Church equates sexuality with sin
The Roman Catholic Church’s ongoing struggle with sexual abuse combined with the archbishop’s statements about same-sex marriages — that Catholics who support them should refrain from communion — underscore a significant blind spot in the vocational life of the priesthood: sexuality. When it comes to issues of sexuality, the Catholic Church has lost the moral high ground.
While the church claims it is doing everything it can to address the heinous history of sexual abuse by our clergy, I must respectfully disagree. We appear to be doing everything but dealing with the root cause. We do not appear to be honestly examining and changing the culture from which these men come from. The process of becoming a priest is both isolating and gender-biased, leaving those who follow that path ill-equipped to deal with issues of sexual development and identity.
Since the fifth century, when St. Augustine, classically educated in the Greek traditions of separating the mind from the body, won his personal battles with the married clergy of his day (most notably the married Bishop Julian of Eclanum), sexual intercourse and sexuality have been tied to his theories of original sin.
In other words, the church has historically treated our sexuality as sinful.
I realize that this is a broad stroke of the brush, and in the last five decades the church has done a much better job of embracing our sexuality. Nonetheless, the Catholic Church today remains steeped in institutionalized sexism that impedes the spiritual growth of not just women, gays and lesbians, but all its members.
I attended high school seminary, received a Jesuit undergraduate education, spent two years in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and participated in youth ministry for more than seven years. Long ago I decided to remain a Catholic despite the institution’s earthly flaws, the enormous good far exceeding the bad. However, raising two daughters in today’s church is often an act of cognitive dissonance. This is particularly true because the leadership of the church (i.e., priests and bishops) is denied to females.
Ironically, at this moment, committed same-sex couples are providing my children with a far greater model of love than the priesthood that I have always valued and continue to respect. Committed gays and lesbians have had to embrace their sexuality in a largely unsupportive society. Their love is tested by fire.
Ultimately, I believe that faith, hope and love will prevail. With the decline of available priests, it appears that the Holy Spirit is starving the church into submission. Eventually women and married priests will be fully accepted into the priesthood. They too will be imperfect, but it will be a good step toward more fully embracing our sexuality as a tremendous gift from God.
Maybe then the Catholic Church and the priesthood can stand on the moral high ground with renewed authority.
Michael Murphy is a social worker and special education teacher with the Gresham-Barlow School District. He attended Boston College and holds a master’s degree from Portland State University. He lives in Northeast Portland.
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