Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Dobrych swiat.... Cracow, Poland To the Editors: Very best and most cordial greetings to all the Commonweal staff, and especially to Edward S. Skillin on the occasion of his...
...2. Covenanted relationships of gays and lesbians could be seen as something distinct from and more significant than nonsexual personal friendships, just as religious orders are seen as more substantial than lay groups such as the Holy Name Society or the Legion of Mary, whose members do not take the vows that bind religious to an intense communal mode of living...
...Gay Christians will continue to live lives based on the gospel, even as straights continue to debate whether we can truly be Christian and whether our relationships are acceptable in God's sight...
...Finally, Galligan suggests that I have built my case "largely on Gen...
...from any real, assumed or imagined theological biases," and dispensing with procreation as an "intrinsic societal good...
...We were made male and female in the image and likeness of God, and we should not remake what God has done...
...As indicated in my essay and earlier in Correspondence [March 11], I think these developments are problematic...
...JERZY TUROWICZ The writer is editor-in-chief of Tygodnic Powneckny, which he describes as "the Polish Commonweal...
...Whether one accepts an estimated percentage of 5 percent or 10 percent of gays and lesbians in a given population, it is highly probable that there are roughly 10 to 25 million homosexuals in the United States...
...The homosexual couple cannot strengthen this validity because, by incarnational lights, "body parts count...
...KEVIN M. DOYLE Gender isn't all Brooklyn, N.Y...
...Let me hasten to add that I favor the institution of ecclesial offices for women comparable in authority and status to that of the priesthood, perhaps a college of women religious parallel to the college of cardinals...
...Other abortion issues Long Island, N.Y...
...After my second session I stopped attending, and received a follow-up phone call from my counselor...
...1:27) might well be called in for some retooling...
...There are, then, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even more, of gay Christians in this country, some of whom serve as priests, religious, ministers, elders, deacons, theologians, seminary professors, even bishops...
...I embrace no simple "argument from biology," and explicitly acknowledge the role culture plays in our appropriation of biology...
...Your treatment of homosexuality, although useful as a beginning discussion, failed to note helpful, practical, and pastoral opinions that are already part of the Catholic understanding...
...Is it only to give life, no matter the (Continued on page 26) 2: 25 March 1994 CORRESPONDENCE (Continue0d from page 2) cost to her and her family...
...Given Baumann's insistence on strict alignment of symbolic import and chromosomal arrangement, I curiously await his position on the proper physiological prerequisites for presiding over our eucharistic celebrations...
...Baumann speaks of a "teleology of human sexuality" and "the ontological truth of procreative sex...
...He's right...
...It's wonderful that Edward is still there to receive congratulations from one born simultaneously with the magazine...
...Perhaps it's Baumann who is trying to remake what God has done...
...He is a mere eighty-one years old...
...What sin have I committed...
...Yet does that preclude the development of a theology of gay unions that can also imitate the life of the Trinity...
...After all, humans are not only material beings, and it could be that a gay union at its best can produce a spiritual, aesthetic, or cultural contribution to a community at least as important as the birth of another human...
...For priests who may have been heartless in such circumstances, I accept the shame and ask pardon for these brother priests...
...and from sexism proceeds heterosexism...
...I'm glad I spent some of those years with Commonweal—and thanks for the memories...
...SCOTT TAYLOR Commonweal...
...Andrew Galligan calls for a "retooling" of Catholic sexual metaphysics...
...yet it is holy in its modality...
...If it's clear that God's sacred word revealed in Scripture is of necessity timeconditioned and in need of constant reinterpretation, surely Baumann's abstract "sexual metaphysics" (based largely on Gen...
...sisters...
...it gives us a new opening in the discussion of the morality of homosexual acts...
...PAUL BAUMANN 28: 25 March 1994 Commonweal Honoring gay unions New York, N.Y...
...Give us a break, and have some sympathy for a people caught in a small, temporary, philosophical crack in the eternal Mystical Body...
...Substitute "to several people at the same time'' for "persons of the same gender' ' in Lopata's letter and the problem becomes clear...
