Thursday, April 14, 2011

The elephant in the room

Yesterday I received an email from colleague, Dr. Janet Smith, with the subject line: "DetroitPriestsPromoteAbortionSpeaker." The email contained links to two PDF files: (1) an online announcement of the forthcoming lecture by Dr. Daniel C. Maguire on "The Gender Justice Revolution: How Feminism Builds Bridges Between Genders, Races, Sexual Orientations, Classes, and Nations" as part of The Cushing Distinguished Lecture Series at the University of Detroit Mercy, needless to say a Jesuit institution, and (2) a list of some of the Elephants, that is, a list of some of the Detroit priests, including the notorious Bishop Gumbleton, who are members of organization of priests of the Archdiocese of Detroit, called "Elephants in the Room," promoting Maguire's lecture.

Professor Daniel C. Maguire, a self-identified Catholic theologian of Marquette University, is notoriously a promoter of revisionism in Catholic moral teachings on sex-related issues such as contraception, abortion, and homosexuality, as seen in the following online articles:The Elephants in the Room is an organization of priests and laity that originated in 2003, when in the words of it's online mission statement ("About Us"):
At the bi-annual priests' convocation in Boyne Mountain, MI in October 2003, Fr. Gerry Bechard rose to ask Cardinal Maida if they were going to talk about the Elephant in the Living Room. Cardinal Maida ignored the question and returned to the agenda. A few priests decided that some subjects needed to be discussed and agreed upon returning to Detroit to hold gatherings for that purpose.
The first meeting, including both priests and laity, began in November, 2003, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The organization states its purpose as the "renewal in the church of Detroit." What it understands by "renewal" may be easily gleaned by a quick perusal of The Elephants in the Room website, which sport links on its homepage to a list of articles by luminaries that reads like a Who's Who of name-brand dissidents and revisionists such as Joan Chittister, Hans Küng, and even Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong (whose name, to their credit, they repeatedly misspell "Sprong"), author of Eternal Life Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell (2009), whose theology cannot be even remotely imagined as "Christian" without a substantial dose, I'm told, of LSD or peyote.

One cannot help but feel a touch of sympathy for someone in the predicament of Cardinal Maida in the account offered by the Elephants (above). What decent and civil human being, let alone a prominent and respected Cardinal, wants to be drawn into the thick of controversy? Much less, what bishop wants to be drawn into potentially acrimoneous debate with dissenters within in his own presbyterate, particularly when it involves politically charged hot button issues such as homosexuality, same-sex marriage, priestly celibacy or the ordination of women? I feel a similar sympathy for my colleague Dr. Janet Smith whose work I respect immensely. The unpleasant side of her work as a Catholic ethicist is that she's drawn, frequently and against her inclination, into controversies about the nastiest of subjects, which I won't even mention here. The up-side, I suppose, is that she's widely recognized, even by the Vatican, as a beacon of fidelity and articulate orthodoxy on the issues she addresses.

I have it on the authority of one of my colleagues that some of these priests in the Elephants in the Room organization are "nice guys." I don't doubt that. But how, exactly, is that relevant here? There is pervasive confusion afoot in these parts about what it means to be Catholic, not least of all at institutions such as University of Detroit Mercy. I would not advise any of my children to attend such an institution, on peril of their souls, even if they received free tuition and a stipend. There are parishes, too, similarly disordered, which nobody I know with an ounce of spiritual discernment would recommend to a Catholic searching for a church home.

There is one point on which I find myself in complete agreement with the Elephants crowd: there is an Elephant in the room. It will not simply disappear, or stop wrecking the furniture or endangering those in the room if we just ignore it.

Related links:[Hat tip to Janet Smith, Tom Peters, and Joe Martin]

1 comment:

Roger said...

Thank you for posting this highly charged and need to be told information. I have a new appreciation and gratitude for those mentioned here who let the “cat out of the bag.” My voice is less than a mouse under the foot of the elephant mentioned here. I’m sincerely appreciative for everyone here that is willing to go out on a limb for love of the Church and be persecuted along with our savior Jesus Christ. A few years ago, a man whom I would call my good friend is a scripture scholar of the highest order and formerly a teacher when the women in the room drove him out of the seminary (He is a staunch defender of truth and in full communion with the Catholic Church). I tried defending my teacher however being the only man in the room wasn’t enough and I’m sure didn’t help my status at the seminary. I barely finished my degree with the necessary credits at the other seminary, SHMS. Thank you PP for all the good work you do in building up the Church. This is no small battle waged by those who want it their way even when it’s against the defined doctrine of the Church. Stay strong, God bless.