May 20th, 2008
If not you, then who?
Yesterday Minnesota Public Radio’s MidMorning dedicated an hour to Father Michael O’Connell, rector at St. Mary’s Basilica who is leaving to work in a parish in North Minneapolis.
Father O’Connell’s careful response to Kerri Miller’s questions about LGBT issues in the Catholic Church was an awkward navigation through a public relations land mine. Miller did not let him off the hook too easily.
She asked him, “Father, if people in your position, who believe whatever it is that they believe, don’t speak out about this, and challenge the Church doctrine, then who will?”
It wasn’t rhetorical, but she didn’t get an answer. Despite her journalistic drive to find an answer, there is a different boundary when it comes to interviewing a man of the cloth, and Miller changed the subject after several rounds of non-answers.
Here is the transcript of the LGBT segment of their conversation. The full hour can be downloaded here. (This transcript is made possible by the keyboard talents of yours truly, so if this post is useful in your blogging, don’t forget to give my blog a nod. Thanks.)
Kerri Miller: Online [question] from Alison in New Brighton. What’s the future for GLBT people in this diocese and outreach programs like those at the Basilica?
Father O’Connell: Well, I think that the drift right now of our Catholic Church is more towards the conservative side of things, and ah, because of that, ah, ah, I suspect that there ah, there will be, um, unfortunately and sadly less and less sympathy to the GLBT community. And, ah, I just hope that people in that community will continue to find a home in some places in the Catholic Church and realize that the Church ought to be as big as God is. My wonderful about-to-be successor, Father John Bauer, the new rector of the Basilica, he says, “Big God, Big Church.” And ah, the Church ought — the Church’s embrace oughtn’t be any less than God’s.
Miller: So he agrees with you on the gay and lesbian issue –
Father O’Connell: He agrees –
Miller: — which disagrees with the Pope and the hierarchy –
Father O’Connell: No, I wouldn’t put it that way. What he and I agree with is that we should not be restrictive in terms of who’s welcomed into our Church. And they ought to come in with what pain they have and feel free to express it and at some levels be able to enter into dialog with the Church and be, ah, supported by it.
Kerri Miller: You know that the California Supreme Court, ah, decided last week — or struck down a ban, I guess I should say– on gay marriage. Um, do you think they made the right decision?
Father O’Connell: Well, to be honest with you I’ve only heard about that peripherally so I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it. And ah, I don’t –
Miller: But the issue has been out there for a while.
Father O’Connell: The issue has been out there and, ah, I just don’t think it’s helpful for me right now to personally and specifically comment on that.
Miller: Why, Father? Well then let me ask you the larger question. Do you think gay and lesbian people should be permitted to marry?
Father O’Connell: I think, ah, gay and lesbian people have every bit as much a right to their human dignity as anybody else. And I think our society is gonna continue to struggle both outside the church and within it to acknowledge and recognize that dignity.
Miller: But I don’t hear you using the word marriage. Why not?
Father O’Connell: Well, marriage, sacramental marriage as we would define it in the Catholic Church, ah, in terms of the law of the Church is very explicit in ah, it being between a man and a woman so –
Miller: Do you disagree with that?
Father O’Connell: I can’t sit here and take that law on publicly.
Miller: Why not?
Father O’Connell: Because it is the law of the Church and ah –
Miller: What you’re saying right now is revealing. You’re saying that the church, what, would not want you to be publicly disagreeing with, with Church law? Church doctrine? Why?
Father O’Connell: I think that as an official representative of the church, ah, which I am,which I have been, which I will continue to be, ah, ah, it’s not appropriate for me as I — in terms of a decision that I have made, to be in public debate with the Church about that particular question that you are posing.
Miller: Father, if people in your position, who believe whatever it is that they believe, don’t speak out about this, and challenge the Church doctrine, then who will?
Father O’Connell: Well, I do believe there has been and there will continue to be, ah, a very heartfelt and prayerful critical conversation about all of this in the Church. And so, I support that. Ah, I think if I believed that there was no opportunity for us to exercise the brain that God gave us, ah, and the heart that God gave us, and the critical conversation about how do we respect the dignity of all people in the church then I really wouldn’t be authentic in my faith.
Miller: But, so, you’re saying, ‘The conversation can go on without me.’
Father O’Connell: I’m saying that all of us are in that conversation. And ah, we have been for some time. We will continue to be. I think, you know, to the point you are trying to make, Kerri –
Miller: — but I’m ask — I’m trying to clarify where you are on th– on this, and is there some reason you can’t speak freely about it?
Father O’Connell: I think that, I don’t think that, I know I’ve made a decision about where it’s appropriate for me to enter into this dialog, ah within the church, ah, and, ah, I don’t, ah, this isn’t the right place for that.
Crystal clear, right?
I recognize that Father O’Connell is limited in what he can say, and I doubt he would think it some great revelation to hear me say that the key to “dignity” is not that tricky. Stop the spiritual violence. Stop the conditional love that hangs over the heads of LGBT people when they step into a sanctuary.
Sadly, the Basilica’s website has removed specific references to “Boulevards” (the LGBT outreach/support/social group) and only has a phone number for you to call for help to meet with someone to “grow in knowledge and understanding.”
At some point, even the most patient and faithful LGBT people grow weary of “dialog.” At some point, LGBT people want communities of faith that will move beyond the presumed “pain” and re-frame their faith community as a place where everyone can bring their joy, too.
Catholic doctrine & GLBT issues: a Minneapolis priest’s conflict…
Abigail over at Damn Straight blog has transcribed a portion of yesterday’s Midmorning Show on MPR featuring Father Michael O’Connell, rector at St. Mary’s Basilica who is leaving to work in a parish in North Minneapolis. Host Kerri Miller a…
This is madness.
I feel sorry for Catholic religious who are people of discernment and faith. On the one hand, they know that, as the hymn says, “there’s a wideness in God’s mercy… there’s a kindness in His justice…”. They know that God is bigger than the petty bigotries of his spokespeople. At the same time, they have taken oaths of loyalty and obedience to a hierarchy that is showing itself to be increasingly vindictive against those who call it on its hypocrisy.
We may expect religious leaders to be exceptionally courageous in the moral stands they take. But they, like all of us, fear reprisals. And, like all of us, those reprisals are often most threatening when they attack our livelihood or the core of our identity. For vowed religious and the ordained, the backlash against their speaking ‘truth to power’ would almost certainly attack both.
It is certainly ironic that the church itself would be the agent of repression when the Gospel should be one of liberation.
…her blogsite Damn Straight and the LGBT segment of this interview. It’s definitely worth taking a look at,…
I certainly get that whether or a not a priest agrees with the church’s position, he might need to “close the ranks” when speaking out in public. For all we know, a priest that stands publicly with the church might be a dissenter behind closed doors — I think employees of a lot of companies or organizations would act the same way.
However, IMO, they also have a responsibility to those to whom they are ministering, who may have questions or be seeking spiritual guidance, whether they are members of a church congregation, patients in a hospital, or students at a Catholic college. I’d like to see someone have the courage to say publicly what they might disagree with privately.
The tradition of the Catholic Church has been that the informed conscience of the individual Catholic trumps the teaching authority of the church. But in this day and age when pro-choice Catholic politicians find themselves the subject of front-page debates concerning their right to partake of the Eucharist, it is no wonder that people feel the church has a “agree or shut up” policy.
[...] should not falter because of increased fear, or because of added scrutiny, or because the marginalized group includes gays and lesbians. I submit this resignation to honor my family, to honor my community, and to honor my lifetime [...]