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Tuesday, January 13, 2004 Lesbian Church FuroreJust trying my hand at creating eye-catching headlines! But it's pretty close to what has become an interesting fracas within the Roman Catholic church here in Melbourne (I always get into trouble with my RC colleague at work by referring to his church as Roman Catholic - he constantly reminds me it's the Catholic church. Full stop! But more about my RC colleague in a moment.)Essentially what's happened is that a cousin of the Australian Cardinal George Pell has publicly challenged him over the Catholic Church's hardline stance against homosexuality. In response to his cousin's goading, Pell has responded with a short statement, saying: "The Church's views are well known and will not change. I support them. In these situations the first 11 verses of Chapter 8 of St John's Gospel give food for thought. I wish Monica well and acknowledge the contribution she has made. I continue to regret the path she has chosen." Monica, btw, is a lesbian former nun (a Mercy nun), and her partner of 19 years was a Franciscan nun. Monica's response to the Archbishop's statement was "I wanted him to make some statement about who I am as a person to him," she said. "It's very disappointing that I got no response other than scripture." (Interesting human reaction; so easy to believe that we are "good caring people", and hence it can't matter what our sexuality is, and that any scripture to the contrary just can't apply to us, I think!?) In her open "Dear George" letter, Monica makes the statement: The Vatican document also says that recognition of homosexual unions would "obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity". In terms of my relationship with my partner, what could that possibly mean? The society at large would consider our lives to be grounded in basic Christian values. I think (judging by the tone of letters to the Age today, in response to these articles) that she's right - society at large does consider Monica and partner's lives to be grounded in basic Christian values. Which I find sad and alarming! Finally, in discussions with my RC colleague, he tells me that there are 3 planks of RC theology - scripture, church tradition, and something grandly called the Magisterium of the Catholic Church (CC). Tomorrow we're consulting his catechism to find out more about this Magisterium - but I gather they regard it as the teaching authority granted to the CC by Jesus Christ himself when he gave them power to bind things on earth and heaven, in other words it's the authority given to the church to teach and to make authoritative statements on dogma. # posted by geoff @ 4:48 pm 0 comments
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