be--and was--a place of safe haven for “refugees” (which was a new word to me!).  Third, Americans by nature sacrifice for those who need our help.

Four decades later, my church work repeated these lessons, when some of my client parishes sponsored summer programs (offering housing, host families, recreation, and health care) for “Chernobyl Children.” These minors were fleeing the unsafe milk, crops, and spaces contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear explosion.  Despite presenting itself as a temporary relief program, “Chernobyl Children” naturally encouraged these young Russian guests to think of America as a desirable permanent home.

Catholic social teaching clearly calls for this kind of “open arms” embrace for refugees.  In fact, our tradition holds that people have a human right to migrate if their current location makes them threatened, endangered, oppressed, or destitute.

This certainly applies to at least some of the minors now flooding into the U.S..  And Catholic leaders are championing their cause. John Allen reports that Pope Francis himself sent a clear message to last week’s crisis summit in Mexico City:

Such a humanitarian emergency demands as the first urgent measure that these minors be protected and duly taken in. [They] cross the border under extreme conditions, in pursuit of a hope that in most cases turns out to be vain. (http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/08/02/immigration-takes-its-place-pro-life-issue-for-catholic-church-leaders/LwwqcL3WlOhyWqMdiWtgqL/story.html)

The pope’s message echoes the consistent position of U.S. bishops, especially those from the areas most affected by border crossings.

Bishop Eusebio L Elizondo of Seattle heads the U.S. Bishops Migration Committee.  In a July 17 letter to members of Congress, he spoke against Republican efforts to roll back the legal protections for migrating children, saying “this vulnerable group is fleeing violence from organized criminal networks.”

This claim was verified by Richard Jones of Catholic Relief Services, who said:

We have seen the homicide rates grow, forced displacement increase and Mexican and Colombian drug cartels battle over who controls the moves through Central America…In El Salvador and Honduras, there are more gang members than police.

David Fiske, president of Marygrove College (a Catholic school in Detroit), issued a statement calling the situation a “classic” refugee crisis typical of “war-torn regions in which unprotected civilians will take extreme measures to reach a safe haven.”

That safe haven is, of course, the United States--yet millions of Americans (including, I fear, American Catholics) reject this historical badge of humanitarian honor in favor of “you don’t belong here” and “send them back.”

How striking is the difference between this attitude and the way Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez spoke of such migrants at a July 20 Mass held to focus attention on the crisis:

We celebrate the immigrant spirit that gives life to our great country and our great city.  As we all know, this land was built by the blood and sacrifice and the vision of missionaries and immigrants from every race of language and every nation.  Today we give thanks for all those men and women who left the places where they were born--to bring their faith and values, their talents and gifts--to create a new life and the new world here in America.  We thank God also for the spirit of our new immigrants--those  joining us every day to be our neighbors and friends and family members.

In addition to praising the migrant spirit itself, Gomez used the occasion to spell out the link between immigration policy--especially the treatment of refugees--and Catholic identity itself:

Pope Francis is right, and in the face of this emergency, our first duty must be to protect these children.  My brothers and sisters, what we are doing for these children as a church--it’s not about politics.  We all know that.  It’s about who we are as Catholics… We don’t do it because we are “social workers” or “nice people.” We do it because we are being faithful to our identity and duty as Catholics.  We do it because Jesus calls us to do it.

As a Catholic, I’m proud of my tradition’s strong and clear message that protecting migrants’ human rights reflects true gospel values.  As an American, I am troubled and even ashamed that so many citizens cannot see beyond the red tape of customs regulations and our newfangled and arbitrary immigration quotas.

Once we acknowledge that migrants in need are exercising their human rights, any talk of them as “illegals” becomes nit-picking.  It is like jailing a poor man for fishing to feed his family, just because he could not afford a fishing license.  The law is there to serve people, and for our common good.  Laws that violate a human right are unjust.  And, as Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, unjust laws are not really laws at all--they are a form of violence.

For me, this begs two questions.

First, why are so many Americans afraid to embrace our longstanding tradition of humanitarian hospitality?  After all, any talk of who “belongs here” is just ignorant.  If “belongs here” means “was always here,” then nobody belongs here.  Even Native Americans migrated here from Asia, and that was long before Europeans and Africans migrated here, and that was long before Asians and South Americans migrated here.  Originally, all our ancestors “belonged” somewhere else--not here.

