The Empty Tomb: Cardinal Newman’s last laugh?
Was Cardinal Newman gay? Or (as the joke has it) simply divine? That was the controversy that dominated the dust-up over exhuming John Henry Newman, the great nineteenth-century English convert to Rome, in order to move his body to a more suitable location for veneration–that in anticipation of his beatification (the penultimate step to canonization) by Pope Benedict XVI next year.
Newman, you see, had requested–indeed insisted, with his final breath–that he be buried in a grave at Rednal Hill cemetery outside Birmingham with Ambrose St. John, a fellow Oratorian who Newman described as the great love of his life. “I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Fr Ambrose St John’s grave–and I give this as my last, my imperative will,” he wrote, “This I confirm and insist on.”
Many today thus insisted that removing Newman’s body from the grave would violate his last wishes as well as what they saw as a relationship that was more than Platonic–hence Newman was, improbably, becoming a gay icon of the twenty-first century. Andrew Sullivan–a gay English Catholic–”dished” on this argument here.
Not surprisingly, that argument sparked more than a bit of debate, and strong counterreactions. Those reactions may say more about a 21st-century American culture that is hinky about male friendships than it does about Newman. Still, theirs was an especially intense bond. Here is the English Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh at “In All Things” on the relationship between Newman and St. John:
The two men loved each other deeply, had a life-long friendship, and lived together. And since Newman’s death in 1890 they have remained in the same grave in Rednal, about eight miles from Cardinal Newman’s house in Edgbaston, outside Birmingham.
In 1854 Newman wrote: “We have bought (I trust) a burying place — under the Lickey Hills, just about eight miles off — it is a most beautiful spot. . . . We are going to build a cottage there and ultimately a mortuary chapel.” They share a tombstone with the inscription “out of shadows and phantasms into the truth” etched across it.
Newman wrote after the death of St John in 1875: “I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband’s or a wife’s, but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or anyone’s sorrow greater, than mine.”
The Cardinal -a hyper-sensitive, even delicate man — had intense friendships of the sort common in that age, especially in all-male bastions such as the clergy and Oxford.
But Ivereigh’s judgment that it is a bit much to consider the two men as a “couple” or “partners” in the modern, homosexual sense, seems about right, even if one must also consider the possibility that they were homosexually-inclined men who shared an intense if chaste relationship.
Is there anything wrong with that? A Newman biographer, Father Ian Ker, seemed to think so, penning a piece in the Vatican newspaper (CNS story here) in which he blamed the “homosexual lobby” for stirring up controversy (actually the first hurdle was a British law barring exhumation; that was eventually waived) and echoing a favorite line that celibacy can only be a sacrifice for a heterosexual not a homosexual because only a straight man is giving up marriage with a woman. “The only reason for which celibacy could be a sacrifice was that Newman, as every normal man, wanted to get married,” Ker said. Ker seemed on firmer ground with this point:
Nowadays there is no concept of friendship. In those days they had a concept of a loving friendship we have lost today,” he said.
“You no longer can say you love your friend,” he said. “But in those days people spoke quite openly of their love for their friends. Is this going to get to the point when fathers no longer can say they love their daughters? It is quite horrendous the implications of this nonsense.”
Alas, last week in a Geraldo moment (remember the safe opening from the wreck of the Titanic?) the gravediggers opened the tomb and…nothing! According to a church statement:
“Brass, wooden and cloth artefacts from Cardinal Newman’s coffin were found. However there were no remains of the body of John Henry Newman. An expectation that Cardinal Newman had been buried in a lead-lined coffin proved to be unfounded. In the view of the medical and health professionals in attendance, burial in a wooden coffin in a very damp site makes this kind of total decomposition of the body unsurprising. The absence of physical remains in the grave does not affect the progress of Cardinal Newman’s cause in Rome.”
