John Donne and John Adams on Chastity

My favorite living composer is John Adams.  I’ve had the privilege of performing several of his pieces, and even meeting the composer on a few occasions.  His music is the sort of music that a lot of soundtracks are based off of–the difference being that he’s the “real deal,” and the movie composers steal his ideas.  (For any music aficionados who might be reading my blog, and who are curious, here’s a perfect example:  the soundtrack to The Tree of Life by Terence Malick, composed by Alexandre Despat would never have been imagined or created without John Adams.  Adams’s Harmonielehre is the real deal, while Despat is merely the imitation).

A few years back, I had the good fortune to play one of the first performances of Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony, adapted from his opera of the same name.  In the symphony there is an amazing trumpet solo that I learned later was transcribed from an aria for baritone, where the libretto was based on Holy Sonnet 14 written by John Donne.

In John Adams’s own description of his work, “Doctor Atomic concerns the final hours leading up to the first atomic bomb explosion at the Alamagordo test site in New Mexico in July of 1945. The focal characters are the physicist and Manhattan Project director, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer.”  The trumpet solo that I fell in love with was the finale of the first act, and featured Oppenheimer singing poignant words from John Donne, which apparently Oppenheimer was reading while the Manhattan Project was under way.

I find the text, and the music, a beautiful representation of those who desire chastity in their lives, and yet find the challenge insurmountable at times.

Holy Sonnet 14

Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

 

 

“What if straight was gay and gay was straight”

Here’s a recently uploaded video on YouTube that one of my friends on Facebook linked to today.  It’s a rather sentimentalist attempt at engendering empathy, which comes from a desire to love and to understand.  About the only positive comment I can make about this film is that it does reveal how some people may have felt when they discovered that they were living with same sex attraction in a world in which being a “fag” was inconceivable, or to “be gay” is considered a fate worse than death.  (How much does that really happen today, however?  I think much of that is in the past, which I think is a legitimate good that came out of Stonewall and the gay rights movement–both good and bad has come out of the movement, in my mind.)  No doubt too many children have awoken to the realization that they are attracted to members of the same sex, and that awareness leads to tremendous inner turmoil, and the film tries to show this, albeit in a very caricatured way.  The Church certainly needs to minister to the pain of these boys and girls in a more concrete way, but this sort of video I think is absurd, and ultimately doesn’t really help anyone, except to allow the persons who promote it on Facebook and elsewhere to feel a sense of self satisfaction about their own enlightened open mindedness.

Of course, where the film becomes absurd is when one asks the obvious question: where did everyone in the movie come from?  Storks? Or has the world of this silly video always been “A Brave New World” in which children are created in Hatcheries?  It’s sentimental drivel, resulting from a Glee-ified world.

National Catholic Singles Conference

I’m happy to announce that I’ll be a speaker at the National Catholic Singles Conference in Philadelphia, very happily talking about how beautiful the Church’s teaching on sexuality is, and that we as single people need to abandon ourselves to Divine Providence in order to find peace and joy.  Check out the speakers’ list.  All I can say is Deo Gratias!

A New First Things Piece

Here’s my new piece about identity, up at First Things.

The essence of my piece can be summed up in this paragraph:

Since I am Catholic, the sexual identity I am called to embrace is my maleness; my true orientation is towards women, my true sexual complement. Insofar as I am attracted to men rather than women, I do not discover a different essential orientation within myself, but rather a disorientation of my sexual attractions. A homosexual “orientation,” no matter how strongly it is subjectively experienced within our person, does not exist within God’s blueprint for humanity. We know this based on the authority of the Church, the custodian and interpreter of revelation.

Chaput on Same Sex Marriage

To begin this post, let me start out by saying that I’m not interested too much in being a part of the fight against same sex “marriage.”  It’s not that I don’t want to see it prevented, or that I don’t think that it’s a dangerous road for society to go down, since I do believe it will have disastrous consequences for society.  I think the Church, and all people who value the institution of marriage, do well to fight against it.  I just don’t want my life with same sex attraction to cause me to be involved in that battle, because I feel that my vocation is rather to promote the beauty of the Church’s teachings for same sex attracted individuals.  The Body of Christ is large.  I will pray about the dignity of marriage, but I rely on others to fight that battle, since I don’t want to become involved with politics.

