cara

‘when I could speak again it was from a bath of cool water; but first: I was kept a long time in a flame.’ chronic pain person/anti-eugenics ❤️‍🔥

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 YMMV; I’ve found devotion to Bl. Alexandrina of Balazar to be a source of consolation. I, too, went from TEC to RCC, and I took Alexandrina as my confirmation name. She’s given me no “answers” either, except for that the answer to the unanswerable does seem to be God’s presence.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 Thank you so very much for this, I really appreciate it. And I’m likewise very, very sorry to hear what you’re going through. My heart goes out to you as well. Praying for you to feel God’s peace and tender care.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 One of the priests who I most trust…is same-sex attracted. No “powerful interest groups” necessary for me to perceive that his priesthood is working out well for his holiness and for the holiness of those he serves. But absolutely, you have a perspective you’re entitled to.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 5/5 I’m still not sure what to make of your non sequitur remarks on spiritual paternity. You’re under no obligation to engage or clarify, of course. It’s just that the assertion doesn’t reflect reality or have any basis in Church teaching.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 4/5 There *is no* wealth of data and evidence indicating that integrated, chaste, “gay” men should not be ordained. There is, however, a wealth of evidence indicating that disintegrated, unchaste “gay” or “straight” men should not be ordained.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 3/5 I do think it’s important to not shift the conversation away from the fact that we’re talking about authentically *celibate* individuals, who of course aren’t going to have any kind of link to a “lifestyle.”

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 2/5 I’m terribly sorry you experienced harassment. I’ve also been harassed many times by men twice my age, *but* I don’t take that as any kind of comment on the heterosexual condition/extrapolate it onto celibate “straight” men and their capacities.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 1/5 The Instruction was promulgated during Benedict’s papacy, yes, but the Instruction doesn’t deal with same-sex attraction per se (but rather with “homosexual tendencies”). Benedict did once however, in offhand remarks, give his own take on the priesthood/SSA proper.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 My concern isn’t “fairness,” but accuracy. (And Benedict’s opinion was his own; offhand remarks =/= the Magisterium). All that prompted my response in the first place was your false claim that the experience of SSA is incompatible with a paternal role.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 Again, the discussion is about priests who experience same-sex attraction and who are *celibate.* The word “celibate” means something.
I’ve read the Liber Gomorrhianus and do “trust the timeless teaching of the church over modern excuses for sexual licentiousness.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 I’m using “gay” here merely as adjectival shorthand for “someone who experiences same-sex attraction.” You can project whatever you want onto that, I guess.
But in any case, sodomy has naught to do with celibacy.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@peterswindal The “discourse” in question (the rancidity of which is what vividly illustrates “the lose/lose relationship” mentioned here!) has been bizarre and calumnious. It’s unfortunate that Fr. Martin, more or less, started it. If he were wise, he’d stop treating himself as an authority.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@mvenuti1980 No kidding, but I was under the impression that the topic here was *celibate* gay priests.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@FrMatthewLC Has it occurred to you that Fr. Martin, of all people (and of whom I am no fan), might receive an astronomically higher number of disclosures than a random LC priest? It isn’t “concerning.” It’s to be expected.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@JQAForPresident …are silly and horrifying, as you say. But I think, also, dehumanizing. Gay celibate priests are not foxes in the henhouse. Gay people are not out here compulsively harassing our straight housemates, etc.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@JQAForPresident I don’t entirely blame her for misinterpreting, bc IDK that “projection” is really the best word for what happens when we try and copy-paste male-female/heterosocial *dynamics* onto an all-male/homosocial environment. We just shouldn’t be doing it bc the implications…

[cara @athingtoflout]

@JQAForPresident If I’d been able to continue talking with her, I’d have made the point that even Courage chaplains exhort the men under their direction to room w/other gay men who are committed to the same goal, which is a more “dangerous” situation by her reckoning than any rectory. And yet…

[cara @athingtoflout]

@JQAForPresident In other words, to say gay men can’t be priests (because chastity) would require a *redefinition* of chastity. So Church teaching is necessarily undermined in saying so.

[cara @athingtoflout]

@JQAForPresident The person I was responding to blocked me bc she thought I was implying her projection of heterosocial dynamics onto homosocial ones meant I think women should live in rectories (?), but it’s concerning that the opposition to gay priests is just “chastity is impossible, actually”