It does quash the prospect of relics, at least of the first class. And what of the gay controversy? Austen Ivereigh again has the best epitaph to the whole affair:
There is something very Newmanesque about the end to this story. A shy, delicate, bookish man, he was never at ease with some of the aesthetic and ritual habits of the Church to which he spectacularly converted in 1844. The fact that there will be no lying-in-state, no marble sarcophagus to venerate, and no relics to distribute (beyond the few locks of hair that exist), seems hugely appropriate.
And how apt, in retrospect, seem the words of the epitaph which Newman and St John chose for their tomb: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem — “Out of shadows and phantasms into Truth.”
Good thing they moved him before he started rolling in his grave. “Gay” is not a person, it is a relationship with a person. We all know that Love need not be Sexual Love in order for it to be Love. “No greater Love has no man than this, that he lay down his Life for a Friend.”
oops, looks like the haven’t moved him yet. He must already be rolling.
My first impulse is to say: does this really change what this many meant and what he contributed to the church and society? Is it possible that whatever existed between these two men, it makes us move beyond rigid characterizations, judgments, etc. and focus on the heart and mind.
Then, again, am reminded of the constant high school seminary and college seminary (repeated in most religious communities – don’t think the Oratorians were any different) exhortations about guarding against “Particular Friendships” – a euphemism if there ever was one.
. . . . even if one must also consider the possibility that they were homosexually-inclined men who shared an intense if chaste relationship.
I would strongly consider this possibility. Also, I don’t know what current research would have us believe, but Kinsey said, “Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories… The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.” Someone (John Money?) went even farther and said there are as many sexual orientations as there are people.
“Gay” is not a person, it is a relationship with a person.
You will find the Church speaking of “homosexual persons” in many official documents, for example, the CDF’s “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.” If there are “homosexual persons,” there are “gay persons” (although I would say that “gay” implies self-acceptance and “homosexual” is neutral or perhaps even a bit negative).
We all know that Love need not be Sexual Love in order for it to be Love.
I think love is love, obviously with some different angles for those who have a sexual relationship, but I wouldn’t say that “nonsexual love” is superior to “sexual love.”
I am happy that Cardinal Newman and Ambrose St. John loved each other deeply, since I think it is a good thing when any two people love each other deeply and want to share their lives together, whether they are gay, straight, something in between, or asexual.
It is delightful, really delightful, that Newman has escaped the Vatican intruders upon his resting place, even if had to do it by not being. One is always delighted to hear that interfering bureaucrats have been thwarted. My day is made!
Are there any stories about the bodily Assumption of Cardinal Newman? Even a more mundane tale of “sacred theft” by those who wished for relics?
Maybe we should start some rumors…
Cardinal Newman’s love for his friend, and his deep sorrow at his friend’s death, reminded me of the passage in Augustine’s “Confessions” (Book 4, Chap. 4) where he describes the intense friendship he had had, in his pre-Baptism days, with an unnamed young man he had known since childhood. The friend became ill with fever, and Augustine, afraid of losing his friend, never left his side. The friend recovered, but only for a short time, succumbing finally to the fever.
Augustine eloquently describes his grief, and his anger at God–“that phantasm”– in the following passage, which Cardinal Newman would certainly have been aware of:
“At this grief my heart was utterly darkened; and whatever I beheld was death. My native country was a torment to me, and my father’s house a strange unhappiness; and whatever I had shared with him, wanting him, became a distracting torture. Mine eyes sought him every where, but he was not granted them; and I hated all places, for that they had not him; nor could they now tell me, ‘he is coming,’ as when he was alive and absent. I became a great riddle to myself, and I asked my soul, why she was so sad, and why she disquieted me sorely: but she knew not what to answer me. And if I said, Trust in God, she very rightly obeyed me not; because that most dear friend, whom she had lost, was, being man, both truer and better than that phantasm she was bid to trust in. Only tears were sweet to me, for they succeeded my friend, in the dearest of my affections.”
Actually David, the definition of Love is the Word of Love, God.
