The late Father Richard John Neuhaus had a love/hate relationship with the New York Times.
Richard was a passionate partisan of New York City, which he sometimes described as a preview of the New Jerusalem, but the Grey Lady’s parochialism nonetheless led him to occasionally dismiss New York’s most prestigious daily as a “parish newsletter.” He regularly castigated the Times’ editorials for their air of smug infallibility. And then there was RJN’s annoyance (and more) with the Times’ knee-jerk liberalism, which, by its embrace of every imaginable left-of-center cause, accelerated the decay of liberal politics into the promotion of lifestyle libertinism. Richard was thus years ahead of Joseph Ratzinger in issuing warnings about a dictatorship of relativism, the unavoidable political outcome of the Times’ cultural lurch leftward.
On the other hand, Richard Neuhaus could no more imagine skipping the New York Times in the morning than he could imagine beginning the day without numerous cups of coffee, a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, and a smoke.
That love/hate relationship was crystallized in an incident during Richard’s days as a Lutheran pastor in the then-impoverished Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, when the Times declined to refer to a local black pastor (from Christendom’s entrepreneurial Protestant subdivision) as “Bishop” so-and-so. In high dudgeon, RJN wrote A.M. Rosenthal, then the Times’ managing editor, and asked what was going on. The man referred to himself as “Bishop.” His people called him “Bishop.” The sign on the front of his ecclesiastical establishment identified him as “Bishop.” Who did the Times think it was, and what did the Times think it was doing, denying this man the title he and his people used?
Abe Rosenthal eventually wrote Richard a harrumphing letter, stating that, after the painstaking deliberation appropriate to the nation’s newspaper of record, the Times would henceforth refer to the gentleman in question as “Bishop” so-and-so. The letter then concluded with a sentence that would cause Richard Neuhaus to laugh uproariously for decades: “And so, Pastor Neuhaus, you may take some satisfaction from knowing that, in drawing this matter to our attention, you have made a small contribution to the history of our times.”
Or words to that effect, if I may be pardoned for quoting the loathsome Richard Rich in A Man for All Seasons.
Over thirty-plus years of friendship and collaboration, I must have heard Richard tell that story a dozen times, but I don’t think I’d thought of it more than once or twice since his death in 2009. Then, recently, I read an article indicating that a churchman I admire, who indicated some sympathy with the charge that the Catholic Church in the West is “obsessed” with questions of sexual morality, nonetheless himself used the term “LGBTQ Catholic.”
Now, as a matter of good manners, I agree with the substance of Richard’s complaint to Abe Rosenthal: people should usually be identified the way they identify themselves, and in any event, it was not up to the New York Times to decide who is and who isn’t a bishop. But a churchman using the term “LGBTQ Catholic” of any member of the Catholic Church seems to me a different matter.
First, it strikes me as incoherent to give at least a nod of credibility to the charge that certain sectors of the world Church are obsessed with sexual morality and then use the hypersexualized term “LGBTQ Catholic” — which, whatever its provenance, reduces an individual to their sexual desires, confusions, or both.
Second, as was pointed out at several synods beginning with Synod 2018, this usage has no warrant in Catholic history, for the Church has never identified its members by libido. Which means it’s just as untoward to speak of “Heterosexual Catholics” as it is of “LGBTQ Catholics.” Why? Because “you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) and subdividing Catholics this way fractures the unity of the Church.
Finally, in this political and cultural moment, the term “LGBTQ Catholic” is both the carrier of a theological program — the transformation of settled Catholic understandings of the human person and the moral life — and an emblem of various political causes: causes not untinged by the threat of Ratzinger’s “dictatorship of relativism.” The term “LGBTQ Catholic” is not neutrally descriptive; it is, rather, quite loaded, theologically and politically.
We are all sinners in constant need of the redeeming grace of Christ, as Pope Leo XIV forcefully reminds us. When we remember that, we will perhaps be less inclined to countenance delineating each other (and ourselves) by sexual desire, orientation, or practice.
(George Weigel’s column ‘The Catholic Difference’ is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver.)
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Banish the phrase already.
“Male and female He made them.”
That’s all you need to know about distinctions among people AS GOD CREATED US. All other categories are man’s doing and carry no fundamental import.
Finally a new mugshot! And it’s not a “smugshot”.
