LITTLE ROCK (AR)
Bilgrimage
February 24, 2019
I have not read Frédéric Martel’s explosive new book In the Closet of the Vatican, about which there has been a flurry of commentary since it was officially released this past week as the Vatican meeting on sex abuse began. So I’m not able to comment on the book itself. I do intend to read it soon.
What I can comment on is some of the commentary I’ve read. There is, of course, much hand-wringing from predictable quarters that always mount reflexive defenses of the clerical club running the Catholic institution; there’s the defensive suggestion that Martel’s book is a gotcha gossip-fest that ought not to be taken seriously. There’s also the more substantive concern that it’s a nifty tool being handed to the hard homophobic right wing of the Catholic church to engage in further gay-bashing and blaming of gay priests for the abuse crisis.
Of the commentary I’ve read, analysis by a number of out gay Catholic thinkers seems to me most worth noting This book is an opportunity for the Catholic journalistic world to move beyond its usual refusal to listen seriously or give a place of respect to out gay (and lesbian and transgender and bisexual) Catholic voices and do some receptive listening — for a change — to such voices. What they have to tell us about Martel’s book may be among the most important things that are being said by the book’s readers.
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