Most readers of this blog know that I think that same-sex relationships of the most intimate kind can be understood as not only good, but holy. I would be happy to justify this conclusion via arguments (nooooooo! the rest of dotCommers reply, that would be nearly as dreadful as starting another abortion thread!), but my only point in mentioning this is to clarify the perspective from which I view this post. And that perspective is this…These two guys were clearly gay. Moreover, they seem to have been genuinely upset at the religious and social constraints that required them to keep their relationship a secret. Otherwise, how does one explain the epitaph? Out of the shadows? Into the truth?
Look, of course we have gotten bad at valuing the love of close friends. But that truth hardly succeeds in explaining two friends who lived together AND WHO WANTED TO BE BURIED TOGETHER IN THE SAME GRAVE!!! I realize that those who would like their saints to keep up with all of the pronouncements of the magisterium feel that they have something to defend here, but it seems clear to me that either Newman is a bad candidate for sainthood, or real saints are more complicated than some would like them to be.
Joe–
I don’t really care if Newman was gay. If he was, it doesn’t diminish his cause for beatification/canonization as far as I’m concerned. However, couldn’t it be that you are reading “Out of shadows and phantasms into Truth” with a sensibility about homosexuality either not present during Newman’s time, or at least not present openly in the Church at that time. “Truth” could just as well be a synonym for God, and “shadows and “phantasms” synonyms for the imperfect nature of this world that prevents us from fully comprehending and apprehending God. Wouldn’t it be more likely that the inscription for the grave of two Catholic clerics–one of them a Cardinal–would have a religious connotation? It seems unlikely to me that Newman and his friend would contrive a witty double entendre for their gravestone.
Everyone is more complicated….well stated, Mr. Pettit. We could start a fairly extensive list: Dag Hammerskold (UN Secretary General); Henri Nouwen, etc.
Here is a link to Dignity: Shortcut to: http://www.dignityusa.org/faq.html
William: You may be entirely correct about the epitaph. The sleeping together for eternity thing, however…?
Joe,
As if “coming out” was the only truth!
Kathy,
You make living an honest and public relationship sound like a PR stunt. By the way, I am far from convinced that the strictly theological reading is the best reading. I am still inclined to see a connection between the method of burial and epitaph.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know of anyone else being buried in such a manner?
Joe,
Happens all the time. My dad is buried in a deep grave–room for my mom to join when the time comes (God willing, not soon!), and cheaper in the long run.
I don’t really care if Newman was gay.
William,
No one should care. But of course if another gay person of his abilities came along today, he couldn’t even be ordained a priest.
Grant. “In the long run” is a great qualifier for discussions of burial.
Love = extending oneself for the benefit of the one loved.
Perhaps the authorities in Rome will allow Newman’s dust to stay where it is?
Let’s hope so!
Love = extending oneself for the benefit of the one loved.
Then what does it mean to love God, since I don’t believe we can do anything to benefit him?
Actually David, the definition of Love is the Word of Love, God.
If God is love, falling in love with God is falling in love with love!
Kathy sez: As if “coming out” was the only truth!
As a gay man I know that, until you tell the truth about yourself … to yourself and to others … there are no other truths. A basic lie negates whatever you think is true about how you relate to yourself, family, friends, co-workers, to life and ultimately to the God who made you.
Until you are truthful to God, all else is deception and lacking truth.
What kind of irony is this that gays will teach the church (hierarchs) truthfulness? Will quoting Newman ever be the same again? Is some kind of paradigm shift going on here? This might be bigger than we realize.
You are, of course, right Jimmy. But the guys in the miters are more concerned about control than truth.
David, the definition of love I offered comes, if I recall, from Eric Fromm. I think Scott Peck used it, as well. (Perhaps others can confirm?)
If, as you contend, we can do nothing to benefit God, then one must ask: Why did God create us?
Perhaps God’s all-encompassing power, etc. comes from humility?
Jimmy Mac,
I don’t understand what you are saying on many different levels. First of all, no one is completely candid (thank goodness) about everything in their lives to everyone in their lives. How much do coworkers need to know about anyone’s love lives? Certainly not everyone needs or wants to know everything that God knows. There’s a huge difference, I think, between repression and discretion.