Out of all the Catholic students I taught over the years who are gay, not one has ever referred to himself/herself as LGBTQ Catholic. Why you people are fixated on this issue is beyond me.
It’s interesting that you have such intimate knowledge of your student’s sexual proclivities. Why you people are fixated on this issue is beyond me.
As Mr. Weigel rightfully points out, paraphrasing Pope Leo XIV, we are all sinners in need of God’s grace. Growing up, I would hear the adage “There goes I but for the grace of God”. Everyone is a sinner, yes, but everyone is called to holiness. No sin is above God’s mercy, forgiveness and grace. This being said, we all need to cooperate with God. If we put obstacles between ourselves and God’s grace, we are effectively closing ourselves off from Him. A baptised Catholic is a Catholic, full stop. We do not qualify our Catholicism by our sins and predilections. God calls us by our name, not by our sins. If a Catholic is a drug user, he is not a “Drug using Catholic”. If a Catholic stays up every night to watch porn, he should not be labeled a “Porn watching Catholic”. In other words, a Catholic is a person with sins and failings, who is called to repentance, atonement and hope in Jesus-Christ; let the Catholic reconcile himself to Christ and persevere in faithfulness to God’s commandments.
Well said, Marie.
Unfortunately Weigel, ever the pollyana on the state of the Church, quotes Leo favorably “We are all sinners in constant need of the redeeming grace of Christ, as Pope Leo XIV forcefully reminds us.” Yet, as has been his practice for twelve years, Weigel ignores the contradictory heresy of Leo taking the position that doctrine can change if people’s attitudes are reeducated to become accepting of what has previously been recognized as objectively evil.
He is also incorrect about any Synod formally rejecting the acronym LGBTQ….etc.
Great thoughts. Furthermore, in the [true] spirit of Vatican II and Ecumenism, I think we should also push on other Christians to stop using the term LGBTQ as well. I’m not just pointing this out for those who style themselves as LGBTQ Christian-Allies, either (though, they certainly need reorientation… if you’ll grant the pun). At least down here in Texas, there are more than a handful of Christians who rail against the movement because of morality; but its far more important to remind our Christian brethren to step beyond morality and see the greater damage caused by diminishing the identity of any person to their sexual proclivities. Those fighting this fight on the moral level tacitly acquiesce to the label to begin with – we shouldn’t even attempt to fight the battle on that field. Assuming we’re all baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we all have put on a new Identity which rains supreme over all others – and It is far more liberating than any other haphazard sexual label.
“but its far more important to remind our Christian brethren to step beyond morality and see the greater damage caused by diminishing the identity of any person to their sexual proclivities.”
True believers do not step beyond morality. God’s standards and principles for sexual morality are clear and consistent, and if we are serious about our relationship with God, we operate within those moral parameters. Active homosexuality is a sin, plain and simple. Calling people out on their sins, labeling a spade a spade, is not more harmful than “diminishing” people’s identity. That sounds like upside down morality.
An “LGBT” Catholic is like a Catholic unicorn, or a Catholic leprechaun. There is no such thing.
Thank you George.
As a G Catholic, I know that identification by my appetites is “quite loaded”, like a cheeseburger. And yet, I join my fellow foodies for Glutton Catholics pilgrimages to gormandize our way around the globe. (No, I do not like the tacky tote bags that say: Eat the Rules!). It is too depressing to indulge alone. Have mercy! Judge not! “Todos todos todos” are called to communion as Catholics, to “take and eat.” Thank you for Synodaling. Bon appétit!
Thomas James: It lacks class to refer to others as “you people.” It makes you sound arrogant, elitist, and superior. As for your comment about LSMFT Catholics, I’d suggest you read the news. Lastly, no one IS gay. You can be same-sex attracted which is disordered sexuality but that does not convey “is-ness.”
According to the author we should cease to use categories “Black Catholics,” American Catholics, Senior Citizen Catholics, etc. Who has the right to take away a person’s dignity to say: “I am gay and I am Catholic?” If we look to Jesus, he never discredited nor attempted to degrade someone’s dignity as a person.
Gary: One’s “am-ness” cannot be construed as being “Catholic” or being “gay”. You can believe and practice the Catholic faith but it is not your “is-ness.” You can practice sodomitic behavior that that does not convey “is-ness.”
“If we look to Jesus, he never discredited nor attempted to degrade someone’s dignity as a person.”
