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 Moderate Roman Catholic Position
  on Contraception and Abortion"
  
  
• "A Catholic Defense of Same Sex Marriage"

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:

• Thomas Peters, "Exclusive: Who is funding the coordinated attempt to subvert the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and marriage?" (CatholicVote.org, March 16, 2011) [billions of dollars spent in lobbying the Church to change its position on homosexuality]
  
  
• Rev. David Fischler, "Pro-homosexuality foundation pours millions into Catholic and mainline Protestant dissident groups" (MethodistThinker.com, April 8, 2011) [Protestant denominations and educational institutions targeted by the homosexual lobby to alter their positions on homosexuality]
  
  
• The Elephants, "On Homosexuality" (Links from the Elephants' website)
  
  
• Jay McNally, "Ignoring the Obvious" [pdf] (Catholic World Report, 1996) [Note date: this is a piece of unpleasant history in Detroit]

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