With that being said, though this post on same sex marriage by Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia is excellent, what I want to focus on is not so much the arguments contained within the article about marriage, but rather his terminology.

Never once in his article does Chaput use the terms homosexual, gay or lesbian.  He instead opts for the term that I continue to advocate, and that Courage teaches her members to use, which stems from a desire to be faithful to the Church’s teaching on sexual identity.

When another author might say “the homosexual lobby,” Chaput consciously writes, “the same-sex lobby.”  When discussing what others would term “gay adoption,” Chaput writes about “same-sex couples adopting children.”

The following section from Chaput’s article is pithy, and well argued, but I take much more from it than merely framing the current tenor of the debate:

Persons with same-sex attraction have the same basic dignity as other people and the same right to be free from fear and intimidation.  But a right to redefine the nature of marriage does not follow.  In fact, the marriage debate has now morphed into emotionally streamlined theater, with same-sex couples cast as victims unjustly denied their rights, and supporters of traditional marriage cast as misguided fearmongers and bigots.

The first sentence is derived from paragraph 2358 of the Catechism, which tells us that people like me “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.  Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”  (Suffice it to say many on the Catholic left twist this to suggest that denying marriage to same-sex couples is “unjust discrimination,” which is merely a tendentious reading).

What I have come to believe is that the fundamental dignity of men and women like me who live with same sex attraction should motivate the Church to actually work to free us from the notion that we are a member of the “LGBTQ community,” in the way in which the “LGBTQ community” defines the human person.  Every letter in that particular alphabet soup reflects a lie about the human person, concocted by man, and in this, Chaput is actually respecting the God given dignity of every man, woman and child, by refusing to use culturally constructed imaginations of the human person.  To me, for people like Eve Tushnet, Joshua Gonnerman, Melinda Selmys and others like them, the Church needs to propose a new “coming out” for them, and others who identity so strongly with the “LGBTQ” community.  I have become convinced that for those who cling so strongly to a gay identity, this identity has become a land to which they have not been willing to leave, contrary to the invitation of God and the Church.  I think it is their Ur, which God called Abram from out of, and I think this is part of the good news of the Church.

The identity debate I think will be a mere blip on the Catholic radar screen.  Like so many other faulty notions of man which have entered into the Church through the millennia, it will be resolved, and the language used by Chaput in this document suggests to me where the Church is headed.  Archbishop Cordileone’s appointment to San Francisco seems quite telling as well. He recently censored the Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry for not being authentically Catholic, in part because of their use of the terms “gay and lesbian,” which he said aren’t in the vocabulary of the Church.

 

An Unapologetic Apology for Courage

Just the other day I posted a link to Fr. Check’s recent interview in the Catholic forum  of a website dedicated to Christianity and all things homosexual.  The majority of people there have reached a point where they believe that God blesses and endorses same sex relationships, basing this belief on gay “theology.”  The minority are people who have embraced traditional teaching about sexuality and have chosen to live a life of abstinence.  I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that though there is a great divide between the two, one thing they share in common is that they generally view the Courage Apostolate  with great disdain.  Being rather stubborn, naturally contrarian and inclined to speak my mind, occasionally I’ll post things about Courage to see what bubbles up from to the surface. It’s always a fascinating exercise, and I’m never sure exactly what angle the reaction will take, but I know it will generally be critical.

I always enjoy it when someone there resorts to saying that I must have a miserable life, or when someone there says things similar to what I was actually told there, “no one would ever want to be you.”  I always grin when I read these sorts of silly comments, and my internal answer to that is well, that at least I want to be me, so that theory goes out the window.  There’s at least one person who wants to be me.

People there on both sides of the issue seem to find it inconceivable that a person could actually believe everything the Catholic Church says about homosexuality, accept it, embrace it and yet still be psychologically healthy and lead a fulfilling life.   I’ve always left those interactions shaking my head and wondering why they think as they do.  This most recent round of comments though provided me with an epiphany of sorts:  the vast majority of criticisms of Courage are based on straw men.

