My parents did their best to raise me so that I would feel like I was just as smart and just as capable as any little boy. When I was in second grade, I came home and asked my mother if boys were smarter than girls, because I had noticed that the teacher would always call on the boys when we raised our hands. She put me in a girls school in response and I stayed there until the beginning of high-school, at which point I had a base of confidence and knowledge that allowed me to hold my own.
There were some gendered problems that she couldn’t solve so easily, however, and the main one was the several years that I went around telling people that I wanted to be a priest. I was an extremely devout Catholic, from a good Italian Catholic family. My grandmother wasn’t very fond of Vatican II, so we would cover our hair with little lace scarves and go to Latin Mass and even now I find the rhythms of Mass deeply comforting. I no longer believe in God, but I still go to Mass now and again, when I’m in a stressful time in my life and want some time to think. When my grandmother died, I got up at five thirty and drove an hour to find a Latin Mass, took Communion, and did ten rosaries – a sentimental gesture that I believe she couldn’t know about, but one that made me feel vastly better.
But then, in sixth through eighth grade, I felt like I had a vocation. I took Latin so I could read Jerome’s Bible and I read the whole thing through in English at least once. I loved (and love) theology and find Augustine again periodically, still delighted and enthralled. I wanted to be a priest – I wanted to love God and be part of something that millions have been a part of for over a thousand years. I wanted to have a youth ministry and help people; I wanted to be able to bless the Eucharist and offer that sacrifice up to God.
I don’t think my mother has ever forgiven the Church for forcing her to tell me that when she said that I could be anything I wanted when I grew up, she was lying.
And, I think for me, the knowledge that the Church didn’t want me was the beginning of the end. When I grew up a little more and realized I was a bit queer, that only was the nail on the coffin; the body was already inside.
I loved the Church, and it hurts me even now to put that in the past tense. The Catholic Church has a long and bloody history, but it has also done magnificent amounts of good. It has created beautiful art and music; it has provided many people with help and assistance. When I see the conflict between Father Jenkins and people like Bishop Finn, I see a conflict that has persisted in Catholicism from the very beginning.
A theologian named Marcus Borg (not a Catholic, but a brilliant man) discusses the story of Jesus from the perspective that it was a conflict between a religion of compassion and a religion of purity in Judaism. Is the purpose of religion more like the mystery cults of ancient Rome, all caught up in ritual and secrecy, or should it be more like liberation theology, focusing on what good God wants us to do in the world? The conflict in the Catholic Church about its place and its future is much the same. Should it hold to traditions over a thousand years old or should it change a little bit to better promote justice?
It certainly seems capable of changing to prevent justice. The Vatican released a document in 2005 saying that ordained priests cannot be homosexual, regardless of their chastity and the fact that the Bible never says the orientation is a sin. I have problems with the idea that any act of love can be a sin, but even if I am to accept that queer love is ungodly, it seems to me that the vow of chastity precludes the act from ever taking place, making men with a vocation who happen to be queer the same as any other men. The Vatican does not agree.
When the Cardinals chose Ratzinger to be the next pope, I was horrified. They picked one of the most conservative theologians in the Vatican, a rarified and terrifying honor, and made him the leader of the Church. The Church has grown and changed in its history, and yet our Pope Benedict seems to think that it should ignore the progress of the 20th and 21st centuries and return to dated views about what it means to be loved by God.
I don’t think progressive politics are antithetical to Catholicism and it frustrates me that the Vatican seems to. I don’t think God demands we tell millions of people with HIV in Africa that condoms are sinful. I don’t think that God wants women to have no control over their bodies. I don’t think that God wants queers to burn in Hell and it hurts me to see the Catholic Church echo the worst in fundamentalist Christianity and its insistence on hate.
Yet, even as I object to some of the doctrine of the Church, there are real avenues of possibility within its teachings. One of the things Pope Benedict has done that doesn’t infuriate me completely is his first letter, about the nature of human love. In it he admits that the Catholic Church has viewed sex and love too negatively, and says that we should acknowledge sex as a gift from God. There is also liberation theology, which teaches against poverty and works to change the lots of those suffering in the world. Now, Ratzinger is not a fan of this at all, but he mostly condemned its advocacy of political violence and he, in fact, praises the idea that Christians must help the poor and oppressed.
Many of the aims of progressive politics are completely compatible with Catholicism. Loving one another, helping the downtrodden, searching for justice, and maintaining equality – these are things that I think Jesus would have been fond of. When we argue about the Catholic Church’s position on female priests and abortion, we must remember that. We also must remember, I think, that ritual isn’t entirely bad; there is something beautiful about sitting in a small room and listening to the same worn words that people listened to three hundred years ago, recognizing the unity of humanity through time and space. There is something joyful in whole idea of the Eucharist, the idea of a figure sacrificing his very body and blood for the good of humanity.
Ritual can be good, Catholicism can be good, but I just wish that my mom never had to tell me I couldn’t be a priest, that other little girls with vocations can grow up and go to seminary, that boys who like other boys can grow up and take confession, and that the Church that I love (still, despite my best efforts) can get a little clue. I don’t believe in God, but if I did, I would be Catholic – and I wish the Church wanted me.