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I invite you to share this information widely, and especially commend the section title "MCC Action Points" for your further actions and involvement. On behalf of Metropolitan Community Churches, I also express our deep appreciation to the Reverend Dr. Bob Goss and the Reverend Pat Bumgardner for their excellent ministry in the preparation of this material. In the release of this document, Metropolitan Community Churches again exercises our prophetic voice to the Universal Church, echoing the ancient demand of the Prophet Moses, "Let my people go," and the hope-filled admonition of Jesus Christ, "The truth shall set you free." Grace and peace, /signed/ For the last several decades, Roman Catholic bishops and major superiors of religious orders in the United States have dealt with sexual abuse of minors by moving clerical perpetrators around from one parish or school assignment to another. This was done with neither compassion nor concern for the abused children, or for the perpetrating priests themselves. Priests were not held accountable for their sexual abuse, nor were they compelled to seek psychological help. In the last ten years, the American media has aired hundreds of narratives of sexually abused victims of Catholic priests. The US courts have awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to the victims of priestly sexual abuse. Bishops are scurrying to divert their financial assets so that they may escape payment. Other dioceses are selling off successful churches to make settlement while Catholic parishioners are dismayed and horrified. The Vatican has repeatedly spoken of the offense of homosexuality to Christian values, and this has been rehearsed in the press by Catholic bishops and Vatican officials in public statements. In the Letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexuals (1986)—Benedict XVI coined the now infamous words – "intrinsically evil and objectively disordered" -- to describe homosexuals. Children of gay Catholic couples are denied the sacrament of baptism within the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church in the US and around the world opposes the efforts to recognize same-sex marriage and stabilize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) their families. The Roman Catholic bishops in Massachusetts are leading a petition drive to overturn same-sex marriage in that state, a move that only hurts LGBT families and their children. And the Spanish bishops, prompted by the Vatican, have vigorously protested Spain’s legalization of same-sex unions. How does the supposed "offense" of homosexuality to Christianity compare to a record that includes institutional Catholic lying, years of cover-ups of priestly sexual abuse, blaming the victims of sexual abuse, and now scapegoating homosexual priests? For years, the Roman Catholic Church has tried to implement sexual surveillance and regulation of erotic lives of the laity, and now that surveillance has been reversed with a focused attention on the Catholic priesthood. This has not only led to the uncovering of clerical sexual abuse and misconduct but exposed non-celibate priests and a gay priesthood. It has uncovered a homoeroticism with the Catholic priesthood within deeply interwoven culture of misogyny and homophobia. The exposure of such well-kept secrets has resulted in the loss of prestige for Catholic priests and the Catholic Church in the United States. These problems are compounded, first, by the Roman Catholic Church’s failure to take responsibility; and second, by re-victimizing the abused victims and shifting the blame to gay priests. The American Catholic bishops suffer from a trickled down notion of infallibility from the Vatican. How can they take moral responsibility for their criminal actions when they understand the institution is infallible? How can they apologize to victims and their families when they do not consider themselves at fault? Massive institutional blindness has only increased the problem of clerical sexual abuse in the United States. It has compounded the emotional burdens of the victims of sexual abuse and their families. Instead, the Vatican and American hierarchy’s actions were to preserve the secret that there were large numbers of homosexual priests in the Catholic priesthood. Let us be clear: The sin is not that there are homosexual priests – for the spiritual truth is that all homosexuals are created by God, and loved by God unconditionally. The sin is in the keeping of secrets and the denial of truth, which is a betrayal of the gospel values of compassion, justice, love, and service. Through this betrayal of gospel values and by hiding the truth, the Roman Catholic Church has paid the price of the trust of faithful devotion of Catholic laity who believed in the Catholic Church. If the Vatican really desires to understand the clerical sexual abuse crisis, it must start by investigating itself: the diocesan and religious bureaucracies, its personnel and management policies, and the circumstances that led to the Church’s horrific failure to protect children and