DISQUS

DoubtingThomas · 2 months ago

So you're one of those people who believes the Spirit is a She?
No comment.

Irregardless of gender, I would like to think that the Holy Spirit works in spite of the stupidity of the people under His charge. That despite all the scandal, carnage and downright evil worked in the name of God by those who abuse the power entrusted to them by His Son, the Holy Spirit will bring out what is best for the Church, and for the whole world.

We just have to let Him do His job.

(p.s. I don't actually believe that the Holy Spirit is male. God has no gender. But I feel weird calling God an "it.")

WDL · 2 months ago

No, I don't believe the Spirit's a She, Thomas--not any more than I believe the other persons of the Trinity are male. As you point out, God is beyond gender. All terms we use to talk about the divine are metaphorical, and are projections of human experience.

But given that God is beyond gender, it seems to me right and just to use both genders when we speak of God. And given that the weight has been heavily on the side of male metaphors throughout history (though even the scriptures contain female metaphors for God), I think it's incumbent on us to use female images more intentionally nowadays.

And for the Spirit, those images seem to be a no-brainer, given the Sophia tradition in the scriptures. Wisdom/Sophia is a female figure, and is often equated with the Spirit in the scriptures.

DoubtingThomas · 2 months ago

btw I apologize if "one of those people" sounded like a put down. It wasn't intended to.

Also, one of the persons of the Trinity is male. Jesus Christ was a living breathing man. So at least a third of the Trinity is male.

But, as I believe we both agree, the essence of God transcends gender.

WDL · 2 months ago

No need to apologize, Thomas.

My knowledge of the intricacies of the christology of the early church (which remains foundational for many Christian churches) is shaky at best, but from what I remember of that christology, it may be somewhat heretical to claim that Jesus Christ is a member of the Trinity.

My understanding is the the second person of the Trinity, the Logos, took flesh in Christ, joining the divinity of the Godhead to the humanity of Jesus. So it's not precisely Jesus Christ who is the second person of the Trinity, but the Logos.

And again, when we're talking about the divine (including the persons of the Trinity), we're talking about what completely transcends human language. Our language and metaphors are attempts to encapsulate in halting ways the experience of the divine in human life, using the tools at our disposal while realizing that we can never capture or understand what's beyond language.

And since the human experience of the divine comprises, for half of the human race, female experience, it seems to me only right and just that our metaphors speak of the divine in female terms as much as they speak in male terms.

DoubtingThomas · 2 months ago

That is very interesting information that I had not heard before. I'll have to look into that more.

WDL · 2 months ago

Thomas, my basic point is that I don't think we can leap from the specifics of the humanity of Jesus to inferences about the Godhead. So noting that Jesus was male is, to my way of thinking, not a basis for arguing that the Trinity is male. That seems to me to be an anthropomorphic imagining about the Godhead based on a dubious equation of the humanity of Jesus with the divinity of the second person of the Trinity.

colkoch · 2 months ago

Burke as kingmaker is a sad sad statement. Someday I hope we find out just who is the money behind his meteoric advancement. His preferential career path is beginning to look very suspiciously like Maciel's and Jose Escriva.

However one conceives of the Holy Spirit, the operative word must be discernment. Discernment is not a valued skill when one operates from the notion that one already has all the answers. Discernment then becomes cherry picking to prove existingly held assumptions.

I seriously think this is exactly why the Vatican is targeting congregations of women religious. They put huge emphasis on discernment. And why wouldn't they, they are not allowed to invest in the official institutional Church. They are totally free to follow the Spirit like leaves flowing in a brook. Their clerical betters do not have this freedom and the Burke's of that world will see to it that they never have this freedom.

I am going to predict that this overture to Traditional Anglicans is going to be a disaster for Rome. One should never purposefully invite a spiritual cancer into one's ranks. The Anglicans will cause far more problems for Rome than Rome has solved for the Anglicans.

Rowan Williams must be on his knees thanking the Spirit for prompting Rome to excise Anglicanism's internal cancer. Now it's the Vatican's turn and they may not survive the cancer.

WDL · 2 months ago

Colleen, great response. I hadn't thought of it, but I think you're exactly right: one of the reasons women religious attract negative attention in some church-official quarters is that they have developed and excel at the practice of discernment, especially after Vatican II.

