Provincial defends gay priests
The New York Jesuit provincial has registered vigorous semipublic protest against banning gays from the priesthood, calling it “insulting to demean [the] memory and . . . years of service [of gay Jesuit priests] by even hinting that they were unfit for priesthood because of their sexual orientation.” Rev. Gerald Chojnacki did so in a letter 9/26/05 to Jesuits of his province, one of whom gave it to AP.
Meanwhile, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, head of Catholic military chaplaincy services, who is coordinating investigative visits to U.S. seminaries for the Vatican, cited “ambiguity . . . about the Church's teaching with regard to homosexuality and even whether some homosexual activity could be compatible with celibacy'' as reason for including homosexuality among matters to be investigated.
Fr. Chojnacki mentioned participating in “several” gay Jesuit funerals “over the last few years” and not wanting to “demean their memory.”
Seminarians charged
Two St. Mary of the Lake-Mundelein seminarians, the driver and the owner of the car that crashed Sept. 15, killing two other seminarians, were indicted Wednesday Oct. 19 on multiple felony charges, reports Kansas City Star, home newspaper of the two who died. They are
Robert Spaulding, 27, of Evansville, Wyo., on two counts of reckless homicide and eight counts of aggravated driving under the influence
and
Mark Rowlands, 36, of Columbus, Ohio, charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, false impression of a police officer and aggravated false impersonation of a police officer. He is accused of verbally representing himself as a member of a sheriff’s department in Ohio and possessing a weapon while doing so.
In the Chicago area, the Daily Herald had it Oct. 20, offering details based on interviewing a Mundelein police sergeant: the driver’s alcohol count was .13%, he was going 50 m.p.h., he missed a curve, hitting three trees.
So did Chi Trib have it Oct. 20, contrary to my earlier reporting — somehow my search of the Trib’s site did not turn anything up — adding importantly
If convicted, Spaulding could [would!] face up to 28 years in prison, [asst. state’s atty. Suzanne] Willett said. Rowlands [w]ould face up to 5 years in prison, Willett said.
Spaulding is free on $100,000 bond and Rowlands was released on $50,000 bond.
Rowlands’s trying to pass himself off as a cop makes him look very bad, I’d say.
FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD
Readers may profit from Sun-Times’s 10/6/05 story about the kickoff exhibit at Loyola U’s new museum featuring an all-but-outed gay Italian artist who portrayed his male subjects as looking provocatively at the viewer. What’s to complain about some brief, lucid art history? Whether Loyola profits from it is another story, in view of comments (italics added) by its president and the museum’s cultural affairs director that take acceptance of homosexuality to a new level.
"[T]he more human the better," says the president, Rev. Michael Garanzini, S.J., about the painter Caravaggio’s homosexuality. "There's nothing more Catholic than the concept of the sinner/saint. Most of [his] works were sponsored by the church, and it would be foolish to believe that the church knew nothing about Caravaggio's crimes or relationships. I believe Caravaggio embodies the faith, warts and all. I see no reason to shy away from that." [Some would see a lot of reasons to do so.]
The writer, Misha Davenport, calls this approach a "head-on engagement" with the issue, noting that the museum also showed gay director Derek Jarman's homoerotic 1986 film "Caravaggio" earlier in the week to promote and expand on the exhibit. [Hey guys, here’s one you’ll like.]
The exhibit "plays to the university's base" in terms of its subject matter, Garanzini told her. The museum’s approach is "more broad-based than just Christian art. We're . . . interested in looking at how artists express the enduring questions of life we all ask -- regardless of our own personal religious beliefs." [Ah, those personal beliefs.]
The cultural affairs director, Pamela E. Ambrose, says Caravaggio "secularized religious art and narrative" but was a "deeply spiritual being in his own right. Faith is, after all, very diverse." [Hey, if it’s not diverse these days, what good is it?]
He has "earthy views of spirituality," for instance, writes Davenport, paraphrasing Ambrose, and "status as a rebel who did things his way." [Which is how Milton depicted Satan, I do believe. Anyhow, tell it to Sinatra.]
All in all, this gay blade Caravaggio is "the type of guy we all want to be. He said whatever he wanted to say, painted whatever he wanted to paint and did whatever he wanted to do . . . " says Ambrose, leading more or less loyal alumni to wonder where Loyola got her.
All in all, this exhibit-cum-presidential-etc.-commentary has gay activists high-fiving each other throughout Chicagoland. Which may be what Loyola has in mind. It has its base to consider, of course.
(2005-10-10)
10-20-05 11:23 am -- Rev. G. responded by U.S. Mail, accusing me of dishonesty for taking his quote out of context, moreover of "fascination with Caravaggio's alleged homosexuality [as] something that points to a personal issue or problem." I asked if he had complained to the Sun-Times about skewed context, etc. His complaint was with them, I said, not with this reader.
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EASTER MASS IN BROOKLYN
Easter mass last spring at Queen of All Saints church, Brooklyn, NY, did not begin with a "good morning" from the celebrant, Msgr. John J. Brown, but with "the Lord be with you," which was a good sign. An accurate one too, as it turned out.
The mass, 10:15, for a full house, was on the mark liturgically, and lively to boot, but never frivolous. The people, a racially mixed crowd with slight preponderance of blacks, had a quite serious demeanor as they filed for communion, for instance. Of course, what really told me I was in New York was hearing "one God forevah and evah" from Msgr. Brown, the church's pastor who doubles as personnel director for the Diocese of Brooklyn.
He also hit the pulpit running with the standard Easter welcome to people who don’t usually come but might want to register and/or talk about why they don’t come, such as having been slighted or injured by a priest. This invitation came after a full-throated rendition of the first two (non-gospel) readings by a handsome, mature woman who interestingly did not begin her reading until some latecomers were seated. A nice touch, that. This happened in a service with no unexplained pauses or pauses explainable only as lapses in preparation.
She read from a real pulpit, raised and extending into the congregation on the gospel side, part of a cathedral-dimensioned very high-ceilinged romanesque church in excellent repair. This mostly black parish obviously has the wherewithal to do things and taste as well. Right after her second reading was sung a lively "alleluia." When it finished, Msgr. Brown was already positioned in the pulpit and got his "The lord be with you" in without pause.
After his reading is when he made his "come back, we are sorry if we offended you" pitch, delivered in strong, friendly, matter of fact tones. He was sure of himself and in no way maudlin about it. Then he got to his sermon, which started with a good (and tried and true, but that’s OK) story about a blind child leaping from a burning building into his father’s arms because he trusted in his father to catch him. He told the story well.
That’s when Aesop the teller of fables should have been the norm, but instead Msgr. B. decided to indulge in a plethora of explanation. Like the blind kid trusting his father, he should have trusted his story to make the point, but he chose to declaim, beating our ears with formula language - LOVE! ETERNAL LIFE! PEACE! What about a bonus for any preacher who can avoid these words in his next sermon? Who instead lets a story make the point? And do it in seven minutes. Yes!
Unfortunately, one feels inevitably, he indulged in the Heresy of the Multiple Middle. This is in contrast to the sermon with beginning, middle, and end. Instead, like most sermons -- this is a too common heresy -- it had many middles and not really an end but a stopping.
Let that not detract, however, from the vitality and sheer organization of the place. It did not for this worshiper, who managed to get the attention briefly of the head usher, a man of the islands, I'd say, to tell him what a good job he had done -- with panache at that, I might have added.
(2005-10-10)