the Church’s further victimization of sexual abuse victims and their families. We place the fault at poor personnel management, a reluctance to hold priests accountable, poor leadership of the American bishops, a failure to honor gospel values, the scapegoating of gay priests. This is our challenge to the Roman Catholic Church: Investigate your own offices, not the seminaries. Jesus pointed out, "How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye while the log is in your own eye, and then you will see clearly?" (Matthew 7:4-5) The problem is the Catholic hierarchical system and its misuse of power, not gay men attempting to answer God’s call to priestly ministry. New rules and instructions for prohibiting the inclusion of gay men in the priesthood have been in preparation over the past decade. They are the result of two contributing causes: 1) The escalating priestly sexual abuse scandals, multimillion-dollar legal judgments against Catholic dioceses, the selling off of prime church property to settle cases, and the sentencing of priests to prison. 2) The progress of gay and lesbian civil rights, increased invisibility of gay and lesbian families, and civil unions or same-sex marriage around the world. The Vatican has addressed the priestly sexual abuse scandal in the United States by approving a dramatic document, Instrumentum Laboris (An Instrument of Labor), that proposes to solve the priestly sexual abuse scandals in the United States by purging the seminaries of all "disloyal" priests and faculty, as well as all gay men preparing themselves for the priesthood. There has not been such massive purge in the Catholic Church since formation of the Inquisition in the twelfth century. This document and these procedures have long been desired by Benedict XVI, even while he was Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Defense of Doctrine and Faith (formerly, the Inquisition). Instrumentum Laboris outlines the procedures for Vatican appointed visitors to travel, inspect, and interrogate the faculty and students in over two hundred Catholic seminaries in the United States. What can we expect from these Vatican visitations to US seminaries? We can expect behaviors consistent with patterns of the last decades. From the last decades, under the influence of Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican has silenced theologians, removed moderate priests and nuns from pastoral ministries that serve homosexual Catholics, and issued harsh public documents condemning gays/lesbians, their unions, and their families. It has continuously taken punitive measures against moderate or compassionate care for gay/lesbian Catholics. We can expect little compassion in the process of visitation, interrogation, and expulsion. Public statements from cardinals and bishops in light of the sexual abuse scandal have claimed that homosexual orientation is a disordered attraction that can never image God but invalidates ordination, and can never contribute to the good of society. Such rhetoric has promoted a culture of intolerance, homo-hatred, and violence. The new Vatican document details a procedure for visitation where the faculty, administrators, spiritual directors and confessors, and seminaries will undergo intense scrutiny and interrogation. The process of visitation will weed out perceived moral and doctrinal laxity which the Vatican believes breeds homosexual subcultures. The document requires two questions answered by everyone in the seminary: 1) Do the seminarians or faculty members have concerns about the moral life of those living in the institution? 2) Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary? Both questions are followed in parentheses exactly as follows: "(This question must be answered.)" These questions indicate the core concern and focus of the document. Though the document focuses on orthodox theology, correct education, and doctrinal and moral conformity with the Vatican, it is mainly concerned with the issue of homosexuality. Cardinal Ratzinger has been obsessed with this issue for most of his career at the Vatican. It is the focus of the new document and the purpose of the process to cleanse the seminaries of homosexuals. Interestingly, the Vatican believes that doctrinal laxity, pluralistic theologies, moral ambiguities, and appeals to individual conscience contribute to homosexual subcultures within seminaries. Several presuppositions that form the foundation of this document are false. First, all social scientific studies of sexual abuse of minors have pointed that the majority of sexual abuses takes place within families and is most often perpertrated by a heterosexual male. Gay priests are no more liable to molest adolescents and children than heterosexual priests. It is convenient that Vatican and Catholic bishops blame gay priests for the sexual abuse. Second, the Vatican and American Catholic bishops too readily blur homosexuality with pedophilia. This is a rhetorical strategy also used by American Evangelical Christians. Third, an ecclesial culture filled with religious homophobia and misogyny ignores the clerical sexual abuse of