Women's communities took very seriously the challenge of Vatican II to return to the charisms of their founders and discern how to live those charisms in contemporary culture. They did so far more seriously than men's communities tended to do.

And this now poses a threat to those who want to "exorcise" the ghost of Vatican II, to use the rhetoric of South Dakota bishop Nickless. Fascinating, isn't it, that being led by the Spirit and trying to listen seriously to what She says can get you into trouble with church authorities?

khughes1963 · 2 months ago

You are right-it boils down to money. This is why Chaput is likely to whitewash the Legionaries of Christ despite their spiritual abuses and the reprehensible example of Marcial Maciel Degollado. I agree with Colleen-the Catholics are going to rue the day they opened up to the Anglicans. The Anglicans will encounter the don't ask, don't tell attitude toward gay Roman Catholic priests, the SSPX will lambaste the Vatican and the Anglicans for allowing a married priesthood, former Catholic priests who left to marry will be understandably resentful at forcing them to leave the active priesthood to marry, and the gay and lesbian Catholics will still continue to receive unjustified blame for being who they are.

The Anglicans will be understandably resentful if (or more likely when) their local Catholic bishop asserts claims on their church property, taking it out of the local vestry's control, a la Raymond Burke, they will also not rush to abandon the Lambeth Conference for natural family planning.

WDL · 2 months ago

Kathleen, interesting that both you and Colleen think of Maciel (and Colleen adds Escriva) when we talk about Burke's promotion. This leads me to wonder if some of the same money trails that led to Maciel's meteoric rise to prominence are now funding the Burke rise. I tend to think so.

And I agree, this will almost certainly mean a whitewash when the final report on the Legionaries comes out.

It will definitely be interesting to see how the new Anglican arrangement plays out. There's going to be quite a bit of contention about celibacy, if it means that the option for a married clergy remains only in the Anglican-Catholic rite.

DoubtingThomas · 2 months ago

I think I read somewhere that Anglican priests who come over will be allowed to remain married and priests but that they will not be able to be bishops. That isn't anything new. The Eastern Rites follow the same guidelines.

WDL · 2 months ago

It may be true that the arrangement being worked out with the dissident Anglicans is similar to the one with the Eastern rite churches that are united to Rome.

Still, with every group Rome embraces in which clerical celibacy is not a requirement, the argument of Rome against clerical celibacy becomes that much weaker. People rightly ask why Rome hinges everything on clerical celibacy in the Latin rite, when it admits that celibacy is one among several options for clerics in other rites.

DoubtingThomas · 2 months ago

Yeah, my best friend and I actually had a conversation about this last night. We're both hoping that the Anglican crossover might lead to the reexamination of the teaching on clerical celibacy which we both disagree with. In my opinion the Church would have a lot more priests and better priests if they did away with it.

WDL · 2 months ago

It may well be that one long-term effect of this arrangement is to make clerical celibacy optional in the Roman rite. But that has not happened as some married Episcopal priests have become Catholic, nor has it happened as a result of the uniate arrangement with the Eastern churches that united with Rome.

If it does happen in the Latin rite, I suspect it will not happen for a long time, unless it occurs through some sudden stroke-of-the-pen arrangement like this recent announcement. The big obstacle, I suspect, is the question of property and possible legal claims the wives and children of married clergy might make on the church's property.

evagrius · 2 months ago

It's not wise to accept people running away from something rather than towards something, especially if that something is not going to go away.

WDL · 2 months ago

Insightful point, Evagrius. And the story of Jonah suggests we can't really ever run away, when it's the Spirit we're running from. God has a way of finding us precisely through those whom we despise, reject, throw away, and want to run away from.

Phillip Clark · 2 months ago

These developments are indeed gravely worrying and highly discouraging on many fronts. The gesture of the Anglican arrangment and Burke's appointment happening all in the same week just says it all. These ever more encroaching incidents may have signaled that the hierarchy has refused to listen to the People of God, yet, they are an even greater impetus to continue to speak out and allow the Holy Spirit to where where He/She will throughout the Church and set the stage for the great Reformation of our times that needs to occur.