But mostly I mean by my comment that being honest, not lying, is minimalistic when compared to the grandeur of truth. It’s on a completely different scale. I think Newman’s concerns were a lot more spacious than Joe initially suggested.
Since Grant did a fine job of setting me straight on folks getting buried on top of each other, I would like to try again asking for help. Other than John and Paul, are there any other Biblical traditions that suggest that ultimate truth is masked in this world and real truth is to be known only life after death? To be honest, I find the concept rather unbiblical (John and Paul excluded of course, which admittedly limits the power of the qualifier), certainly unJewish, and really rather gnostic. Perhaps it is something that Newman would have no problem with, but I am wondering why it is such an obviously good thing for a follower of God to believe.
My inclincation is to let transcendence stay with God, and not to even begin to think that it is something in which humans ever could or should participate.
Joseph,
I didn’t intend my message to be taken too seriously, although it does seem to me we can’t do anything to benefit God. But then again, if we try too hard to be accurate in what we say about God, it seems to me it’s difficult to say anything at all. For example, I think it’s universally agreed that God exists outside of time. So talking about what God did, or what he will do, can’t be accurate, because it attributes a past and a future. It boggles the mind, especially mine!
This is glorious!
I had occasion to tell Archbishop Nichols that the exhumation was in bad taste, and I am always happy to tell Fr Ker that his macho version of Newman is a travesty.
But how delightful that Newman for once has given the slip to those who want to reshape his story and his body for crass Catholic purposes. How delightful that he has managed to steal discreetly away.
Kathy:
Coming Out is a concept that most people who don’t have to do it, don’t really understand. It is not just telling the world that you are gay. It essentially is telling yourself who and what you are. Kathy, people such as you live in a world where it is assumed that the way you are is the way things are meant to be. Your churches tell you that; your societies tell you that; your role models tell you that; your families and friends are, for the most part, that way and presume that way is The Way. However, there are many of us who gradually discover that we aren’t that way. Until we learn to be honest with ourselves first and ultimately others we do not and cannot know the truth. Until we can be honest about who and what we are, whatever “truth” we think we are telling is not The Truth. Rather, it is a lie that we tell in order to come to fit in with what we have been led to believe is the way things are, should be and must be in order to garner the approval of our families, our society, our churches and … if we really fall for it … our God. Until we come to the most essential truth of who and what we are, we are not capable of understanding truth at its most personal, honest and basic sense. Therefore, there is no “truth” in our lives until we understand this most personal of truths, i.e., until we “come out” in the most basic, most truthful, sense of what that means.
I used to live in Birmingham and know both the Lickey Hills and the Oratory well (lived round the corner from the latter). Given a choice I’d definitely choose to be buried at the Lickeys. Birmingham, being in the centre of England, has no accessible coast line. The people of Birmingham needing a place to enjoy themselves on their days off from their industrial working lives turned to the Lickeys. It is not only a place of natural beauty but also a place of fun – trams used to travel there full of working people wanting to play golf, enjoy the views and eat ice cream. In these days of people travelling further afield some of that has been lost but it is still frequented by people wanting to get away from the pollution of inner city Birmingham. The Oratory, in contrast, is on a busy city road and while its obviously grand it doesn’t feel like a place of rest. But it appears this argument is pointless anyway!
Joseph Jaglowicz, the definition of Love that I use comes from Christ, who IS the Way, the Light (Life), and the Truth of Love, God.
David, “falling in Love with Love”, I think I like the sound of that! That is, the sound of that sentence, not the song.
Much of what has been written on this blog regarding Cardinal Newman is simply heresay, I mean, hearsay. There is a difference between Love and lust. Love is not possessive nor does it serve to manipulate.
Actually, what I really meant to say is heresy.