young females. Why have the Catholic hierarchy and the American press ignored the abuse of young girls? Why are abused boys more important and valued than abused girls? Rampant misogyny and homophobia form the context for the above presuppositions, and they are certainly operative within Instrumentum Laboris. Homosexuality is scapegoated for the cause of the priest sexual abuse scandals and the consequences of legal suits forcing huge financial settlements, the closing down of successful parishes, and the selling of church property. This public scapegoating of gay priests diverts real attention from its institutional failures, blindness, and outdated prejudices. Most gay priests have honorably served the Catholic community and have never been sexual abusers. There have been distinguished college presidents, chaplains, pastors, educators, and authors who have been gay and have served the church honorably. The Vatican has adopted the rhetorical strategies from the evangelical American Christians that equate homosexuality with pedophilia. This is a rhetorical strategy to scapegoat gay priests, thus shifting attention from themselves to homosexual priests. What is "intrinsically evil" is the system that fails to take responsibility for its failures and shifts blame from itself to innocent gay priests. What is "objectively disordered" is its failure to assume institutional and spiritual responsibility for the sexual abuse scandal and for not protecting Catholic minors and families. Under the new guidelines, Vatican-appointed "visitors" will spend at least four days interrogating all the faculty and students at each seminary. Already there are many nervous and anxious seminarians, who have been encouraged to write ahead of time or urged to report evidence of homosexuality before the arrival of the visiting inquisitor. There is naturally a homosexual panic in US seminaries. How many closeted seminarians and faculty will sacrifice their fellow colleagues and fellow students to preserve themselves and their vocations by turning in others into the visitor with charges of homosexuality. The visitor is to accumulate data and evidence on homosexuality. The report will not be given to the seminary rector, nor to those directly impacted by the report. Several months later the Vatican will notify faculty, spiritual directors, administrators, and students that their teaching positions or studies for the priesthood have been terminated. This process is heartless, even cruel – and far removed from spiritual care and compassion. It will target men who were encouraged to be honest about their sexual orientation during their application process. Such admissions of sexual orientation in their dossiers will be used against them, and they will be expelled from the seminary for telling the truth about themselves. The Vatican will destroy the lives and vocations of those who readily admit to being gay and want to live a celibate life. It will force survivors and future seminarians to become accomplished, closeted liars and betrayers of fellow students to shift focus from themselves to others. It will ultimately hurt the Catholic community, already impacted by the decline in numbers and quality of priests. It will create a more elaborate and closeted system of lies, sexual deceptions, and secretive behaviors. Finally, this inquisitional purge fails to help Catholic seminarians and priests develop a healthy integration of sexuality and spirituality, and will hurt the Catholic Church for decades to come. The Roman Catholic Church is establishing an officially-sanctioned system of fear, repression, and secrets that will not address the underlying causes of priestly abuse – because these are the very elements that are at the root of such abuse. The greatest horror is this: Rather than address the causes of priestly abuse, such a system is likely to contribute to yet another cycle of abuse. There are many good gay priests now serving the Catholic Church. Some historically have been canonized as saints, models of sanctity and exemplars for Catholic youth. For example, Father Mychal Judge, a gay Franciscan priest, gave his life while administering the last rites for dying people and firemen in the burning ruins of the World Trade Center on September 11. He truly exemplified the best of Catholic priesthood. Now the Vatican wants to prevent the future "Mychal Judges" from serving as priests. The Vatican is willing to squander thousands of vocations to the priesthood to protect its squandering of truth. This is not consistent with the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. At this writing, there has been a backlash from some US Catholic religious superiors to Instrumentum Laboris. They maintain that there are qualified gay men for the priesthood who maintain their vow of chastity. The Vatican has leaked reports that men attracted to homosexual culture, even intellectually, will not be admitted to seminaries. It will require any men with "homosexual tendencies" not be admitted into the seminaries and priesthood unless they can demonstrate their chastity for at least three years. This is more than