I’m writing from an office in the Sydney CBD. Catholic ‘youth’ (some of them looking a tad middle aged) have been streaming down the street towards the harbour for the past two or more hours. (The Pope is due to take a harbour cruise soon, so I guess they’re all going down to see him.) It’s official - there are a lot of people attending WYD. And they come from all over the world. I know this because they are all waving national flags. There goes the American flag, here’s New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, Fiji, Australia, of course, and the Aboriginal flag … followed by a flag which is light blue with a yellow circle in the middle, Germany, Canada, more Americans, more flags which are unfamiliar to me…
Last night I was doing a yoga class in the second floor of a building on Oxford Street and during the warrior pose I looked out the window and saw the top edge of an enormous flag going past.
Here at work, whichever way I look down the city canyons, I see flags, either held aloft or draped round shoulders. Oh, now some Koreans are going past, waving flags and beating drums, though the street is a lot emptier than it’s been all day.
It’s all very good-natured and I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but I find this insistent national-identification bemusing. I could understand flag-waving if this were the World Cup or the Olympics [come to think of it, I was in Sydney during the Olympics and don’t recall many flags at all]. But this is a religious get-together. Isn’t God meant to be above all that? Seriously.
Yes, this is an international gathering and there’s something powerful about being able to identify the extent of its international dimensions. (Power is perhaps the key word there.) But badges or even sticker flags would work as well to identify where individual WYD participants come from. Obviously the idea of walking around in groups with a big national flag must have been suggested in advance in all the world’s dioceses. Maybe it’s a pragmatic way of organising such a large gathering of people; the flag seems to give them something to bond around.
I suppose it could be worse; they could all be walking round with huge flags with crosses or Jesus on them (or Jesus on crosses).
Hot off the street!: I’d been wondering what all those discarded leaflets in the middle of the street were, so I just went and picked one up. It’s An Open Call to Islam. “On the occasion of World Catholic Youth Day we deem it our obligation and a duty for which we stand accountable to Allah to convey his Message…” and so on for four pages, the last point being the “prohibition of homosexuality” (did they include that because they thought it would appeal to Catholics or as a point of difference?) It’s signed Hizb ut-Tahrir but there are absolutely no contact details on the leaflet, for anyone who was swayed.
I live in Blondi which, over the last couple of days, has been inundated with WYD participants and yep, their many hued flags. The current fashion seems to be a full, sized, official looking flag tied around their necks like superhero capes. Popular too among the Irish are oversized novelty leprechaun hats.
Dunno what it is but I find the whole flag thing a tad unsettling- it seems so territorial, esp when coupled with chants of “AUssie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!” or “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
Just out of interest, what do the “pilgrims” do all day when they’re not off at a Mass or watching the Pope take a boat cruise or whatever? Stream up and down the city streets at random?
Will His Holiness be taking the harbour cruise on foot? Or is he going the wimpy way and using a boat?
Kim, in a word, yes. They’re everywhere, with flags.
In the city, Hyde Park is a central point, but maybe the Botanical Gardens are too - I haven’t been there. Out of the city centre, just when I think I’ve left them behind, I come across another group, in the unlikeliest of places. I think they’re billeted in Catholic schools and homes all over Sydney.
It’s an experience.
I’ve added a bit to the original post.
“I’d been wondering what all those discarded leaflets in the middle of the street were, so I just went and picked one up. ”
Don’t the nice catholic youths know how to use a garbage bin?
Well, go the Pope. I understand from various chums in Sydney that a harbour cruise is an important part of Catholic education in that city, and absolutely essential to the process by which Catholics make more Catholics. So it’s nice to see Benny embracing local traditions.
If anyone glimpses him clutching a wine cooler and singing along to Katrina and the Waves, then we’ll know he’s gone native …
Light blue with a yellow circle sounds like Palau.
Apparently not. Sounds like the Pope’s message of caring for the environment is lost on this generation.