You obviously don’t know the biblical Jesus. The Son of God would never have encouraged, supported, or affirmed active homosexuals during His earthly ministry. There is no dignity in willful disobedience.
“Black Catholics,” American Catholics, Senior Citizen Catholics” definition belongs to a category of definitions which is not private = which one can see easily = of a public realm. Those definitions come up when an issue/info re: a particular group of Catholics come up. For example, “black Catholics tend to be more conservative” or “American Catholics join the international conference” etc. Most importantly, there is nothing “private = hidden” about being black or yellow or white or old. In fact, it is impossible to hide the old age or black skin or accent.
On the other hand, “LGBTQ” self-identification is about what a person does (or wants to do) in their bedroom. I.e., this definition belongs to an extremely private unseen realm of sexual relationships, but LGBTQ activists choose to wear their sexual preferences on their sleeves.
There is a term in clinical psychology, “a boundary violation”. A boundary can be physical or emotional. A violation of an emotional boundary can be done in many ways including inappropriate sharing of extremely private, often of a sexual nature, information with someone who is not a person’s close friend. An example: a stranger on a public transport starts sharing his private life with a random person out of the blue, loading them with shocking details. Some do it out of their own poor boundaries; some – out of passive aggression; some – out of a desire to covertly act out their sexuality. As a result, a person upon whom the intimate info is being poured often feels invaded and polluted.
To me, parading “LGBTQ” slogans, which often comes together with sexual acting out, in public is also an example of their own poor boundaries (not respecting themselves, their own dignity/privacy) and an aggressive invasion of the boundaries of others (not respecting others). It is very adolescent. Since it is a well-established fact in clinical psychology that healthy boundaries are necessary for normal functioning of a person in the society, I do not see why we should encourage the violation of boundaries in one particular case, of “LGBTQ”.
Anna, you write with great insight and a heap-load of common sense.
Indeed, boundary violation is THE dominant pathological symptom of our culture- a culture that is terribly disturbed and has lost ANY moral base whatsoever. It originates in the breakdown of the intact nuclear family and most especially the discipline of children typically performed by the father in the family. The breakdown of the family was, in turn, caused by an over-bearing State that sought to replace the family. That’s what happens when you allow the rot of socialism into cultural thinking. Read Rerum novarum.
Not degrading dignity? This is exactly what you do by applying sociological reductionist group identities to Catholic.
Age, sex and race are immutable biological facts, and while I would be plenty happy to get rid of these subdivisions, they are not in any way indicating submission to temptation or behavior at odds with Christian morality and natural law.
One may have an attraction to the same sex, but “gay” implies that one believes that the attraction is innate, benign and is to be practiced without consequence. We don’t say “alcoholic Catholics”, because we know alcoholism is a form of gluttony, at odds with a person’s well-being and the dignity comes from fighting the urge, not succumbing to it and making it a badge of identity.
Pro tip: we all know the unsolicited conspicuous display of academic credentials is an attempt at an argument from (false) authority.
Maybe for politeness sake the bishops of England might have to refer to the newly appointed Anglican, pro-abortion, pro same sex marriage woman as archbishop of Canterbury, but did they really have to issue the following congratulations:
“The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, led by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, expressed their congratulations on the appointment of Dame Sarah Mullally as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. “
Except that if these Catholic bishops were to receive Dame Mullaly into the Catholic Church she could not be ordained anything because she lacks proper matter. She’s no more an archbishop than King Charles is the head of the church of England.
Well stated and enough said regarding “LGBTQ Catholic”
Why does the Vatican persist in lavishing attention on James Martin & Co. He
is a self proclaimed advocate for “LGBT Catholics.” Yet Pope Francis and now Pope
Leo receive him as such. In New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade we have had an “LGBT”
contingent marching as such. Why can they not simply march as Irishmen – people
proud of their Irish ancestry, heritage, accomplishments? Is their only source of pride what goes on in the bed room? Why does the Church
indulge them in this whim? The hierarchy must get some backbone in addressing
this issue.
“LGBTQetc” is an alternative to “Catholicism”. The idea that two words can be fudged together and form a new unit of validity in the real world is absolutely absurd! It is an abuse of language.
There is no such thing as “LGBTQetc Catholicism.” Just as there is no such thing as “Satanic Catholicism”, “Atheistic Catholicism” or even “Hedgehog Catholicism”.