logically flawed; it is also silly. How will a seminary candidate prove their chastity over a three year period? And why are not heterosexuals required to do the same? Under this system, a gay person will be excluded because of any connection with homosexual culture via the Internet, movies, TV programs such as Will and Grace, parades, art exhibits, or university classes or seminars that portray homosexuality in a positive light. The Issue is Not Homosexuality, but Abuse of Power The issue of the Roman Catholic Church is not homosexuality but a misuse of power based on a narrow view of human sexuality and gender inequality. Homophobia arises from misogyny. The denial of gay men to the priesthood is intrinsically woven with the denial of women to ordination as priests. When a church predicates male clerical and ecclesial power on the exclusion of women from ordained ministry, it is an abuse of power. Women have been excluded from ordained ministry since the emergence of orthodoxy in the third century C.E. Christian historian Karen Torjessen has demonstrated the existence of women deacons, priests, and bishops in early Christianity. For misogynistic reasons, a male clergy excluded women from ministry and gained spiritual power over women and married men. The issue is misuse of ecclesial power. It is manifested with predatory priests who abuse their office and prestige to gain access and power over both male and female adolescents. There is an asymmetrical power relationship of the priest over the abused victim. Clerical sexual abuse of minors is a misuse of power. It is using priestly office, status, and power over adolescents to get them to have sex and to keep the abuse secret. Catholic teenagers are educated through families and church to respect the authority of priests, for Catholics understand that the priest represents Christ. Catholic teenagers become easy targets for sexual predatory priests who use their power to have sex with minors and enforce secrecy with their victims. . But where do priests learn how to exercise power? They learn it from ecclesial culture where bishops and religious superiors dominate and model the use of power. Bishops regulate, control, and enforce silence, lying, secretiveness of priests in preparation for ordination. They learn from bishops and religious superiors who have maintained survival strategies to preserve their power and protect their office and the institutional church at all costs. Disregard for the truth, failure to protect Catholic families and children, failure to hold priests accountable are sacrificed for institutional power. If Catholic bishops model a misuse of power, then there are few positive models for priests to base their use of clerical power. MCC: A Sister Church of Compassionate Support Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) is a church of exiles. As many as 40% of MCC members are from a Catholic background and continue to maintain their Catholic spiritual heritage. There are former Catholic priests and seminarians active in ministry in MCC. MCC’s Moderator, the Reverend Nancy L. Wilson, is a graduate of a Catholic seminary. Therefore, we share our concern for our Catholic brothers and sisters. We have chosen a path of exile, but it is a faithful path that allows for the healthy integration of our God-given sexuality and our spirituality. It enables us to speak about the necessary and difficult work ahead that our Catholic brothers and sisters must do to engage in healthy ministry to God’s people. We are with you in prayer and compassionate support. Our Church witnesses the failure of the Christian churches to understand that human sexuality is a blessing from God, not a curse or an original sin. It understands Jesus’ gospel of inclusion that all people, including those with different sexual orientations and variasnt gender identities, are made in the image of God. We believe that Jesus called -- and calls -- men and women to a discipleship of equals, calling men and women equally to ordained ministry. We do not deny children or exclude people from the sacraments, for we believe in the inclusive grace of God made visible in Jesus’ table ministry. We do not harm families and children, but bless them. We do not exclude anyone from God’s table and grace. MCC condemns sexual abuse of minors. Sex with children is wrong, whether by homosexual or heterosexual adults. MCC opposes all non-consensual, coercive, and predatory forms of sexuality. Our clergy sign an oath not to commit sexual misconduct. Our clergy and denomination take the oath seriously. The denomination licenses its clergy each year and hold clergy accountable. MCC understands that human sexuality is a gift from God. MCC’s Moderator, The Reverend Nancy L. Wilson, has paraphrased Jesus’ Sabbath saying: "Sexuality was made for humanity, not humanity for sexuality." Sexuality is connected to the original blessing of creation and to the Sabbath celebration remembrance of creation. She writes: "Sexuality is about being made in the image of God, who is Creator, and who is still creating. Insofar as we are in touch with our sexuality, we are