Saw Batman at Broadway googleplex this arvo, got out around 5pm and drove back to inner west ie PEAK HOUR on Parramatta Rd but barely any traffic. It’s a miracle!! Bring on the Pope every day of the week, I say.
Wow, it is live on television now and the commentary with Ray Martin and others is just exraordinary.
Benny has a Mercedes customline ute.
And Pelly is getting a free ride.
Yeah these people hit Melbourne about a week ago and I was wondering what sporting event they were attending. But the difference being that the clusters of people all held different flags. At sporting events people mostly travel in nationalistic clusters. Then I noticed that they occasionally broke off into monocultural groups and performed what were simple but rehearsed renditions of certain traditional music from their homeland.
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The common theme was that they danced in circles. The Italians were the best I saw.
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This stresses the internationalism and multiculturalism of the Church. This isn’t simply some marketing dickhead’s notion of Kumbayah. It’s policy. Go into one of those Church shops and you’ll see Christan iconography in styles that range the continents. And the Church grows the largest in non-European places these days.
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I like this about the Church.
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Mr Dourehi is an advocate of political Islam with its daydream of a pan-Muslim caliphate. I’m not certain what his position is. However the ‘people of the book’ are protected by Islam so I’d wager this organisation is simply articulating its approval of the Church’s refusal to alter Abrahamic codes viz sexuality in the face of modern paganism and the Rule of the Great Satan.
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His advocacy of ridding discourse of terms like ‘extremist’ should be resisted. the establishment a pan-Muslim theocratic superstate one would repress women, execute homosexuals, roll back science and ban all sorts of fun; ie generally make those living under it as miserable as possible. This would require probably both invasions and violent revolutions.
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He can go suck the big fat one there.
I’m not into religion, and have never been a fan of the catholic church but while watching the Pope on tele today I’ve gotta say I reckon he’s brilliant! He looked like a little pixie with a permanent smile and a twinkle in his eye and seemed as humlbe as a man could get!
and I reckon his blessing came right through the TV screen and onto the 20/1 winner of the Grafton cup that I bet on.
Ok that’s all from me, sorry to interrupt, you lot can get back to your bitchin’ about gargage binns and flags now lol.
I don’t think there can be much doubt that a youthful (re-testosterone fueled) nationalism pervades much of the groupie behaviour in Sydney today. A French group were getting high on Le Marsellaise in George St. followed by a local contingent trying to drown them out with Waltzing Matilda. You would hope that papal themes will remind them of their common faith so that by the end of the week ……..nah somehow I doubt it.
On ABC-TV news tonight in Victoria, I saw pilgrims waving at least three flags of the Republic of South Vietnam, yellow with horizontal centred red stripes. This Republic ceased on 30th April 1975. Good to see its memory lives on at CWYD.
It seems that Prime Minister Whitlam did not get his way. Clyde Cameron quoted him as saying, “I’m not having hordes of f*cking Vietnamese Balts in this country!”, circa April 1975.
I was in New York for the Pope’s visit in April (or was it May?) - to a Synagogue. And then he gave a big sermon - in a baseball stadium.
The crowds here were great. Relaxed, friendly, mostly locals actually. There was considerable bemusement from Manhattanites as the Pope came to visit what is probably the most Jewish neighborhood outside Tel Aviv. It was billed as the first visit by a pontiff to an American Synagogue.
He also gave an apology for the sex abuse scandals, which was very well received.
Many locals seemed to react with the same level of interest and amusement as though some exotic species - maybe a panda or rhinoceros - had come to be paraded through the streets. They indulged the usual Manhattan sport of celebrity-spotting, and then went about their business.
Sure the city blocked off streets and there were helicopters hovering all afternoon, but that’s not really so very different from any other given week in Manhattan. There’s always some visiting dignitary who gets a green-light run.
I looked forty blocks down Park Avenue to see police cars and traffic blockades, and a stream of people heading up from the lower 60s streets to our area in the 90s. At first it seemed an ominous sight and I wondered if there’d been some emergency. But everyone was walking calmly and there was no angst.
