The Conclave, the Cardinal, the Chateau … and Homosexuality

By Stephen Hough
The Telegraph
March 12, 2013

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/stephenhough/100068384/the-conclave-the-cardinal-the-chateau-and-homosexuality/




'The Church is perfect, the spotless Bride of Christ; it is individual members who sin', so traditional Catholic theology would tell us. From this viewpoint arises the imperative to protect the Church at all costs, and from this attitude has arisen so much of the scandal in recent years: bishops doing all they could to safeguard the reputation of the Church whilst leaving vulnerable children in danger. When Vatican II used the phrase 'The People of God' in the document Lumen Gentium in 1964  – suggesting a community before a structure, a living vineyard before the chateau which gave it its name – it marked an important sea change. People need protection not an institution, even one considered to be of divine origin. And all of this becomes painfully clear when it comes to child abuse: nothing should come before the welfare of the vulnerable individual. But vulnerability is not limited to such an extreme situation.

I wrote a post recently on this blog about 'The O'Brien Moment', suggesting that this moment of disgrace and embarrassment for Cardinal Keith O'Brien has the potential for great power. The Cardinal was once a defenceless child, growing up in a Church and a society which regarded homosexuality as sinful at best and criminal at worst. I can't judge if the Cardinal is actually gay but there have obviously been times in his life when he was flooded with powerful same-sex attractions. The deeply imbedded reflex for human beings to find other human beings sexually attractive is the same for all, whether straight or gay; and such attraction is not unrelated to the desire to give and receive love and protection from another. Used well it is one of the noblest things we can experience. A sordid fumble in the dark is not evil as such (as long as it's between two consenting adults) but is rather a misplaced reflex of a deep-seated desire to give and receive affection – a branch that needs training not pruning.

Catholics of Cardinal O'Brien's generation were taught (if the issue ever arose) that same-sex attraction was something not to be spoken of, and to act on it in any way in thought, word or deed was gravely sinful deserving eternal punishment. It was said that there were no venial sins with the sixth Commandment, all were mortal. For a gay person growing up at that time any desire to give and receive physical love and affection was to be permanently snuffed out, burned away like the first trace of cancer. Saints and spiritual directors advocated scourging oneself, wearing spiked chains or other forms of physical mortification to stamp out such disordered desires. This was not an exception but part of the rule of most religious orders until the 1960s. It's no wonder that if a serious Catholic discovered homosexual desires in himself that the celibate priesthood was the safest path – a way to avoid both the sin and any awkward questions about his unchanging bachelorhood. It's a path I nearly took myself.

This is not the place for a detailed theological examination, but a few points should be made. In the Old Testament sex between two men was an 'abomination' listed always alongside transgressions against the Holiness or Purity Code, most of which are irrelevant today (animal sacrifices, menstruating women, wearing of mixed cloth garments) and no longer observed even by observant Jews. Interestingly Sodom is mentioned in the Gospels but in reference to a lack of hospitality, and thus a Christian has to read the infamous Old Testament story in this context too. The only other places in the New Testament where we read something about homosexuality are in Paul's letters to the Romans and the Corinthians but not only did he have no modern concept of same-sex attraction but he was condemning a situation where orgies and pagan sacrifices were all part of the package.

At the beginning of this post I suggested that we remember that the Church is 'people' before 'structure', but it is the Church as 'structure' which is chiefly responsible for the agonizing, paralyzing attack on the affective lives of its gay members. Every Pope begins life in a state of vulnerability in a cradle, wrapped in swaddling cloths. He learns the attitudes which shape him long before he enforces the attitudes that shape us. Celibacy can be something noble when chosen freely and chosen in a form free from fear, but it can be toxic if enforced or if it becomes a badge of elitism. It's pretty certain that Christ remained unmarried (Dan Brown notwithstanding) but it would not matter one jot if we were to discover some day that he did have a wife. There is nothing intrinsically more holy or venerable in choosing celibacy over marriage and the sooner we cease burning incense before a eunuch's altar the better, for married and unmarried alike. It is an issue which the next Pope will be unable to avoid addressing.

Cardinal O'Brien began his life as a vulnerable child, perhaps with same-sex attraction from an early age. He now ends his life in vulnerable, disgraced retirement. From the Catholic side he has been dismissed as an embarrassment and worse, and from the secular side he has been dismissed as a hypocrite and worse. This story may have further complications as yet unrevealed (and any unwanted sexual advances are unacceptable, inside or outside of the Church) but I think, from the information we have so far, that both judgements are wrong. A hypocrite is someone who doesn't believe what he preaches, someone who makes no effort to match words with behaviour. I don't think this applies to Cardinal O'Brien at all. It seems to me that he probably accepts the Church's teaching on homosexuality, has been strong in defending it, but weak in putting it into practice. I'm much more bothered by the Church's recurring attempts to brush its scandals under the carpet, and in this case to push the Cardinal out to grass in as remote a field as possible. If he were able to come clean, to be completely open and honest, I think he could still have ahead of him his most fruitful years as a wounded healer, someone whose fragility would be an encouragement to so many of us who face discrepancies in our own lives between ideals and achievements. In short, a human being.

I think that a repentant Cardinal Keith O'Brien should be in Rome with the cardinals this week, welcomed and loved and treasured, an example of all that makes Christianity relevant twenty centuries after Christ. Christianity has at its heart a cherishable 'scandal': sins can be forgiven. It goes against the grain of our human sense of justice and fairness that God could not only forgive but might actually erase our past failures. We want vengeance; God wants healing. The Gospels contain many shocking parables on this theme. Someone touched by forgiveness is someone touched by the Divine. He or she is an icon of infinitely greater value than any painted Madonna. The chateau may be crumbling and in need of repair but there are grapes on the vine which, when crushed, can turn into wine of life-giving celebration.