...To the Editors: If 1 hadn't been totally snowed in at the time, I certainly would have come to the jollifications for Edward Skillin's ninetieth birthday[Excelsior" February 11...
...In the speculative (albeit nonpastoral) spirit of your symposium, permit me to offer some paradigms for committed gay unions: 1. Such unions are not and cannot be marriages, but they can be "covenanted relationships and communities" in a manner analogous to the status of religious orders, which are covenanted, through the vows taken by their members, but are not sacramental, as are marriage and priesthood...
...to get at its contents, burglars would have needed only to move it away from the wall...
...Consider how religious life is analogized to family life by the titles some orders confer: "abbot" (father...
...Baumann raises the central question when he asks, in the context of relationships, how we mirror God's image...
...And might not the "off-handedness" Johnson sees reveal not an "unreflective" incidentalness but, it could be argued, abiding, foundational, universal consensus...
...With the foregoing as the foundation for his argument, Paul Baumann reasons that the church's traditional prohibition against physical expression of homosexual love is not only coherent, but justified...
...To the Editors: Your five-voice focus on homosexuality was, overall, very rich and 26: 25 March 1994 Commonweal much appreciated...
...we are liturgists, musicians, lectors, ushers, religious educators, youth ministers...
...What happened to me was a personal tragedy that could have been dealt with in a number of empathetic, nonjudgmental ways...
...Does anyone really know what God's plan is for any woman found with a pregnancy that could kill her...
...I was told by my peer counselor that God has forgiven me...
...Our friend Kevin Doyle detects in my argument a case for the relevance of gender to the priesthood...
...God gave us appetites, and those appetites are good because they come from him...
...That's the reality of the "gay lifestyle...
...I think Stolz also goes too far in suggesting that all our "appetites" are good because by definition they come from God...
...To this day, I find this a violation of my conscience, my sense that I did the only thing I could do...
...On another day there were screams of panic from early arrivals on finding a corpse on the floor of the inner office...
...The rights and wrongs of a society whose existence depended on fertility, as codified in Leviticus, for example, or in the "four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance," are not necessarily the rights and wrongs of a world in which proliferation is no longer an immediate, objective, and intrinsic societal good...
...in dubiis, libertas...
...If we hunger, there is such a thing as food...
...every day with a huge padlock had no back at all...
...CASEY LOPATA Dated treatment Queens, N.Y...
...Rather than allowing our differences to divide us, we must come to see in them our creator's image...
...brothers...
...Yet he is unsure that a committed homosexual relationship can conform to the meaning of marriage, which is "larger than life...
...This is simply not the case...
...It's probable that I am alive today because I had the courage to do what I did...
...Moreover, it is not clear to me in what way Scripture can be God's sacred word if it is "time-conditioned" in the way Galligan seems to imply...
...On this last item, surely such good works as coaching the basketball team or teaching CCD are part of the great human reproductive project, even if in a very different way than was getting up with my son Conor last night for some 4 a.m...
...The foundation of Mr...
...As Cardinal Newman reminds us, "In certis, unitas...
...Clearly, it will be some time before the sensus fidelium in the matter of homosexual acts manifests itself clearly in the temporal church...
...in omnibus, caritas...
...Some of us may worship in gay churches, but more of us sit beside you each Sunday as we worship and pray together...
...The experience leaves me with many questions and few answers...
...Perhaps none of us now living will see that day...
...Can we develop "a theology of gay unions that can also imitate the life of the Trinity...
...There was also the occasion when the receptionist, Nancy Bruno, kept a visitor, "Mr...
...mother superior...
...The words in the heading are followed by "....I Szczesliwego Nowego Roku," which is to say: "Joyeux Noel et Bonne Nouvelle Annee...
...Perhaps you should have reprinted Gregory Baum' s article, first published twenty years ago [February 15, 1974], in which Baum, a Canadian theologian and Vatican II peritus, explained the range of Catholic moral reasoning on the question of allowing or blessing stable and committed same-sex unions...
...To the Editors: Paul Baumann says his argument about homsexuality comes down to what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman...