An hour later, the crowds had all disappeared into the Subway, and life returned to what passes for normal here.
So that was World Adult Day 2008, Merc?
From the team behind those hillarious Chairman Rudd Mashups comes this item on World Youth Day
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=WNHJH__4_VQ
suz says:
Social phenomenon, in the post-modern age, should be analysed ethnolgically. Theological and ideological categories (theism, liberalism, socialism) are for the academic birds. Ethnic blood is thicker than ethic-ological water.
People who love their faith tend to love their flag and their families. Although the scaling probably works in the opposite, group selectionist, direction ie family - faith - flag.
Its a bit daggy to identify with God, Queen and Country these days. However the dags are more likely to breed than their sour-pussed observers. Descendants invariably have the last laugh over the extinct.
Demography is destiny in a populist jurisdiction.
“Sour-pussed observers” - Projecting again, Jack.
You don’t say, JS. I’ve been singing the Internationale and waving my red flag all week.
Which version, Liam? Billy Bragg’s? Alastair Hulett’s? The paraphrase sung by the British and Australian CPs? Or the very literal and unsingable translation sung by the various US communist groups?
And a one, and a two, and a one, two, three …
The people’s flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyr’d dead
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts’ blood dyed its ev’ry fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high,
Within its shade we’ll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the red flag flying here.
Should be compulsory singing at all primary schools, especially the private ones.
Bragg’s, Paul.
Shock horror: nuns kiss-in!
http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/2008/07/17/kissing-protests-start/820
“However the dags are more likely to breed than their sour-pussed observers. Descendants invariably have the last laugh over the extinct.
Demography is destiny in a populist jurisdiction.”
Demography is destiny? What on earth is that supposed to mean? That the religious will out-breed the non-religious? But in Catholicism, the most religious of all aren’t even allowed to have sex.
Kim asked what the pilgrims get up to, I’ll tell you: organising singalongs at 8 am outside my house (and getting the following response from my Marrickvillian neighbours: “F**k off catholics! Go to the f**king city!”
Liam at 21 - me too. Only I’ve been doing all five verses (with special, pointed, repetitions of the “No saviour from on high deliver” verse).
One young ‘un mistook me for a priest this morning, until she saw the hammer and sickle on the lapel… Priceless…
Re 25.
Socialist Alliance Rules, OK?
Wombo, I don’t know if you can see it in the gravatar next to my name—if you use IE6 probably not—but I wear a beret. I’ve also been mistaken for a priest in the city this week.
BTW I’ve nothing particularly against religion, Christianity, Catholics or Catholicism, it’s *enthusiasm* I’m against.
Kids, lawn, etc.
I’m keen to collapse this scrum into an intra-left shit-bucket flinging contest if you are, Paul. I’ll even mention Greens preferences to Labor in inner city seats if anyone else wants some.
Clover Moore is a Catholic.
“Socialist Alliance Rules, OK?” - Not bloody yet we don’t
Liam, is that the new beret then? Comfy?
I have nothing against catholicism any more than I have anything against any other religion. The racket this morning was something else though, and my neighbours apparently agreed.
I maintained my composure by imagining what it’d be like if I lived near a minaret where the morning call to prayer was sung out every day (I decided I’d probably get used to it, and it’s a lot more musical than 50 over-enthusiastic brazilians with drums, guitars and a loudspeaker).
On the way to the bus-stop I also asked them if they’d lodged a Form 1 with the police…
Yep. And warm.
That’s the way Suz. We can get this fired up.
Liam,
It was a light hearted comment on the Nun kissing as SA is one of the main organisers of the No Pope protest, along with Resistance and several other groups. No intra-left contest wanted or intended.Besides, we get on really well with the Greens.
OT
Alternative words to an old song:
The working class
Can kiss my arse,
I’ve got the foreman’s
Job at last!
Quite apt for some recent “reds-hot” union organisers who move effortlessly into management jobs.
