Nurse Challenges Catholic Archbishop’s Gay Marriage Stance
After listening to a letter by the Archbishop of Westminster urging members of her Catholic church to write their MP requesting they “vote against the government’s proposed legislation to legalize same-sex marriage,” a 65-year-old former nurse from Northern England felt called to action.
Rather than resolving to contact her MP, the woman wrote an impassioned letter to the Archbishop, calling him and the Church to task for failing to represent the love of Christ for all mankind and paying “only lip service to ecumenism and matters of social justice.”
Married for almost 30 years, she wanted to demand an explanation as to “exactly how my long and happy marriage will be threatened by the union of gay couples.” Beyond that, she felt the need to express her anger and despair over the Catholic Church’s current exclusionary teachings on homosexuality.
The writer chose to remain anonymous, with her letter representing a powerful articulation of the disappointment and dismay of so many other Catholics with the current actions of the Church.
Here are some of the highlights:
Among gay people of my acquaintance are those who have a deep spiritual life, to have one’s sexual orientation, an orientation that one is born with, described as an ‘objective disorder’ and to hear homosexual acts described as ‘intrinsically evil’ surely makes it almost impossible to feel at home or welcome in the church. It is utterly unrealistic to expect homosexual people to live celibate lives (We all know that many priests find this very difficult and sometimes impossible).
….
We believe that God is love and so it must follow that in every loving and committed relationship God must be present – or does this, in your understanding, only apply in heterosexual relationships?
….
You, the church, claim that marriage is the bedrock of society and indeed it is but you also seem to consider it so fragile that allowing a few gay people access to it will endanger it forever. Here the implicit homophobia cannot be ignored. Sadly you still think your pronouncements will be accepted without question by a meek credulous herd.
….
I sometimes despair of this church, this institution. It seems to me in my reading of the Gospels that Jesus had no problem whatsoever with those who were considered outsiders or exceptions. He appears to have happily shared meals with prostitutes, drunkards, lepers, Gentiles and I do not doubt with people of same-sex orientation since such an orientation has existed since time began. The church seems much happier with its version of order over compassion and love towards the so-called exceptions. It has an appalling history of excluding and torturing those who do not think or subscribe to its definition of ‘right’.
….
Archbishop, we have grasped the principles of evolution, stopped burning witches and holding heresy trials, discounted the flat earth theory. Do you now think we could move the debate about equal human rights for people of same-sex orientation and also the status of women in the church on by a few millennia please?
Read the entire letter at The Gay Star News
Photo via Flickr by Ronald Repolona