But millions of Americans continue to ignore this, or deny this, or just shut their eyes.  They prefer to believe that they have a “right” to be here while others do not--and they hide behind the law to avoid the truth.  What are they afraid of?

Second, I wonder about American Catholics.  Does ours faith impact our attitude?  Do U.S. Catholics know the Church’s position on migration and refugees?  Do we know what our traditional beliefs mean?  Do we know our own Catholic identity? 

Or are there millions of Catholics who, if they were asked “What would Jesus do?” would answer: “Jesus would send them home!”?

Pope Francis has called this response the “globalization of indifference,” and my worry is that too many Catholics believe such indifference is compatible with our faith.  I hope I am wrong.

  © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2013

#416: The Pope Leads—Will the Bishops Follow?

The U.S. Bishops are at a fork in the road—is it splitting them up?

A little more than one year since the election of Pope Francis, many things have changed--but perhaps too many things have stayed the same.

Two weekends ago I completed four sessions of a parish retreat on “The Francis Effect.” Many participants expressed the feeling that the experience filled them with hope, which made me appreciate just how powerful the new pope’s impact has been.  After a decade-long decline in the public image and reputation of the Catholic Church, Francis has accomplished a dramatic turnaround.  Little more than a year ago the Church’s public standing was the lowest it had been since before Vatican Council II (1962-1965).  Now its standing is at its highest point in nearly 50 years--that is, since the time of the Council itself.

Francis has accomplished this by calling for and initiating a change in church culture, but others must follow suit and lead at the national and local levels.  A change of the top will mean nothing if it does not “trickle down.”

Francis himself has been very clear about what this change requires if we are to create a truly missionary spirit in the Church (see CrossCurrents #408 and #409 in the archives).

But events of the last few weeks suggest that if Francis has brought us to a fork in the road, only some of the U.S. Bishops are going his way.  Three recent events suggest that while some bishops take Francis’ mandate to heart, others are struggling to grasp it or are even continuing on their own course.

Following Francis: John L. Allen Jr.’s recent Boston Globe piece detailed how Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley and 8 other bishops staged a three day visit to the U.S.-Mexican border to urge reform of the “broken” U.S. immigration system.

In this they are, of course, following the footsteps and priorities of Francis, by putting their focus on the poor and the social injustices of current public policy.

Calling O’Malley “the American Francis,” Allen asserts: “the Catholic push for immigrant rights already had its global ambassador in Francis, and now it has found a domestic face in O’Malley.”

O’Malley and his fellow bishops celebrated Mass (distributing Communion “to outstretched hands from the Mexican side of the border through slats in eight 20-foot-high security fence”), held a news conference on immigration reform, and visited and interviewed people on both sides of the border.

Allen sees in all this “the emergence of immigration reform as a top shelf Catholic concern”--but he also hints that O’Malley &Company are not typical of the U.S. hierarchy is a whole:

In terms of church politics, one could perhaps style the other prelates who made up the delegation as well-meaning social justice types who don’t really flex much muscle in the Church.  That’s why O’Malley’s presence was vital, because nobody would say that about him.

This invites the inference that, among other bishops who do “flex much muscle” in the Church, immigration reform may not have the same priority, and that this was reflected by their absence.  This echoes a quiet theme running beneath the surface ever since Francis was elected: while Francis immediately became admired and beloved by people everywhere, he may not have enjoyed the same kind of enthusiastic support from all his bishops

That surely seemed possible in the case of Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, who finally succumbed to popular pressure and announced he would leave his brand spanking new $2.2 million mansion after just three months, sell it, and donate the proceeds to charity.  He publicly apologized for the decision to move in but declined to take questions.

This case offers clear evidence that the people “get” Francis more easily than many of his bishops.  Gregory’s apology followed strong public pressure to give up the mansion from parishioners were well aware of the pope’s call to reject the “idolatry of money” and avoid “insidious worldliness” within the Church.  One such parishioner put the pope’s cause bluntly:

He [Gregory] is the person we follow locally, he sets the mood.  He sets the example for all of us to follow.  If he is choosing to use a gift so personally, what does that tell the people sitting in the pews?

Gregory himself acknowledged the impact of Francis by saying:

He’s called us to live more simply.  He also has encouraged Bishops to grow closer to their people, to listen to their people.

The key difference, of course, is that while laypeople got the message in the first week of Francis’ papacy, it took Gregory more than a year.