“Kim asked what the pilgrims get up to, I’ll tell you: organising singalongs at 8 am outside my house (and getting the following response from my Marrickvillian neighbours: “F**k off catholics! Go to the f**king city!””
LOL. One thing I have noticed about WYD is comments by some along the lines of how wonderful it is to run into groups singing on the trains, in the streets etc.
Makes me wonder if they’d repsond in the same way if it were a group of footy fans singing on the trains and streets, no matter how joyful happy and peaceful said footy fans were. I suspect they’d be whingeing about boofhead footy fans disrupting the peace.
Shame we couldn’t have snarked longer. Serious cat, serious thread.
Paul, I noted the nun kiss-off. While I appreciate the nod to the Mardi Gras regulars Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence—who, it’s important to note, identify as men in drag—I’m curious about the justification for this particular girl-kissing activist event.
In what way are these same-sex public displays of affection any less sexist than the PETA cage-women? I’m honestly curious.
Pilgrims attack protester:
http://plastikkpoet.blogspot.com/2008/07/wwjd-not-attack-someone-for-opinion.html
“In what way are these same-sex public displays of affection any less sexist than the PETA cage-women? I’m honestly curious.”
I honestly don’t understand what you’re saying - why is same-sex kissing sexist? The point of ‘nuns’ kissing at WYD is both a comment on the anti-gay policies of the church and a comment on the sublimated lesbianism of many nuns.
38 Mark Jul 18th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
That should read “pilgrims finally do their block against street hasslers”. The Pope is not a child molester or a plausible defender of such. There are no fair and reasonable grounds for branding him as one.
The Church has a some terrible blots on its copybook for failing in its duty of care to school children. But it has at least made some effort at redress and restitution.
The same cannot be said for secular agencies put in similar positions of authority over the vulnerable. I dont see any apologies forthcoming from the liberal cultural revolutionaries responsible for de-institutionalizing natives in the outback.
Any competent anthropologist could have told them that anomie leads to self-destruction. Obvious case of professional malpractice.
But thats the liberal concept of moral obligation: a duty of carelessness.
The witchunt waged by the media-academia complex and some unfortunate souls against ecclesiastics and pilgrims, innocent of any crime, who are honouring our shores with grace and good humour is a disgrace.
A brothel has reported business is booming. There must be a lot of non-catholic hangers on
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24040386-5016937,00.html
Stroccers at 19: “Its a bit daggy to identify with God, Queen and Country these days. However the dags are more likely to breed than their sour-pussed observers. Descendants invariably have the last laugh over the extinct.
Demography is destiny in a populist jurisdiction.”
Trouble with that assertion, Jack, is that daggy breeders of the demographic that you describe tend to get proportionately wiped out more in wars where they are used as cannon fodder. People who think and reason for themselves are less likely to lay their bodies on the line for what they believe to be bullshit.
Wanna start at the crusades and work your way through a few hundred years of European history?
“A brothel has reported business is booming. There must be a lot of non-catholic hangers on”
More factually, a brothel reports undercutting its competitors by 10%, reports that business is booming and says it has no idea whether it relates to WYD or not.
Yes, I get that, suz.
I still see a parallel between PETA’s cynical use of their women members’ bodies, hoping to give some kind of ‘offence’, to gather media attention, and the NoPope coalition’s use of their women members’ bodies (lips, at least), hoping to give some kind of ‘offence’, to gather media attention.
In both cases they’re using sexual imagery to make a broader political point. I wish the latter the best of luck bringing attention to the past and present homophobia of the Church, but hope they’re more effective at not being total arses than PETA.
Liam, whatever the other merits of your position may or may not be, I’m not sure it makes much sense to speak of the Catholic Church and its teachings in terms of “homophobia”.