I’ve found the criticism there (and elsewhere) tends to come from two extremes.  On the one hand, you have the people who have chosen to live the way they want to live their lives, and get angry that the Church still clings to Natural Law when thinking about sexuality.  They don’t like Courage because we believe what the Church teaches on homosexuality.  On the other hand are those who also embrace Catholic views on sexuality, but in opposition to Church teaching, have chosen to embrace a gay identity, and get angry that the Church uses language like “objective disorder,” or that the Church is disinclined to ordain people like me to the priesthood.  They tend towards viewing homosexuality as something to be celebrated in their lives, as if it’s the component of their life which makes them so interesting and fascinating, and to which they seem to attribute so many traits in their life that they find admirable, which I’ve always found to be very strange.  The first camp views Courage as self-righteous prigs.  The second camp views us as repressed men and women filled with self-loathing and shame.  I address both angles in my post, and I figured since I took the time to write a response there, I might as well post it here:

It’s always a fun game to read criticisms of Courage.

On the one hand, we’re told that we’re all filled with spiritual pride, and that we think we’re more virtuous than other people, that we all think we’re wonderfully spiritual and well balanced individuals, and then on the other hand, we’re told that we are filled with shame and self-loathing, that we’re an organization that serves a purpose for those who are sex addicts (with the tacit assumption that we are all addicted to sex). I’ve been told that we’re all living very unbalanced and unhealthy lives, that we have bizarre psycho-sexual views of the world and of our own sexuality, and in essence that we’re repressed and chronically depressed people.When it comes, criticism of Courage is always done in extremes, and the entire Apostolate is painted with one broad brush. Where the paint bucket comes from however is from either end of the bell curve: either we’re Pharisaical self-righteous holy rollers with an authoritarian fetish, [something I've been accused of there] or pathetic, mopey people with miserable lives who have a “sad vision” of human existence [another accusation leveled against me there].It’s always entertaining to see what criticism comes next. In the meantime, we keep sharing the good news of the Church, and the Apostolate continues to grow, well, because of course, Courage actually embraces everything that the Church teaches, about everything. No existential angst about identity, or the unreasonable demands of chastity, or disliking the Church’s language and teaching about homosexuality or worrying about what the world thinks about the Catholic Church and sexuality, since, well, the Holy Spirit’s in charge of all of that. In the meantime, we just live our lives with an honest acknowledgment of our need for God (God forbid: some meetings actually start with one of the 12 steps–though depending on who you ask, that’s a sign of A). that we do it out of a self-righteous false humility, or B). because we’re unbalanced sex addicts barely holding it together) and then try to help our fellow members lead the lives they’ve chosen to live for themselves. We pray for each other, and then we go get a beer and enjoy each other’s company. It’s just awful what the Courage Apostolate is and does in people’s lives.In all of my talks where I speak and promote the Courage Apostolate, one component that I particularly take great relish in is disabusing people of both sorts of criticisms, which is easy to do, since they’re both so extreme in nature to be easily seen as caricatures.

What I’ve come to realize about most criticisms of Courage is simple:  the emperor has no clothes.

Fr. Paul Check Interview

The National Catholic Register has a new interview with Fr. Paul Check, head of the Courage Apostolate, that is well worth a read.

An excerpt:

Courage is an apostolate of the Church. In a practical, concrete and personal way it is an expression of the Church’s pastoral charity toward  men and women who have a homosexual inclination, and to their parents, spouses or other family members.

 

The work of Courage is to enflesh the Gospel message in a particular group of people with a certain understanding of themselves and in those who love this group of people.

The word most closely associated with the Catholic Church and homosexuality in the civil order and within the Church is the word “No.” It is true, an erotic attraction to a member of the same sex cannot be acted upon. The Church does say “No” to that.

 

Yet the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of “Yes” — yes to all people, yes to a universal invitation to the fullness of life in Christ, while understanding that Jesus told us that there are some actions that are incompatible with that new life.