I write this as a priest. It may be that the homosexual is, as Vatican documents repeat, “inordinately disordered.” But what is rarely noted is the surely disordered, even pathological, reaction to the mere presence of the homosexual in Church contexts. In the words of the old curse, dogs bark and people run screaming from the street when the homosexual voice is heard. Something about the homosexual prompts such an excess of vituperation, angst and loathing that one begins to wonder-What is all this about, anyway? Why all this energy?
For the most part, Christian churches have gotten over their fetish of the witch. The Catholic Church, in particular, has apologized belatedly for its place in historical anti-Semitism. Yet homosexuality remains Christianity’s great crisis. In recent years there has been a resurgence of hate and fear-although these are usually attributed to rednecks and bigots.
The contrary is the case. It would be one thing if, as one hears, that prejudice (Jew, witch, homosexual) develops from below, the unthinking reaction of motiveless unintelligence. Many scholars show clearly, however, that bigotry is created, not found. It takes willfulness and purpose to shape and create social monsters. The demon we are to hate must be positioned so that all can see and fear. This takes determination, imagination and foresight, and, inevitably, control of resources. Hate-mongering is not the work of individuals.
Consider, for example, under this Pope, the near-vicious level of discourse sustained by his administration against the homosexual. Documents emerging out of Vatican II during the ‘60s and ‘70s were, if not enlightened about homosexuality, at least compassionate. Under John Paul II, compassion is out of the question. Beginning with the 1986 “Letter to the Catholic Bishops on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” the papacy of John Paul has been marked by a ratcheting up of rhetoric and actions with one aim clearly in mind: isolating and erasing homosexuals from church space, or, failing that, keeping them quiet. This trajectory culminated in 2000, when John Paul himself, speaking from his Vatican piazza, took the unprecedented step of calling homosexuality an “offense against Christianity.” Not even Original Sin gets this press.
Freud defines the perfect enemy as someone just like ourselves, except for the “narcissism of minor difference.” The current spiritual totalitarianism exhibited by Rome is desperate to make the perfect enemy, and the list conveniently includes enemies new and old, borrowed and stolen. Rome, once the vanguard of social action, keeps some surprisingly retrograde company these days, in its vigilance to thwart and contest humane policies around AIDS, women’s issues-all of which are seen as covers for the dread curse of homosexuality.
Reason? Perfect enemies are useful in war and ideological contest; the enemy outside our ranks keeps martial emotions flowing-always the easiest consensus to achieve. Importantly, enemies or monsters “out there” keep attention focused away from the inconvenient question of motives and responsibility. Church administration is beleaguered; a once solid authority over Catholic popular opinion is no longer so. On issues from abortion to masturbation to in vitro fertilization, to issues on gender and issues of sexuality, to cremation, organ transplants, etc American Catholics-lay and clergy-no longer look to Rome for guidance.
One hears the occasional woman or gay Catholic say, somewhat lamely, that they have “problems” with the church but go for the music, the comfort habit, or other reason. Church is, for these persons and many others, a place to go for music and for social passages like baptisms and marriage. For many more, church is literally only a place to go when they are dead. For most Christians God is not dead; for many Catholics, however, church is. An arrogant spiritual bureaucracy has killed it. This is the crisis facing Christianity, not the homosexuals in the pews.
One understands why Rome will do anything to keep its audience captive; if it has to cut away one loyal and deferential part of its body to keep the rest, it will. And this is where the engineered prejudice works. Documents from Rome constantly align the homosexual with deviation, perversity and unnaturality, using language that one expects to find in horror films. Nor are documents in isolation. Accepting an honorary degree from Georgetown University, a ranking Cardinal takes specific aim at “fornicators” and “homosexuals” who ” mock the family.” Is it any surprise that Cardinal Francis Arinze is considered high among possible candidates for Pope?
One need not wonder, then, where homophobia comes from. Like anti-Semitism, or witch hunts, it is socially sanctioned, even, in some cases legally mandated from above. In a 1986 Vatican document, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger apologetically notes that “it comes as no surprise that persons feel uncomfortable with homosexuals and so do them violence.”
The violence here is authorized. It comes from the top. Matthew Shepard ultimately lost his life to a systematic erasure of homosexual persons that is willful and determined, colluded in by forces in society and church. The recent UN declaration on Human Rights and Sexual Orientation was defeated “by a coalition of Islamic and other countries, with apparent pressure from the Vatican.” Our blood is the price. The surprise is that so few Catholic gay persons take umbrage or move to protect themselves or those they love. Which of us will be next? If we cannot trust them with our physical well-being, why should we trust them with our spiritual?
Rev. Edward J. Ingebretsen, ACC, is the chair of the American Studies department.