The Church teaches that certain kinds of human behavior are what it calls sinful, and it calls to sinners (which it also, btw, defines as all of us) to return to the path of what it teaches is righteousness and salvation. Now, “sinfulness,” “righteousness,” and “salvation” are all moral and metaphysical concepts; you can believe or disbelieve them. If homosexual behaviors are included in that teaching (and it’s a point that I think is actually pretty complex), well, then that is the religious teaching of this particular body of believers; what is it to anyone else? If one does not believe the teaching, or does not hold the same sense of metaphysical and moral categories, well then, so one does not believe the Church. That is one’s choice, there is a parting of ways, and that is that. For instance, I am not a Scientologist; my interest in what Scientologists do and don’t believe is minimal.
So I do not see how “homophobia” enters into matters of doctrine and belief. The Catholic Church does not employ death squads to shoot homosexuals, it does not legislate in Australia, and it does not teach that gangs of ruffians should beat up homosexuals in train stations. So when you use the word “homophobia” in the context of Church doctrine, what are you really saying, other than that you have a different view of things? It is like calling a rabbi a racist because he won’t say that everyone on the face of the Earth is a Jew.
suz: “The point of ‘nuns’ kissing at WYD is …a comment on the sublimated lesbianism of many nuns.”
Well here we have a model of precision and integrity. So, “many” nuns have “sublimated” lesbianism? Who knew? Apparently suz “knows,” having mystic abilities of perception beyond the ken of regular mortals, or else some really cool brain-scanning technology. suz, would you care to tell us which of the “many” nuns have these “sublimated” tendencies, exactly? The producers of “Nuns Gone Wild” would like to know.
So let’s get this straight and clear. suz commends crass public expressions of contempt for the religious beliefs of the Other, on the grounds that it is a “comment” on the “sublimated” desires of “many” people of a given religious disposition.
I just want to keep my sauces accurately labelled, because I’ll be throwing a big dinner party soon, at which I intend to serve both goose and gander.
j_p_z,
I
I blame old Siggie Freud, mate. Tossing around sweeping judgements, based on an unporovable “theory”.
I still recall the deep annoyance I felt when reading his “Leonardo”. Freud seemed to think it was perfectly fine to “analyse” a dead guy whom he’d never met, never conversed with, never questioned on his childhood, etc. What arrogance. What a pathetic substitute for well-grounded study. He wasn’t fit to sharpen a pencil for Leonardo. IMO.
If homosexual behaviors are included in that teaching (and it’s a point that I think is actually pretty complex), well, then that is the religious teaching of this particular body of believers; what is it to anyone else? If one does not believe the teaching, or does not hold the same sense of metaphysical and moral categories, well then, so one does not believe the Church. That is one’s choice, there is a parting of ways, and that is that.
Quite the Wahabist, aren’t you? Are you wearing cotton and nylon /whatever fibres mixed together in your clothes at the moment? Are you noshing on a scallop? Well I’m afraid you and the Christian church will just have to part ways!
“Quite the Wahabist, aren’t you? Are you wearing cotton and nylon /whatever fibres mixed together in your clothes at the moment? Are you noshing on a scallop? Well I’m afraid you and the Christian church will just have to part ways!”
Helen, unless things have changed dramatically since I was a kid, I don’t recall Catholicism rejecting mixed fibre clothing - indeed polyester/cotton was depressingly de rigueur - or being scallop-phobic. If you’re keen to utilise Old Testament dietary and apparel-wearing injunctions as a handy insult for the irredeemably religious, you may have to identify a commenter of Orthodox Jewish persuasion
My point was that if the church had taken the line that j_p_z took, we would still be going by all the original Old Testament teachings.
Helen, my comment was not meant in the way of a theological sermon (which anyway I’m not qualified to give), nor of broad-spectrum Catholic apologetics. It was meant as an argument that the word/concept of “homophobia” is problematic as a lens through which to criticize an institution of morals and metaphysics, which precedes the concept by millennia.
“Homophobia” is a word of very recent vintage, used (and perhaps coined) by highly-interested parties; its meaning is unstable and prone to elastic overextension, and its etymology is literally inaccurate. This does not mean that violence and malevolence against gay people in society don’t exist; far from it. The gay community has a right to defend itself from perceived threats, and people of good will should condemn malevolence against gay people, and help defend them when necessary.