...To the Editors: I am most grateful to "Madelein Gray" for her gripping account of her abortion decision ["Giving up the Gift," February 25...
...How we discern "what God has done'' requires a more complete explanation of how body and spirit fit together than Lopata's naturalistic premise allows...
...We are merely caught in the gap between the modern reality of an instantaneous and global marketplace of ideas and the much longer process of how we as the church on earth do our best to live out the phenomenon of Pentecost within the confining parameters of time...
...ALEXANDRA I. TYLER God made gays Rochester, N.Y...
...God has created some people in his (or her) image with an erotic attraction to persons of the same gender...
...Religious life is productive of great good for the church...
...Although I think such faithful relationships are of real value, I am not aware of any authoritative teaching that sanctions them...
...Johnson, toward the end of his long wind-up and just before letting his slider go, asks rhetorically: "Do we allow divorce (even though we don't openly call it that) when Jesus forbade it...
...Correspondence, March 11], Eric Stoltz favors elevating "the spiritual, aesthetic, or cultural contribution" of same-sex unions, of separating "social taboos...
...CLARE WILL FAULHABER Thanks to 'Madelein' Stone Park, 111...
...Once, for example, when no one could find any record of a subscription for an order called Little Sisters of the Assumption (or something like that), I found it filed under "OF," since the card had been typed: "Of the Assumption, Little Sisters" I also recall the day when Peggy Wright, the bookkeeper, began to laugh hysterically...
...most do share the compassion of Christ for these "Rachels mourning their children, refusing to be consoled because their children are no more" [Jer...
...FRANK C. ARRICALE The author replies: Like Thomas Stahel, S.J...
...Do get on with it...
...I do wonder, though, how many explicit prohibitions of, say, fratricide I would find...
...Even more appropriate would have been an update of his article reporting the state of the question for today...
...I don't claim to be a Solomon on this issue, but to judge from my experience with Project Rachel I don't think the church's representatives qualify either...
...Choice and Sexuality" [January 28] Dennis O'Brien acknowledges the fruits of the commitment of gay couples, stating that such loving devotion is not to be cast aside as "mere perversity and sin...
...In the tradition of Catholic moral theology, this approach now has the status of at least a probable opinion which can be followed...
...As we straggle to prevent suicide, despair, alienation, and promiscuity among gay people, especially young people, we have a resource in the considerable body of authoritative moralists who enable us to present, within a Catholic context, considerations favoring the legitimacy of monogamous gay unions...
...This syllogism goes nowhere...
...The church continues to draw on arguments from biology to restrict the role of women in the church and in the world as well...
...But what has God done...
...I am sorry, however, that Madelein is convinced that the Catholic church, especially through its priests, is pitiless before a Catholic woman's experience of abortion...
...Baumann's argument is unsound, however, because it is biased...
...I think retooling has costs that we need to face up to, in this case the sacrifice of certain sacramental categories...
...Most particularly it is sexist...
...In the interim, it seems to me that the best we can do is to separate the social taboos against homosexuality and homosexual acts from any real, assumed, or imagined theological biases against homosexuality and the proper fulfillment of that state...
...Casey Lopata asserts that because some people have an "erotic attraction to persons of the same gender," and because persons are made in the image of God, then homosexuality is also made in the image of God...
...Paul Baumann warns: "An ethic that welcomes homosexual acts by elevating relational values over embodied reality is suspect...
...NAME WITHHELD 'Disputed questions' II Los Angeles, Calif...
...Not so...
...I fondly remember My Very First Job, which was at Commonweal, where my knowledge of the alphabet enabled me to work on the files...
...Where theological bases do in fact exist that indicate immorality of the sexual fulfillment of homosexual desires, we must sift out those that are based on assumptions of immutable sex roles in society as well as those which are justice issues for outmoded social systems, such as the predominantly nomadic/agrarian mindset that homosexual acts militate against the common good because they deprive the community of laborers in the field...
...In contrast, I think Paul Baumann was too quick on the trigger in some of his criticisms...
...Cracow, Poland To the Editors: Very best and most cordial greetings to all the Commonweal staff, and especially to Edward S. Skillin on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday...