But even that is too quick for some bishops, it appears, for that same week in early April also included a story out of Ohio that sounded so 2012, so pre-Francis.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati, it seems, has added new contract language that spells out specific ways teachers in Archdiocesan schools could lose their jobs.  The list includes public support for positions contrary to the church teaching on issues like abortion, artificial insemination, and “homosexual lifestyles.” It also includes forbidden behaviors--such as unwed pregnancies.

It appears the new language is designed to protect the Diocese from wrongful termination lawsuits, and a diocesan spokesperson attempted to minimize its significance by saying that it merely “clarifies what is expected of all of our teachers.” This comes in the wake of several lawsuits that the Diocese lost in recent years.

On the one hand, it is understandable that the Church, functioning as an employer, would want to protect itself from liability.  On the other hand, it appears that no other U.S. diocese uses such language. 

Of course, the problem of exposure to wrongful termination only arises when employees are terminated.  So this begs the question: must someone who voices an opinion contrary to official teaching be terminated?  Must someone who becomes pregnant while unmarried be terminated?

My own impression is that the instinct to terminate in such instances represents the kind of judgmentalism that Francis has been preaching against.  Underlying such judgmentalism is the notion that church workers ought to be perfect in both their opinions and their behavior.  There are several problems of this outlook.

First, it is contrary to church teaching to require that anyone be, in practice, perfect.  Our common expectation, rather, is that we are all sinners, and therefore we must be prepared to forgive and accept one another.  Since the beginning of Christianity, the real standard it has been: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Second, some would argue that this is not about sin but about scandal: that teachers taking a controversial positions or caught in compromise behavior create a scandal that undermines church teaching and credibility.

Two points here: contemporary American culture is not so easily scandalized (e.g., unwed pregnancy has long since lost its stigma), and the institutional church risks inviting the label “hypocrisy” if it sets itself as the arbiter of scandal in the wake of the sex abuse crisis.  Simply put, the American hierarchy abdicated the moral high ground long ago.

Third, there is a long history of those taking issue with church officials being vindicated in the long run.

In the 13^th century, Etienne Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, issued condemnations of more than a dozen teachings by one of his professors at the University of Paris, which at that time was a church-owned school (thus the professor was a church employee). 

The professor in question?  Saint Thomas Aquinas, who in 1879 was declared the Church’s “official” theologian.  Bishop Tempier disappeared into the obscurity of history, while Aquinas achieved greatness. 

The lesson: conformity to official church positions does not guarantee of either greatness or sanctity, and opposition does not prove the opposite.  Imagine if the Diocese of Paris had acted to fire Thomas Aquinas for his positions!

The spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati tried to defend the new contract by saying:

The contract requires that if you’re going to represent the Catholic Church as a teacher, you’re not going to publicly oppose the teachings of the Catholic Church.

 Sounds perfectly logical. But that logic has not governed our history. Someone should get the man a good history of Catholicism--one that includes the 13^th century.

It remains to be seen if the U.S. hierarchy will wholeheartedly join Pope Francis as he sets a new course for the Church as a missionary presence in the world.  But those who choose their own path, and continue to present the institutional church as authoritarian, judgmental, and hypocritical, will end up being neither followers nor leaders.

  © Bernard  F. Swain PhD 2014

#415: Was Saint Patrick Catholic?

How the recent controversy in Boston disserves Catholic identity and the Church’s public image.

Back in the 1950s, Father Leonard Feeney made headlines by proclaiming loud and long that no one could go to heaven except members of the Roman Catholic Church.  For that he was excommunicated from membership in the Roman Catholic Church.

Years later Feeney and his followers were officially reconciled with the Church, but their take on Catholic life (ostensibly “hardline” but actually just weird) has not changed substantially.

And now the Feeneyites (officially, the “Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” out of the Saint Benedict Center in Harvard, Mass.) are back in the headlines.  The principal of their school, Brother Thomas Dalton, withdrew his student band from marching in Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade on the mere prospect that the kids would be marching down the same street as Mass Equality, a gay pride group.

Brother Thomas Dalton

Defending his position in a letter to the Boston Globe, Brother Thomas explained his opposition to associating with the gay marchers:

Jesus Christ once compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a wedding feast. When the king saw a guest not properly attired, he said to his servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (Matthew 22:13). All that over improper dress; what would he have done to a group parading unnatural lust?