connected to our passions, to our love for life, to joy, pleasure, and to the work of creation. The gift of sexuality is the gift of the means of creative relationship, of a God, who loves joy, fun, and pleasure." Many Christians within and through Metropolitan Community Churches have realized their procreative potentialities of love-making and have extended their love to participate in foster care, to adopt children, and to have children through many different means. Our families are intentional in their loving commitments to have children and to raise them as healthy Christian children. We judge our sexuality by the fruits they bear: working for a more just society, creating loving families, peace-making, and caring for the least among us. MCC has no interest in policing sexual lives and regulating gender identities, our focus is to assist clergy and congregations to integrate their sexuality and spirituality in healthy ways and to realize our holy identity as imaging God. We are committed to the formation of our clergy to be best the representatives of Christ, whether in congregations or various chaplaincies and ministries. MCC has the highest percentage (over 50%) of woman clergy of any Christian denomination. We have women elders and a woman moderator. In many ways, MCC is what the Roman Catholic Church can and ought to be: A Church where men and women are equally called to be disciples and priests and where no one is denied access to the table. At MCC's 2005 international General Conference, we affirmed our purpose in the World:
In solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Church, and to further religious equality, MCC issues the following action points. * We call upon Benedict XVI to exercise restraint and compassion in the implementation of Instrumentum Laboris. If you really want to understand the priest sexual abuse crisis, start by investigating the diocesan and religious bureaucracies, the personnel and management policies, and the circumstances that led to the Church’s failure to protect children and the further victimization of sexual abuse victims and their families. We call upon you to exercise the servant leadership that was modeled on the ministry of Jesus. Take the lead, apologize to the victims of clerical sexual abuse, and make restitution. Do not implement this purge of gay men from seminaries and from the priesthood. *We invite Catholic bishops to hold up models of gay priests like Father Mychal Judge to the Catholic community. There are many good gay priests serving the Catholic community, *We ask Catholic bishops, priests, and laity to speak the truth. Take responsibility for institutional failures of clerical sexual abuse. Stop scapegoating gay priests for pedophilia. Homosexuality does not equate to pedophilia. This is not supported by social scientific studies and statistics. * We encourage all gay and bisexual Catholic priests and seminarians to stand up for their gospel principles, to follow Christ to the foot of Golgotha, and courageously come out in numbers. It is time for a Catholic Stonewall under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to resist the Vatican culture of violence, lies, closetedness, and lack of accountability. * We invite all Catholics and all people of good faith to resist the implementation of Instrumentum Laboris and to provide spiritual and moral support for those priests and seminarians who courageously come out. Stop financial support of an institution that purges its seminaries of gay men, squandering their vocation. Give your monies directly to charities for the poor. * We invite all people of goodwill to pray for the Roman Catholic hierarchy that they may "be compassionate as your God is compassionate." Boisvert, Donald L, Sanctity and Desire: (Cleveland, The Pilgrim Press, 2004) Boisvert, Donald L., & Goss, Robert E. (ed), Gay Catholic Priests and Clerical Sexual Misconduct: Breaking the Silence, (Ithaca, Harrington Press, 2005) Cozzens, Donald, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, (Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2000) Fortune, Marie, Love Does No Harm, (New York, Continuum, 1998) Jordan, Mark D. The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology, (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1997) Jordan, Mark D., The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000) Jordan, Mark. D., Telling Truths in Church: Scandal, Flesh, and Christian Speech, (Boston, Beacon Press, 2003) Sipe, Richard, Sex, Priests, and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis, (New York, Brunner/Mazel, 1995) Sipe, Richard, Celibacy in Crisis: A Secret World Revisited, (New York, Bruner-Routledge, 2003) Stevenson, Michael, "Understanding Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gay Priests are Not the Problem," Angles, 6(2) 2002, www.iglss.org Torjesen, Karen, When Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination, (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995) Wills, Gary, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, (New York, Random House, 2000)
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