...As my life has unfolded since that time six years ago, God has made me realize that he understood what his institution did not, and that judgment, if any is to be rendered, lies solely with him...
...The same argument from biology has been and continues to be employed to justify the subordination of women...
...To the Editors: I suggest that an aspect of the phenomenon of homosexuality was neglected in your package of articles...
...ANDREW GALLIGAN Slow down...
...I am doubtful we can, at least at a sacramental level...
...This is what I told her: "For what do I need forgiveness...
...To the Editors: As a Commonweal reader of more than forty years, I find myself for the first time somewhat disappointed in an issue...
...Our ontology makes no claim of inerrancy...
...I also recall Harry's arrival at Edward and Jane Skillin's elegant wedding, looking as though he had just risen from that sleep...
...A sincere desire truly to open our church to what Luke Timothy Johnson ["Debate and Discernment: Scripture & the Spirit," same issue] calls "narratives of homosexual holiness" and to acknowledge the commitment of gay couples can be achieved while continuing to confer the sacrament of marriage only on heterosexual couples...
...It may not be marriage, it may not be sacramental, but it also may not be sinful, and perhaps may even be intrinsically good...
...Can the proper goal of a naturally good—or at least neutral—desire be intrinsically evil...
...In our wondrous diversity we mirror our creator...
...GINO DALPIAZ, C.S...
...As it is, I must be content with sending my best wishes for his (and Commonweal's) next decade...
...The normative value of heterosexuality pervades the Bible and is attested to by tradition and natural law...
...In this way, the church confers only on heterosexual unions the sacrament signifying the union as "larger than life" while truly opening its doors to gay couples...
...I can detect little more than name calling in Alexandra Tyler's letter...
...But most priests—and I know a great many—are not like that...
...Sign me up for Opus Dei if you must, but the possibility that our church is silently overriding Christ's teaching on remarriage seems to me an inappropriate subject for a throwaway line...
...1:27...
...We are not all fire-breathing hedonists pontificating on the glories of sexual excess...
...She had just discovered that a big wooden cabinet that was locked up at 5 p.m...
...Danger resides in "positing a severe dichotomy between biology and covenant...
...Of these it's likely that at least 10 percent are Christians—this despite their frequent experience of bias, oppression, and even hatred on the part of straight Christians...
...To the Editors: In "How Big Is the Table...
...refreshment...
...I especially think it is difficult to untangle the theological interest incarnational religion has in the creation of life from the gender relations inherent in human procreation...
...God has made each homosexual person a man or a woman, not a neutral It (Baumann quoting Barth...
...I attended two sessions of a Project Rachel meeting in what is called a "peer group" counseling session...
...If we want to live forever, there is such a thing as heaven...
...The mystery of sexual differentiation is fundamental to the appropriation of the biblical story...
...These things are supposed to add to our skepticism about Scripture's contested categorical bar to homosexuality...
...If we are tired, there is such a thing as sleep...
...My Trappist neighbors here gave me a great birthday party on my seventieth, last September...
...Similar arguments have been and are still used to oppress people of color and the differently abled...
...Woman and man, having been created differently, fulfill their creator's purpose differently: in John Milton's words, "He for God only, she for God in him...
...To the Editors: I hope Luke Timothy Johnson's article ["Debate & Discernment: Scripture & the Spirit," January 28] is read widely...
...In Baumann's commendably open teleological exploration, the childless heterosexual couple, unlike their homosexual counterparts, are not at a "metaphysical dead-end...
...It is worth noting that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin has invited all priests of the Chicago archdiocese to an all-day meeting this month on "Project Rachel," to be conducted for "priests who want to learn how to bring spiritual healing to families wounded by abortion...
...For heterosexuals who feel sexual attraction, there is such a thing as matrimony...
...To the Editors: "Body parts count, and they signify...
...L]ike Christ, we cannot transcend gender...
...We are all created in God's image...
...Religous life does not exalt its relationships in community over marriage...
...And, believe it or not, we are capable of feeling God's love for us and of marveling how that love transforms us...