Nothing wrong with self-identifying as a hedgehog and requesting the pronoun “prickles” in a lay state. But it has nothing what-so-ever to do with Catholicism…
About finding the term “LGBTQ” in Catholic documents…this is yet another example of gradualism in action. At the synod on the family, Archbishop Chaput politely urged the ringmaster at the head table to no insert language about any categories of person. The manipulator declined,but later complied after all eighteen clerical roundtables elevated the request into a reported “demand.” But in later documents the infiltration continued such that now the Church and the human population are divided into the polarities of LGBTQ and the now parallel and only equivalent “heterosexual”. Binary sexuality and the real unity of personal complementarity goes silently in the night.
But, not to fear! Enter stage left appears the kissing car[di]nal Fernandez, esteemed for his facility in harmonizing whatever polarities might be constructed in the human imagination. Thusly, Fiducia Supplicans…already violated, as intended by many, in “stretching the grey area” (Cardinal Grech’s term)–now enabled by the half-blessing of irregular couples as “couples,” in a way supposedly “informal, non-liturgical, and spontaneous.” The Jesuit anti-pope Jimmy Martin takes a photo-op bow, and der Synodal Weg genuflects with a glossy set of advisory guidelines.
The anti-doctrine of gradualism–as in “time is greater than space,” or whatever.
George Weigel’s argument de jure dismisses identification of Catholics by adjectives that describe the expression of their sexual behavior. Although de facto that’s how Catholics are describing themselves. And the issue is that one adjective is consistent with their biological sex, while the other is not.
Usage of words that identify otherwise unspecified actions are partial to the development of language. We can agree in order to disagree. It would be simple enough to call LGBT self identifiers the sexually disordered. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet.
Wiegel is also correct that we’re Christians, children of God. But we’ve had a Vatican communications member organize a Jubilee celebration at the Vatican inside the sanctuary of St Peter’s Basilica advertised expressly for LGBT persons under the patronage [in accord with Vatican protocol] of Leo XIV.
The heart of this matter of the use of the word LGBT, is the tolerance of an intrinsically disordered behavior designated by the word LGBT and used by Vatican officials.
William. You forgot the sticking point. Chastity.
A Catholic with same sex attraction, who is celibate, can be just as good a Catholic as anybody.
A chaste celibate will describe himself as “Catholic.”
A person suffering same sex attraction and living as a chaste celibate would not describe themselves as “homo-inclined Catholic” anymore than a Catholic inclined to theft would cry out “I am a theft-inclined Catholic”.
Sinful inclination is shameful and as Catholics we do not let it define us! What defines us is that we are children of God and as such: “Catholic”.
William: Find me even one person (by name) who denies that “A Catholic with same sex attraction, who is celibate, can be just as good a Catholic as anybody.” Just one.
True. Celibacy and obedience are the key issues there.
No one said they cannot.
Strawman much?
I see no problem with folks who identify publicly with a certain type of grave sin being called what they want to be called. Catholics for Choice see no sin and no problem with baby murder. They are pro-abort Cats in secular terminology. They want to take the sin out of the CCC. Should we? Dignity sees no sin and no problem with active lgbt actions, including the transgender mutilation of minors, man/boy relationships, and early age indoctrination. They are lgbt-Cats in secular terminology. They want to take the sin out of the CCC. Should we? The Womens Ordination Conference wants females up and down the ranks of the institutional Church. They are feminist’ Cats in secular terminology. They reject the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Should we accommodate them? In all three examples, such folks place their personal passions above the teachings of the Church. What did Christ say of folks in community who reject his teachings after all attempts to dissuade them fail? What do the spiritual works of mercy tell us to do in regard to the same? Are clerics in high places doing enough according to Christ’s words to change minds? Now I read on the internet that a “gay” Catholic Bible is in the works, patterned off a mainstream Prot revised Bible. Where will it all end? The only thing that comes to mind is AB Sheen’s “ape of the Church” and its future reality, and the term “remnant Church” for those that remain faithful in the aftermath.
DiogenesR, by your use of the acronym LSMFT, you reveal your age and sense of humor. Whenever I have used it in this same context of sexual proclivities, it has caused puzzlement to those younger. Thanks for using it since in a small way, it indicates the level of silliness in the cause of the “alphabet” people.