But the use of a new, debatable, and not-easily-grandfathered concept like “homophobic” as a tool to attempt to alter or regulate from without, an ancient belief-system regarding matters of personal conscience whose tenets one in fact does not share, is a thing that ought to give any member of a free society pause, for reasons that ought to be obvious.
That’s all, really. The rest of it belongs to a different and more complicated debate which isn’t the topic here.
j_p_z, but the teaching of the church on this hasn’t been constant for milennia. Sodomy or anal intercourse was regarded as a sin. No one was running around trying to decide whether potential seminarians had a particular sexual orientation, because the concept of sexual orientation is of very recent vintage.
And homophobia comes in all stripes and degrees of intensity - you don’t need to have the intention to tar and feather someone to be homophobic!
About an hour ago a large group of Catholic youths strolled past my house on the way to the train station. A few of the young women were wrapped in the Australian flag. All this tells me is that identity - both religious and national - is very important for these people.
Mark: “the teaching of the church on this hasn’t been constant for milennia. …No one was running around trying to decide whether potential seminarians had a particular sexual orientation, because the concept of sexual orientation is of very recent vintage.”
Well maybe, but even if true, that simply re-inforces my point. (Again, I’m not sermonizing on the morality or otherwise of a given sexual preference.) If the church’s teaching changes, it is the church itself which comes to change the teaching, not outsider “activists” who never believed any of its teachings in the first place, and who may have entirely different motives.
For “homophobic,” substitute the word “anti-libertarian.” Now imagine a group of Buddhist libertarians demanding that the Church change its teachings on, say, the sacrament of marriage, on the grounds that Church doctrine is “anti-Buddhist libertarian.” Now imagine how much deference the Church owes such a demand. You’d have to imagine something very, very, very small, yes?
The Church might go ahead and change its teaching anyway, for reasons of its own derivation. Even if it did, that still doesn’t grant standing to the Buddhist libertarians. See what I mean? Isn’t this all sort of obvious?
There are a large number of insider activists (and I don’t see the need for the inverted commas) who want to be Catholic and gay, j_p_z. So I don’t particularly see that your point is well grounded.
No. “Homophobic” is the proper term.
“There are a large number of insider activists… who want to be Catholic and gay”
Of course there are. I know some of them, too. The point there would be that insofar as they are Catholics, they deserve to be heard by their church. But wouldn’t they have to argue the issue (and it’s an argument worth hearing) from a Gospel frame of reference, viz. that the Gospel and the communion of the faithful are ill-served by a Catholic teaching which censures them unjustly, and show how that could be so. So long as it’s a Christian argument on Christian grounds, it certainly should be heard, and it may even prevail. It’s just that it’s not persuasive to make up new words and new principles w/o reference to their faith, and then grandfather them or base arguments on them.
Really, you’re being so zenger-phobic, and your rampant zenger-phobia does you no credit whatever; your views are wrong by virtue of their offensive zenger-phobia. Why are you standing against progressive values and social justice, by disagreeing with me?
See, not very persuasive, is it.
While we’re scrabbling around for the accurate word for this problem, j_p_z, I’d like to throw ’sophistry’ into the mix. Honestly, you’re clutching at straws. There are plenty of good scriptural arguments against homophobia, and they’re often made by activists within the churches (the stoush going on with the Anglicans at the moment’s another good example of where this occurs). What’s more, given how willing the churches are to intervene in secular matters, there’s really no good reason why non-believers shouldn’t condemn them when they’re being blatantly discriminatory.
What Nick said.
It’s not a new word, though perhaps newer than “homosexuality” which is not that old a word! And I hardly think that religious discourse can be firewalled in some way from broader social currents.