...It strikes me that genuine moral and spiritual issues confronted by real people get lost in the heated debates and political sloganeering from both sides of the abortion debate...
...Gay couples can be joined together in the church community with vows that are not sacramental...
...Scripture scholar Luke Timothy Johnson called for "narratives of homosexual holiness," but your forum failed to include the voices of Dignity, Courage, and New Ways Ministries, which might well have been able to supply such narratives...
...Obviously this is much too narrow an understanding of our freedom and too broad a definition of God's action...
...But what is the good and natural end of sexual urges for gay and lesbian people, since we know that the feeling of those urges is not itself intrinsically sinful...
...For these folks "can be seen to strengthen the symbolic and poetic validity of this [human-race-wide procreatiye] 'saga.'" The homosexual couple cannot strengthen this validity, no matter the intensity of commitment, depth of fidelity, or devotion to the next generation...
...Allow me a couple of comments on Luke Timothy Johnson and Paul Baumann...
...ASSUNTA CAST\'AN We're here Richmond, Calif...
...Only as gendered creatures do we mysteriously mirror the creator...
...Suspicion should attend "elevating relational values over embodied reality...
...Like "Madelein Gray," I was not a teen-ager caught after having one too many unprotected sexual encounters, but a woman confronted by a moral dilemma affecting both my life and the welfare of my family should I continue a pregnancy that in all likelihood would kill me or leave me permanently maimed...
...If I understand Frank Arricale, he argues that monogamous homosexual unions have already been condoned by authoritative Catholic teaching...
...Like him, we work, pay our taxes, obey laws, give to the poor, care for our sick, and go to Mass on Sundays...
...In my experience, however, a woman who seeks help from the Catholic church in this matter is assumed to have sinned and to be in need of forgiveness...
...And as for the bad experiences of James Nash ["On the Air: No Room for Dialogue," same issue], I would ask him to give us gay and lesbian Catholics the benefit of the doubt...
...With this one article, she has more than made up for her one mistake, because her words will enlighten, console, and heal people for years to come, and will help make priests like me sensitive, as Jesus would be, to her plight and the plight of her sisters...
...31:15-17...
...I hope you will continue the dialogue you have begun...
...Just like straight people, we serve on parish councils and boards...
...therefore homosexuality is inconsistent with the truth of sexual love and Commonweal 25 March 1994: 21 baby-making...
...ERIC STOLTZ New views, old news Tracy, Calif...
...Or are the integrity and maintenance of the souls in a woman's care—her spouse and children— also important...
...Johnson Birmingham, Ala...
...To the Editors: I share much common ground with the woman who wrote "Giving up the Gift," with respect both to the reasons for my own abortion and to the aftermath...
...Archie Duke," waiting quite a while in the anteroom, until it was discovered that he was Archduke Otto of Hapsburg...
...Certainly in heterosexual marriage there is a trinitarian symmetry to the union of two people who participate in the creative act, bringing about a third person through the medium of their love for one another...
...Once in the thick of his discussion, Johnson notes the "relative paucity" of scriptural condemnations of homosexuality and their "off-handed" character...
...Thanks for the memories New Braintree, Mass...
...To the Editors: There is no doubt that Paul Baumann elucidated some important aspects of marriage in his "An Incarnational Ethic: Listening to One Another" [January 28], but it is disturbing that he seems to espouse an "either-or" attitude, playing into the hands of those who claim that recognizing the value of gay unions must of necessity militate against the sacrament of matrimony...
...it turned out to be the living and breathing body of the managing editor, Harry Lorin Binsse, who had spent the night sleeping there...
...Johnson, a scholar, might want to slow down so we lay folks can better follow his insights...
...Cannot covenanted gay life, by analogy, have an honored status without lessening the rightfully exalted and primary modality of marriage...
...What is the value to the church of a woman's life once she becomes pregnant...
...There is no uninterpreted experience, and nothing demonstrates this better than our endless negotiations about sexuality...
...I have not sat down with a Bible and abacus...
Vol. 121 • March 1994 • No. 6