Thanks for many of these comments. On reflection, what motivated me to post on this–apart from my interest in all things Newman–was the neuralgia over male friendship in modern society (esp ours). I would like to think Newman was a homosexual, in that it would force Vatican officials (and others) to give their biases a second look. It would also lend an added poignancy and spiritual depth to his apparently chaste frendship with St. John. On the other hand, I’m not sure we can ever know, and in our contemporary American context, I’d like to think theirs was a relationship that straight men could learn from.
Not that I want to be buried with any of you.
Friendship is a relationship of Love, not a relationship of lust, for Love is not possessive, Love is complementary. I would like to think that theirs was a relationship of Love.
BTW, you might want to read Tom Beaudoin (late of Santa Clara, now at Fordham) on “Young Men and Friendship” at the America blog:
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=DD6058E6-1321-AEAA-D336073B32B89A13
“I don’t really care if Newman was gay. If he was, it doesn’t diminish his cause for beatification/canonization as far as I’m concerned.”
I couldn’t agree more.
I’m a big fan of canonization by acclamation. If Newman lived a worthy and admirable life, let’s celebrate it. Let’s pray for him to intercede. Let’s hold him up as a role model to our children.
The Vatican is bound to catch up sooner or later.
If Newman lived a worthy and admirable life, then all his relationships would be relationships of Love. We are all called to live our lives according to the Word of Love. “Love one another as I have Loved you.”
Cardinal Newman was a big fan of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Saints because he believed their intercession increases the devotion of the people to the Faith. He would be delighted at the idea of his canonization.
P.S., you should care if someone is involved in a “gay” relationship because it is not consistent with Christ’s teaching on Sexual Love and Marriage. If you Love someone, you tell them the truth about the Truth.
Hi, Nancy, do you believe that Cardinal Newman was involved in a gay relationship, however you define it?
If you’re satisfied that he was, is sainthood still within his reach?
Christ has revealed, that all of us are called to develop Holy relationships and friendships. Some of these friendships will develop into Marriage. It is God’s desire that all Marriages be Holy.
Sexual Love only exists within a Holy Marriage. “What God Has joined together, let no man separate” refers to God’s intention for Marriage as well as His authority over man regarding Marriage. The fact that many will fall short of God’s expectation for Marriage does not change God’s intention for Marriage. Once you change God’s definition of Marriage, there can be no expectations.
I believe that Cardinal Newman was involved in a Loving relationship. Our view of friendship has become so distorted by the objectification of people, that we question the validity of a Loving relationship among friends. We live in a time when culture has transformed us to the point that we no longer know how to have Holy relationships. We must remember that culture can not transform us but rather, it is Christ who can transform culture.
One thing I know for certain is true, Christ would never use such terms as “homosexual, heterosexual, etc., to describe anyone because such terms are oppressive. The sexual objectification of any person is a form of slavery, and we all know that Christ came, to set us free. God made Man and Women in His image to live in a relationship of Love as a perfect complement.
I meant to say we have allowed culture to transform us
Agree with you, Jim….see my earlier posting.
Nancy, on the other hand, I have some land for sale in far West Texas! It is always most comfortable to live with blinders on.
I’m not interested Bill. I’d rather see the Light of Love. Either you believe in The Christ who has revealed Himself to His Church or you transform Him into what you want him to be. I believe in The Christ who always was IAM.
I now exactly what I would do if I had a child who struggled with a relational problem. I certainly would not send them to dignity. I would continue to Love them, and because I Loved them, I would always tell them the Truth.
Nancy, I don’t know where to start in addressing your various and sundry comments…
…so I won’t :)
I wrote a post about this subject a couple of months ago and came across an article from 2001 in The Tablet – Wedded friendship by Alan Bray – that discusses Newman, his friendship, friendships like his in his time, and other couples of the same sex that were buried together. Kind of interesting. The blurb at the bottom reads – “an edited extract from the text of a presentation given by Alan Bray at Newman House, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on 21 July. His talk in Dublin introduced the research that will appear in his book The Friend, to be published next year by the University of Chicago Press.”