I’m not having a go at anyone but it’s worth remembering that Leviticus from where we derive the Abrahamic prohibition against homosexuality originated 2500 years ago or so. If someone adheres to Abrahamic faith they may sincerely believe that it’s ‘God’s law’ without either fearing or loathing homosexuals.
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It’s frustrating to those of us with more secular values or who are willingh and able to put Leviticus in an historical context and leave it there but the religious tend t obey their codes because it is an absolute code set down by the Creator of everything. It’s not for them to dispute.
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I tend to think this is mindless myself but diff’rent strokes. A lot of religious people think I’m silly.
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The Catholic Church will probably change - very very slowly.
Of course Adrien - this is the immediate and reflexive rejoinder every time someone cites Leviticus – it also says that eating pigs, rabbits, some seafood etc. is an abomination, which no-one seems to worry about too much these days.
“What Nick said.”
Well, what Nick said was largely incoherent and essentially self-defeating (”blatantly discriminatory”, please, think for a moment) in the spots where he wasn’t busy actually agreeing with me (”good scriptural arguments”, quite true, and I can think of several myself), so I guess we’re just at a dead-end here. It’s just as well, the point appears to be one that is perhaps too shaded, and not worth any more chewing on, so what the hey.
“It’s not a new word, though perhaps newer than “homosexuality” which is not that old a word!”
So in other words it is a new word, though not as new as “squaddlethromp,” which I just made up a moment ago. And moreover it’s a loaded word, as it implies a state of mental illness or imbalance (”phobia”) without assuming the burden of detailed clinical description or delimitation. It’s also technically inaccurate, as the root centers on the notion of “fear,” whereas the common usage centers on the notion of aversion or hostility. Sometimes related, but not necessarily so. This renders it at the very least suspect for discursive purposes, even though it is not entirely without merit as a descriptor, being what we have ready to hand these days for a real phenomenon that should have a name (more than one name, with observable shades of meaning, would be preferable). At the very least, though, it is not a good word to start turning into a totem.
“And I hardly think that religious discourse can be firewalled in some way from broader social currents.”
Totally agree. All I’ve been trying to say here is that social discourse of any kind (political, religious, etc.) should be conducted in good faith and with intellectual and linguistic clarity. Totems bad, precision good.
Meantime we have Nick saying that churches are “blatantly discriminatory.” Speaking of totems… Yes, Nick, they are. Jewish congregations discriminate against cow-worshipers, by not letting them join, because they don’t worship cows down at the synagogue. Presumably your parliament does not allow unelected persons to cast votes as though they were members. Sounds like blatant discrimination to me. Better rewrite the constitution ASAP.
Or mightn’t it be easier to simply think and speak more carefully?
Well, you could set a good example by eschewing silly ad absurdum arguments, j_p_z!
j_p_z - yes, ‘blatantly discriminatory’ is a careless phrase, and I should have assumed you’d pick me up on it. (I’m not sure my comment was self-defeating though - ‘good faith’?) Of course discrimination carries both the notions of ‘judgement’ and ‘prejudice’. It’s prejudice (the ‘pre’ part of it) that’s at stake here - the question of whether homosexual people within the Catholic church are given a fair hearing by the church hierarchy, or whether that hierarchy falls back on ingrained beliefs which in fact merit re-examination. At present, the Catholic church seems stubbornly unwilling to re-examine their prejudice on this matter.
Using the term ‘homophobia’ in this discussion speaks to this prejudice. Yes, it’s a fairly recent neologism (as is homosexuality). And yes, it’s etymologically absurd. But it’s the term most commonly used to describe irrational aversion to homosexuality (and yes, I do think the Catholic orthodoxy on this is irrational, on scriptural grounds). In fact, it’s probably the only term we have at present…unless you can think of a better one? So assuming that people who use it are doing so ‘totemically’ is a little presumptuous.
‘ad absurdum…indeed.
Homosexual Roman Catholics hmmm, there are also;
Roman Catholics who engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and
Roman Catholics who use contraception.