On the prodding of numerous people, I've begun my own feeble attempts at writing a book, chronicling the greatest social questions of our time (particularly homosexuality) and revealing how the current leadership of the Church refuses to produce answers for them sufficicently. The theme of the book I'll try to make restoring the TRUE balance and harmony between Faith and Reason (which doesn't mean refusing to listen to scientific evidence in the face of theological ideology).

In this dismal and unfortunately desperate times within the Church it is now the time of the laity to rise up and answer our shared call to the the spiritual priesthood of Christ which we have all recevied in our common Baptism. It is our job to be witnesses of the Holy Spirit and of the truths that need to be spoken within the arena of today's Catholic Church. No matter how much these developments complicate things the Truth cannot and will not be silenced! Jesus Christ promised that He would be with us always and He remains so today, as He always will, Who is our Way, Truth, and Life now and forever!

WDL · 2 months ago

Phillip, I encourage you to write. It's important that the church (and society) hear the voice of gay believers of your generation. You have a new perspective based on the experience of coming of age in a world in which it was, at least, possible to have gay role models. How that experience plays out in the lives of those who choose faith affiliation is something we need to hear more about. Please do write.

jimmccrea · 2 months ago

Burke --- a king? With the way he (and Pell, and Cordelione, and -- and -- and ---) loves drag, Queen is the operative term.

WDL · 2 months ago

Surely in these days of global recession, silkmakers and lacemakers are among the few businesses that are thriving, at least in some areas--if the liturgical wonts of some of our queens are any indicator, that is.

jimmccrea · 2 months ago

OK, boyz and gurlz, let's get real for a moment. The Catholic lurch to the right is not going to stop. If anything, it's just going to get worse and worse.

What can we do? We can pee and moan and wring our hands, making us feel good but accomplishing absolutely nothing. Nada.

I'm tempted to write to the ECUSA Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and encourage their House of Bishops to strongly consider adopting a Roman Use Rite for disaffected RCs. If it ever happened, it might not benefit those of us who getting a bit long in the tooth, but, in the long haul, it might just work. Also, I realize that these parishes would not be found except in urban areas of a certain size that would support one.

Then there is the UCC, most of the ministers of which seem to be former RC women. Its “loosey goosieness” would take a bit of getting used to, but where there is a will, there most certainly can be found the way.

Independent Catholicism is a possibility, but, from what I have seen, their parishes are hard to find, small in membership, and a bit too tenuous for my taste.

It’s not going to get any better! The Roman Catholicism to which most of us adhere is a dying breed. The average parish is a dump! The liturgies are banal, the parishioners seem to be of the “get my ticket punched and get me outta here” types, the priests are just hanging on. That is not a vibrant church; that is a corpse that just doesn’t realize where the casket is sitting. It isn’t worth sticking around for.

Now, if you want to swallow your pride and hang in out of some misguided fear of damnation if you don’t die a Catholic, or some other silliness, be my guest. I am extremely fortunate to belong to a small parish that is gay-friendly (hell, almost all of us who go there are LGBT anyway!) so, for the time being, I can live out my life, not as a Roman Catholic, not as an American Catholic, but, rather a Most Holy Redeemer Catholic. The cafeteria from which I choose has only healthy food, not the thin gruel that Holy Momma the Church dribbles out, except to those who play Dress Up and Suck Up a lot. The day MHR goes away is the day I go away --- unless a better option comes along first. I was away from Catholicism for about 20 years and, shock!, the world didn’t end nor did I die and go to hell.

WDL · 2 months ago

Jim, I had seen your proposal about establishing a rite for disaffected Catholics in the Episcopal Church USA on another website, and was intrigued by it. I'd encourage you to write Katharine Jefferts Schori about this. I'd like very much to know if this is an option.

I suppose the question would be why there'd be need to establish a separate rite for former Catholics within the ECUSA, given that so much of Catholic liturgy and belief is already there in the ECUSA. Still, there'd be interesting poetic justice in setting up on the other side precisely the same structure Benedict wants to create on the Roman side for disaffected Anglicans.

As a somewhat disconnected aside (and with no intent to brag), I taught Katharine Jefferts Schori--one semester, a seminar on Martin Luther King and liberation theology. She was not a seminary student then, and was an extremely impressive student. I am delighted at what has happened to her and with her.