Reading this from Alan Bray, I see that Newman’s dying wish was drawing on an old Oxbridge tradition:
“I was invited to the chapel of Christ’s College in Cambridge. There I was shown a monument from 1684 marking the burial, in the same tomb, of John Finch and Thomas Baines. The two halves of the monument are each surmounted by a portrait of one of the two friends, linked by the representation of a knotted cloth set between the two tables of the inscription, in a visual pun on the love knot or marriage knot. From archives I later discovered that Finch had described his friendship with Baines as a connubium: a marriage.”
“In the chapel of Merton College in Oxford, I gazed at the great monumental brass above the tomb of John Bloxham and John Whytton, who were buried together at the end of the fourteenth century. It shows two figures standing side by side under canopies with their hands joined together in prayer and looking straight on to the viewer. This is the familiar iconography employed in the fourteenth century for the common tomb of a husband and wife.”
Newman, in Oriel, was just next door to Merton, and must have known this tomb.
Also, did Newman not have a friend called Bloxam or Bloxham during his Oxford days?
If gays have been “hidden from history” as a book of that title claims, then it is a matter of moment to discern what Newman actually tells us about his affectivity in his voluminous writings and in his warm and passionate behavior toward his male friends. Rewriting his career as that of a “red-blooded heterosexual”, or in Fr Ker’s language “a normal man” could be a violence against truth. One of Newman’s mottos was: “The truth must be told.” It seems to me that he deliberately documented fully his cult of romantic, passionate male friendship; it is part of his message, that we need to accept in its full warm breathing reality and not dilute it.
Crystal Watson, many thanks for the references. Interesting stuff. I was reminded as well by this thread of John Boswell’s book a decade or so ago attempting to argue that formal bondings/pairings or early Christian men (monks in particular) were akin to same-sex marriages. It seemed like a stretch, a great stretch, to me at the time, and I still feel as though he was trying, very earnestly, to place a modern template on an ancient practice that was more complex than gay-straight, though it surely had some “queer steam” propelling it. But Boswell (as imperfect memory has it) seemed to ignore the possibility and beauty of straight male bonding.
I find it mind boggling, that some of the same people who claim there does not exist compelling evidence for the personhood of a Baby in its Mother’s womb, have contrived evidence claiming personhood that is neither Male or Female. “Gay” is a problem with developing Holy and healthy relationships.
. . . . contrived evidence claiming personhood that is neither Male or Female . . . .
Do you mean God, who is neither male nor female?
If it is your contention that men and women in same-sex relationships are somehow not men and women, or that gay men and lesbians are not men and women, that is patently ridiculous.
If Cardinal Newman and Ambrose St. John could love each other deeply, as clearly they did, it is an example of two men loving each other. Are you implying that if they were heterosexuals, they actually did love each other, but if they were chaste homosexuals, maybe they didn’t love each other, and if they were practicing homosexuals, their relationship wasn’t love at all?
If love is supposed to be complementary, how could Cardinal Newman and Ambrose St. John love each other?
If love with sex is something completely different from love without sex, what about married couples who — for some reason such as illness, injury, or old age — stop having sex? Does that mean they can’t love each other any more?
What I am saying is that God created Man and Woman, not “homosexual” and “heterosexual”. The complementary of Man and Woman does not just refer to Sexual Love. Outside of a Holy Marriage, there is no Sexual Love. Sex becomes separated from Love and is simply sex.
God is neither Male or Female. The Trinity is, however, a perfect complement of Love.
Nancy,
Are you saying partners in a same-sex relationship can’t really love each other?
What I am saying is that Sexual Love only exists within a Holy Marriage. Sex outside of a Holy Marriage is an act of sex, not an act of Love. Love is not possessive nor does it serve to manipulate. This is not my opinion on God’s intention for Sexual Love, this is God’s Truth on Sexual Love that He Has revealed to His Church.