If one is divorced,
Uses contraception, or
Engages in sexual intercourse outside of marriage (includes homsexual intercourse, marriage is between a man & a woman)
One cannot remain a Roman Catholic.
SATP,
Not quite. One can engage in all the behaviours you listed above, but it doesn’t stop you from being a Catholic. Once you’re baptised a Catholic you’re a Catholic forever, no matter what sins you commit.
If you have committed any of the sins above and haven’t been to Confession, you can’t receive Holy Communion.
If you go to Confession to be forgiven those sins, you will not be forgiven unless you express Contrition. Contrition means you go and sin no more. This means, you go to Confession on Saturday, Communion on Sunday, sin your brains out until your next Confession, then go to Communion on Sunday etc wtc. The catch comes if you die after sinning and before Confession. Then you go to Hell.
All that’s the theory anyway.
Lesson from all the above: Never go out with a Catholic girl on a Saturday night.
Yer, I thought that after baptism it was either “catholic” or “lapsed catholic”…
…still “catholic”.
j_p_z: re Church and homophobia: let’s not quibble about the word or even concept of ‘homophobia’, which could take some time. My point is that the Catholic Church is anti-homosexuality and anti-homosexual, in theory and practice. And it’s not just a question of those of us who aren’t Catholics just ignoring them. I do, of course, try and ignore them for the better part of my life, but in Sydney this week and in the world of power politics in Australia, they aren’t to be ignored. They still have power and authority, beyond their own remit. They still influence the young, many of whom are subject to their teachings in Catholic schools.
suz: “The point of ‘nuns’ kissing at WYD is …a comment on the sublimated lesbianism of many nuns.”
Well here we have a model of precision and integrity. So, “many” nuns have “sublimated” lesbianism? Who knew? Apparently suz “knows,” having mystic abilities of perception beyond the ken of regular mortals, or else some really cool brain-scanning technology. suz, would you care to tell us which of the “many” nuns have these “sublimated” tendencies, exactly?
I went to Catholic schools for 13 years, taught by nuns all that time. I have since met many lesbians who were ex-nuns.
My brothers went to the Catholic school in Sydney that infamously back in the 70s sacked a teacher because he appeared in public as an out gay man. My brothers have tales about sexual abuse of students by the religious teaching staff. The hypocrisy of such institutional practices is pretty blatant and I’m sure it’s ongoing.
The number of priests who’ve died from AIDS in the US alone is in the thousands. In other words, thousands of them were (and no doubt are) homosexually active while the Church pronounces publicly on the sinfulness of homosexuality. Why should we (homosexuals, I mean) live and let live when the Church seeks to condemn us?
Here’s a photo which captures some of the flag waving:
http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5033211-5016937-18,00.html
suz, thanks for your expanded remarks. I’d like to write a more careful, considered reply, but right now I’m up to my eyeballs in work and not equal to the task. Maybe in a few days. FWIW, I’m rather familiar with many or most of the phenomena you mention, but it’s just that I don’t see that as the end of the road.
It would be entertaining and a good time-waster to write a bunch of brusque, persnickety polemics, but the subject as you’ve framed it deserves better, so I’ll have to return in a more pensive mode.
Meantime, why aren’t there any good joke threads on this thing?! Stupid blog, be more entertaining and help me procrastinate!
[accidentally uses an Uncle Tupelo CD as a coaster, curses, storms into the other room]
So it’s possible to be a Catholic and not a Christian at the same time. Groovy.
That’s about right, silkworm. Interesting paradox, ain’t it?
‘a Catholic and not a Christian’…
I started reading Coetzee’s Boyhood last night, in which, at school, he’s bullied for deciding on a whim (because of an affinity for ancient Rome) to nominate as a Roman Catholic and therefore avoid assemblies. The students in the school are divided into ‘Christians’ and ‘Roman Catholics’ (as well as Jews) and the latter are decidedly not amongst the ranks of the former.
or Lindsay Tanner on Q&A last week: “I’m not very religious: I’m an Anglican.”