December 7, 2005
A Catholic Prophecy
By Maggie
Gallagher
The Catholic Church
just reiterated its long-standing, if mostly ignored, prohibition
on ordaining gay men. How are we to react?
In "Four Cultures
of the West," John W. O'Malley argues that Western civilization
consists of four distinct styles of thought. From Athens come
academic culture, which seeks the rational truth; humanistic culture
(stories and rhetoric), which is oriented toward the good; and
artistic culture (painting, sculpture, liturgy), which enacts
rather than speaks.
But out of Jerusalem
comes the fourth cultural style, the prophetic mode: "This
is the culture that must speak out. It is the culture of alienation,
of protest, of standing apart because one can do no other. Here
gather the Puritans and the Jansenists and all those given to
crusades. Fundamentalists both religious and secular are comfortable
here. This is the culture of the martyr (and the fanatic). It
is the culture, above all, of the reformer decrying injustice
and corruption in high places."
But the prophet does
more than denounce, he also holds out "promise of better
times to come: 'For behold, darkness shall cover the earth. ...
but the Lord will arise upon you and his glory will be seen upon
you.' It is therefore the culture of great expectations."
The great gay apologist
Andrew Sullivan likes to imagine himself a humanist or intellectual
(especially liking to contrast himself thus with the virtually
demonic forces of fundamentalism he fearlessly and constantly
battles), but the slightest acquaintance with his actual writing
makes it clear: Andrew Sullivan is a prophet, one of the great
and successful prophets of our time. It is only a slight exaggeration
to say that one man with his pen changed the way we think about,
talk about and interact with our fellow citizens who are gay.
The blog is mightier than the sword.
So it is painful to
me, as a fellow Catholic, to watch Andrew's dawning, flailing,
angry recognition that the Catholic Church is never going to follow
his lead. Andrew decided long ago that homosexuality was as normal
and desirable as opposite-sex desire, and that therefore, gay
marriage was morally required.
The Catholic view,
as I understand it (and I am only a fair average Catholic, certainly
neither a theologian nor a prophet), goes something like this:
God made men and women for each other. Sexual desire has only
one good end: It is meant to turn men and women toward each other
in a permanent, loving, fruitful union called marriage. In the
faithful sexual union of husband and wife, we mirror (and thus
can glimpse) the image of God.
But what difference
can the orientation of his lusts possibly make to a celibate priest
anyway? There are many possible answers. One is that, in Catholic
terms, a gay man is not really giving up anything sexual to become
a priest. Yes, Catholic priests are not supposed to have sex with
men, but then neither are Catholic laymen. It must be harder,
at a minimum, to discern a true vocation to celibacy if a wife
is not something you personally find attractive. (Hence, the longstanding
similar rule against ordaining eunuchs.)
For Andrew,
this makes Pope Benedict the personification of the dark forces,
a virtual anti-Christ. "And so another window closes. Eventually
the darkness will be perfect," he thunders.
The prophetic mode
has many virtues, but one reason it tends to fizzle out, in spite
of all the good prophets do, after bursts of indispensable reforming
energy, is that it is awfully hard to live like that for any length
of time.
Gay people have won
in fact the right to be treated as friends, neighbors, fellow
citizens in the public square, even if we disagree about sexual
ethics or on particular issues such as gay marriage. For the foreseeable
future, the challenge is going to be to find new ways to live
respectfully together in spite of our ongoing deep disagreements
about the nature, meaning and purpose of sexual desire.
In this new environment,
let me make a prediction: Americans (rightly or wrongly) are going
to find thundering prophetic denunciations increasingly unhelpful
and unattractive. On either side.
Copyright
2005 Maggie Gallagher