David G.,
This book might be worth checking out: http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Friendship-Cistercian-Fathers-5/dp/0879077050
Kathy, thanks for that. It looks good. I have the Boswell book somewhere, but haven’t sorted my “library” since moving a year ago.
Nancy, I do believe you may be the most earnest, if unintentional, Gnostic I’ve ever met!
Why do you believe that David?
A small joke, Nancy. Maybe a bad one. I am just impressed by your diligent separation of flesh and spirit!
Just to add to how ridiculous this blog is getting – here is the latest from down under:
Shortcut to: http://sxnews.e-p.net.au/news/popes-words-used-in-churchs-defense-4152.html
Having spent most of my life in mental health treatment, it is very diffcult to think that homosexuality is a “choice” – it is genetic. Like the issues with slavery; the world is flat, etc. the church will eventually get there – late and out of breath.
Bill,
I don’t see how the origins of homosexual desire affect the Church’s teachings on chastity.
Homosexual people are part of the Church. But like everyone else they’re called to chaste behaviors. I don’t see the conflict.
Bill, I hope you mean just this post, or thread are ridiculous, and not the whole blog.
Respecting God’s plan for Marriage does not make me a gnostic, David. Marriage is a Sacrament.
“…by its very nature, it is ordered to the good of the couple as well as to the generation and education of children.”-CCC, no.1660
Do you consider the Sacrament of Marriage to be ridiculous?
Kathy: The origins of homosexual desire do not affect the church’s teaching on chastity, but they may very well be relevant to one’s evaluation of the church’s teaching on 1) human sexuality and 2) the status of the homosexual person. Somehow, I think, that is what I think Bill was getting at.
No, Nancy, I would hardly consider marriage ridiculous.
Then what is your evidence that proves that I am a gnostic? Where Has Christ revealed that we are to celebrate sex outside of Marriage?
About that Tablet article, I don’t think it necessarily implies Newman was not gay – I think he was most likely, and I think that’s ok. As far as sex being only ok if it’s withing heterosexual marriage, I think that’s untrue, and what about the desire celebrated by indiviuals for God? The spiritual friendship Aelred of Rievaulx wrote of, the romantic mystical spirituality of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, John Donne’s poem ….
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me and bend
your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
labor to admit you, but, oh, to no end;
reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
but is captived and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you and would be loved fain,
but am betrothed unto your enemy:
divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
take me to you, imprison me, for I,
except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Nancy,
If I may interject: sometimes whacky liberals like David (no offense) misuse the word gnostic. Gnosticism is an old heresy in which a) the Body is considered Bad, and b) some enlightened persons have the Fullness of Revelation and are Teachers of Others.
I don’t think you’re a gnostic. But I do think that you make a lot of dogmatic pronouncements, and that sometimes they are a little bit wrong and sometimes they are off the subject.
I am not sure how to apply theological concepts about relationships and love with actual, real-life instances of people who love each other. I know a number of gay couples who have been together over 20 years, and some of them over 30 years. Are they suffering from the delusion that they love each other? The Catholic Church has the authority to tell Catholics that isn’t permissible. But are the “orthodox” here claiming it is not real?
Thankfully we have reached the point where AIDS is not as devastating as it used to be, but were those who were the primary caregivers for their partners and watched them waste away and die doing it out of love, or was it illicit sexual desire?
When did the Catholic Church say that these people don’t love each other?
Mr. Gibson – just this post; not the total blog. Sorry for the confusion.
Mr. Pettit – thanks for your clarification; you are correct about my intent.
So would a gnostic then be some enlightened person who claims to have some revelation other than what Christ Has revealed to His Church? David, what exactly have I said that is not consistent with the Catholic Church’s teaching on Sexual Love? What revelation does anyone have that Christ has changed God’s Truth on Sexual Love? Are you referring to the false gnostic Gospels?
Outside of a Holy Marriage, we are all called to live chaste lives. This begins with the understanding that we are Human persons, to be treated with Dignity and Respect.
P.S. David, I never separated the flesh from the spirit, I separated the meaning of sex from the meaning of Sexual Love. Love is not possessive.