To many readers, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, this talk of “unnatural lust” probably sounds like typical Catholic teaching: backward and mean-spirited and exclusionary.  In fact, Brother Thomas’ sentiments are backward, mean-spirited, and exclusionary--but they are not Catholic teaching.

Brother Thomas is, of course, entitled to his own opinion (as well as to his dubious misinterpretation of a Biblical parable), and he even has the authority to impose his opinion on his students. In fact, when the gay marchers were finally rejected, Brother Dalton reinstated his children in the parade and led them in applauding their “victory.” All under the guise of providing a “Catholic education.”

But Brother Thomas is not entitled to his own facts--and he is not entitled to speak for the Church, let alone speak falsely.  In a time when Pope Francis is finally at long last reversing the appallingly bad (and mostly deserved) PR the Catholic Church has received over the last 20 years, the last thing we need is some loud voice distorting our Catholic identity in public view.

But I fear that many Catholics secretly (or even openly) share this man’s views, or at least believe that these are the Church’s views.  So a little plain talk about the Church’s teachings on homosexuals is timely. Here they are, drawn from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and from statements by the Vatican and the US Bishops:

1.   Homosexual orientation is most often experienced as given and discovered, not chosen--and is not in itself morally wrong or sinful.

2.   Given the inherent dignity of every human person, the Church teaches that “homosexual persons, like everyone else, should not suffer from prejudice against their basic human rights.”

3.   Violence in speech or action against homosexuals “deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs.”

4.   “Every sign of discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

5.   Nothing in the Bible or Catholic teaching can be used to justify prejudicial or discriminatory attitudes and behaviors toward homosexual persons.

Note than none of this stopped Brother Thomas Dalton from using the Bible to imply that Catholic teaching DOES justify his discriminatory attitude.

Of course, Catholic moral teaching also finds no justification for homosexual acts. But the moral objections are essentially the same as the Church’s objections to masturbation, artificial contraception, pre-marital sex, adultery, coitus interruptus, oral and anal sex, etc.—namely, that only marital procreative sex is morally legitimate. Everything else—not just gay sex—violates natural law.

In other words, official Catholic morality opposes all those acts but not the people who perform them. Such opposition therefore provides no grounds for treating those people differently from anyone else--and that goes for homosexuals as well as for all the others!

Thus gays and lesbians have the same basic rights as all other human beings, and must be protected from discrimination like anyone else.  This principle holds even if we accept official church teaching on homosexuality as a “disordered” orientation.

In short, the Church sees active homosexuals as sinners.  But to be consistent, to avoid discrimination, one must treat them as we do any others whose behavior is called immoral.

Thus a true “hardline” would insist that the Saint Patrick’s Day parade exclude anyone who engages in masturbation, premarital sex, oral or anal sex, adultery, contraception, theft, lying, slander, cheating, etc—as well as any Catholics who deliberately ate meat the previous Friday (the second Friday in Lent). 

This would result, of course, in a very short parade,  made up mostly of marching Protestants.  Throw in the exclusion of those engaging in drunkenness and natural lust, and there would be precious few onlookers left to cheer the children marching (practically alone!) for Brother Thomas Dalton’s school.

So singling out gays is wrong, not because we are not entitled to disapprove of their behavior, but because we are not entitled to judge them while ignoring everyone else.

When Pope Francis famously said “Who am I to judge?” with reference to gays, he was thinking of two things.  First, Catholic tradition dictates that only one person can judge whether someone has sinned--namely, the sinner himself!  That’s why Catholics confess their sins, rather than being denounced for them.  Sin requires that one violate one’s conscience--and no one knows my conscience but me. 

Second, the pope had already described himself as “a sinner.” His point, of course, is that Catholics believe that sin is a universal phenomenon within the human family.  We all sin.  To judge that homosexual activity is sinful merely lumps gays in with the rest of us.  Far from justifying their exclusion, it confirms their inclusion in the company of sinners.

In this sense, the Saint Patrick’s Day parade is a parade of sinners, cheered on by thousands more sinners.  And it always has been. Who are we to judge that gays have no place among us?

Certainly, any such judgment cannot claim to represent true Catholicism.  And any event in honor of a Catholic saint is hardly enhanced by the proclamations of those who distort Catholicism and confuse the public. If we believe Saint Patrick was Catholic—and he was—then our celebration should reflect Catholic tradition, not distort it.

God willing, Brother Thomas Dalton’s band will someday learn about true Catholicism—but not, I fear, at his school.

  © Bernard  F. Swain PhD 2014