Dueling monologues

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 16, 2011

Beginning today, two Catholic universities are joining two non-denominational divinity schools for a series of talks entitled “More Than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church.” The organizer of the first session, Christine Firer Hinze of Fordham, outlines her project:

For too long, the conversation on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues in the Catholic Church has hardly been a conversation at all. We hope to move beyond the usual back and forth of official church statements and gay Catholic activists’ responses by showing how the issue of sexual diversity affects all Catholics--active or former, gay or straight, female or male, of every culture, race and ethnicity. The time has come for us to learn to listen to all their voices and engage in a more enlightened, compassionate, and honest conversation.

Does that quick description give you the impression that gay-rights activists will be encouraged to be more enlightened, compassionate, and honest? No, the rhetorical traffic is likely to flow in the other direction. It’s the institutional Church that will be expected to change.

The next session of the series, to be held at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, gives the game away with its title: “Pro-Queer Life.” Then the conversation moves to Yale Divinity School, for a seminar on same-sex marriage, at which questions will be raised about why bishops have dared to oppose the campaign for “marriage equality.” Finally the series will wind up at Fairfield—like Fordham, a Catholic school—for a discussion of pastoral care for homosexuals. The roster of speakers at the last session spans the spectrum of Catholic thought from A to B: from those who think the Church should be more accepting of homosexuals, to those who think the Church should be much more accepting of homosexuals.

In describing the overall project, the organizers list several questions that they hope to address. For instance:

• When the Catholic bishops speak, whom do they speak for?
• How can the Catholic Church, the number one provider of private education in the US, work towards the best practices of LGBTQ student empowerment and inclusion in school?
• Marriage equality is a civil issue, what does the Catholic Church have to do with it?

“For too long,” the promotional literature proclaims, “the conversation on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in the Roman Catholic Church has been only a monologue—the sole voice being heard is that of the institutional Catholic Church.” Rest assured that won’t be the case in this series. If the teachings of the “institutional Catholic Church” are introduced to this crowd, it will be for roughly the same reason that silhouette targets are brought to the rifle range.

Question: What’s more than a monologue?

Answer: Two monologues.