When did the Catholic Church say that these people don’t love each other?
Kathy,
I am not sure what the Church says (or means) about whether or not there is real love between same-sex partners, but my question was whether the “orthodox” here are saying that partners in same-sex relationships don’t really love each other.
“Are you referring to the false gnostic Gospels?”
Are there true gnostic Gospels?
Apparently some people think so. Where else would they be getting their misinformation from, unless, they believe they have been enlightened by some new revelation. Peace.
Yes, there are gnostic Gospels (true? – in the eye of the beholder). There are also other gospel accounts that were not accepted by the church as part of the valid canon.
“What I am saying is that God created Man and Woman, not “homosexual” and “heterosexual”. ”
Surely God created both? It is like saying God created Man and Woman, not “white” and “black”.
It does sound like a gnostic denial of fleshly reality.
It’s rather sad to see the low level of debate here. Substitute “black” for “homosexual” in many of the posts above and how offensive the stonewalling it will become clear.
““Gay” is a problem with developing Holy and healthy relationships.”
This is a very bigoted remark. “Gay” is a word that established itself as a substitute for the hateful, denigratory words with which society and, alas, the Church, trashed the human dignity of whole swathes of people, condeming them to self-hatred. Denying that gays exist is another twist in tradition that used to speak sneeringly of “homosexuals” as a lesser breed, as queers, perverts etc. Under the rubric of “gay” thousands of good men and women have come out from under the shadow of this oppression, and have shown society and even the Church their capacity for forming creative and loving relationships. Now to be told, “Go back to calling yourselves homosexuals — or rather, to admitting that you do not exist at all, that you are just stunted heterosexuals — ” is rather reminiscent of Richard Wagner’s neatly ambiguous remark that the destiny of the Jew is to cease to exist. It is disgusting, though no doubt the product of an innocent, ignorant, pious self-mystification.
Newman had no word for gay or homosexual, but he had a vocabulary and traditions for passionate love between men; this brought him some ridicule in his own lifetime but as a man of unflinching courage he stuck to his guns; see his beautiful discussion of the love of Basil and Gregory, or of Philip Neri and his disciples. Philip would say to his young followers: “If you continue to behave so badly, I shall not caress you any longer.”
Joseph O’Leary, you know that “homosexuality” is not a Race.
You need to read Christ’s,” Sermon On The Mount”. (Mt. 5:27-30) Jesus goes beyond the traditional interpretation and application of the Commandment against Adutery by showing us the spirit of the Law. One does not have to commit the “act” to be guilty of adultery. One is guilty of breaking this Commandment when one “looks at a woman to lust at her”. To lust is to have a desire to possess. Love is not possessive. We are to look at every person with Dignity and Respect and see the real beauty of the human person. “Homosexual” and “Heterosexual” are words that do not respect the Dignity of the Human Person.
I have nothing more to say in regards to this issue. I wish you all Peace.
““Homosexual” and “Heterosexual” are words that do not respect the Dignity of the Human Person.”
Sorry, but the Church uses the word “homosexual” by preference to words such as “gay”. The only reason the word seems disrespectful is that people have used it with negative connotations over the decades since it was coined. I never met anyone who objected to being called “heterosexual”.
You cannot deny a person the right to say “I am homosexual” or “I am gay” — it is analogous to telling a person to conceal their black race (as in the novel/movie The Human Stain) or their Jewish faith — this is called “passing”. Sadly the Church encourages gays to “pass” — showing scant regard for their dignity as human persons.
Peace be with you too.
Matrimony is a Catholic sacrament. Marriage is a civil contract that is the basis for state recognition of the partnership of two people. It is also the basis for certain relationship, familial, financial and other benefits and obligations.
Let churches define how they want to confer their sacraments. Churches should keep out of what the state does and doesn’t accept between consenting adults, whatever their gender and orientation.
And, besides, the last time I looked, the CCC doesn’t have the status of Holy Writ.