Cardinal Sarah and The Ugly Face of Intolerance

Before I start.  This is not a post to attack Jesus.  This is not a post to attack following Jesus.  This is not a post attacking the followers of Jesus.  Many of his followers are pretty wonderful.  I am privileged that some of them are my friends.  This is a post that looks at some others of his followers and says

And a disclaimer:  For many years I would have been one of those Christians who Gandhi would not have liked.  I couldn't see it at the time.  But it's the truth.  My Christianity and Christ were in some important respects divorced from one another.  My views were not far from those of the Cardinal in this post.  Even though that involved an unhealthy dose of self-rejection and self-hatred and despair.  Mea Maxima Culpa.  I sorted that in the last few years and hoped I moved a long way towards being the kind of Christian of the sort Gandhi would have enjoyed drinking tea with.  And then I left the church!

Pink News has reported on a speech by Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.

Lots of people have been getting annoyed by the things reported.  I'm not sure that he's worth getting too annoyed about even though he is a powerful man in a powerful organisation.  But it's fair to say that he won't be finding too many converts among the people who have learned that it's okay to accept themselves and live more fully in the truth of their own being.

I've read the speech and I try to be fair.  I know that speeches by Catholic Cardinals have to be interpreted and decoded firmly within the context of Catholic thought and that sometimes what they mean will be something very different to that reported.  I've seen articles in which what is reported is pretty much the opposite of what was said.  And in my Catholic years when I was wanting to robustly defend my faith I sometimes saw Protestants totally twist the words of Catholics into something that implied Catholicism was a false version of Christianity.  To balance that, I have to say that I also saw Catholics do exactly the same with the words of Protestants.  Yay, Christianity, it's all one big, unhappy family where rejection can often triumph over love.  Sometimes.

Pink News overstates things.  I have to say that.  Pink News often overstates things and takes words out of context.  Cardinal Sarah didn't quite say what he is said to have said.  However, his speech is not good at all. Not good at all.  Or if you're a traditional Catholic reading this, it's a wonderful speech, you'll love it! I don't want to comment too much on it because there's such a lot to comment on.  I would end up picking apart every paragraph of the speech for the good and the bad points because my brain would obsess about it until the task was complete.

Yes, Pink News didn't quite get it right.  He didn't call transgender people demonic.  Not quite.  But. There's a lot of but. A heck of a lot of but. It's not a speech to bring hope that the Catholic Church is going to officially embrace the equal rights and the equal dignity of all people any time soon.  It may claim to do so but while it still calls some of us intrinsically disordered just for existing - and the official Catechism of the Catholic Church still uses such language - its claims are obviously far from the truth at this time.


I guess that his views on many matters are totally opposed to those of the good, faithful Christians I was with yesterday and to many other Christians including many Catholics.  No, I don't guess it.  I know it.  Without any doubt.
 
When the Cardinal says that the move for trans people to change their gender identities shows that “God is being eroded, eclipsed, liquidated” I don't suppose that the faithful transgender Christians I know would agree. They would say almost the opposite. If God is truth (as the Bible says) then the move is an embracing of God.  God is being revealed and increased in their lives through the liberation and freedom they have found in loving themselves as being, as they see it, beautifully and wonderfully made by their God.

And I don't suppose that anyone at church yesterday - many of them in same-sex unions - would agree that same-sex unions are "a deep wound that closes the heart to self-giving love" or that the enthusiastic Christians there would say their marriages are "a crushing burden that can prevent them from opening to the healing power of the Gospel." After all, if God is love (as the Bible says) then embracing same-sex unions is embracing God.

Only if they're prayerful God botherers!

Here's the full speech.

Read it, and then, as is said in MCC (Metropolitan Community Church) frequently, "Dismiss whatever insults your soul." Or as was said to me yesterday by Kate, a minister in MCC who had just learned I had left the church, "Go wherever feeds your soul."

I love MCC!  I may have left it but I still love it and will continue to do so.  I will keep telling people about it and hoping that the people who belong there will find their way there. I'd gladly take someone along if they wanted to go but were nervous of going alone. Because what they would find there is welcome, safety and a place of freedom in which they can be who they are no matter their sexuality or gender.

If you want to read a Catholic commentary on the speech and the event, here's one.  It notes what Cardinal Sarah said about legalising the same-sex unions that already existed in a non-legally binding form:  "It is like putting bandages on the infected wound. It will continue to poison the body until antibiotics are taken."  Yes.  He said that in a speech that saw lots of applause during and afterwards.

Speaker Paul Ryan also spoke at the event. He said "A lot of people think faith is just an odd, colorful mask for the ugly face of intolerance."

Well, no, faith isn't that.  Faith can be a beautiful thing and can lift people towards the heights of what a human being can be, towards the depths of love and the wideness of our creative spirits.

But the faith of Cardinal Sarah and those like him, as displayed in his words, is most definitely an odd, colorful mask for the ugly face of intolerance.

Days of Gratitude - Hindu Gods, Ambition and Anniversaries

Another week of my posts from the Sunday Assembly gratitude group.  Life is good.  On the worst of days life is good.  In the past week I've had days on which I haven't been able to leave the house.  Those days will be in the next gratitude blog post.  But even for those bad days I can find gratitude.

Yes, life is good.  It really is.  And for me it's so much better than it ever was, because I have become more free and keep seeking to break out of the prisons in my own head that have walls built over decades.

I struggle a lot and sometimes worry that what I'm posting doesn't actually reflect my life.  It's the rose tinted spectacles version maybe.  Sometimes I mention that it's hard - one of these days is a real mention.  But it's not all fun and games and photos and ice cream and happy smiling Clare.  Oh no.  Some of it is hell.

But life is good.  It is.

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Life is hard. With this head it's very hard. It truly is. Most people don't understand quite how hard it is. But it's good. And I realise that to a large extent it's good because I have chosen to make it good. And it's improving because I have chosen it.

And when you make that choice the universe looks at you after a while and says, "Hey, she must enjoy a good life because she's chosen it, so we're going to send a few more good things to her."

When we mope in misery (which I've always been good at) the universe thinks that we enjoy being miserable so after a while cooperates with us by sending some more misery for us to enjoy.

Of course we all have our troubles but I'm learning that if we choose the good, more good comes our way through "coincidence" and random connections than if we don't choose it.

16th March

Grateful that after playing the piano I can close the lid and reveal these tiles. Grateful for having the piano too.

I know it's a godless assembly, but here are a bunch of gods! But as one Hindu said, "We have 10,000 gods but not one of them is divine."

17^th March

This week I've been massively social for me. Or at least I've tried to be. It costs me so many spoons even if I want to do it and love the people. (Except for a couple of people who cost no spoons because they are safety.) Arranging it and preparing my head for it wears me out lots.  If I go out of my way to meet socially with someone it generally means they are really important to me.

Nevertheless, I arranged to go out on three occasions and meet with people. All three of them pulled out on the day for different reasons.  It's nothing personal.  They all had good reasons.  But changing plans is also very costly for my head.  And building myself to be social and then it not happening costs me a lot.

I am grateful.

Not for repeatedly trying and failing to have a social life. But because I am really proud of myself. Because I didn't then just sit at home but went out anyway and did things on each of the days. For me, that is something big, something that's very hard work.

 Today: A walk down to the Tyne and then to the Baltic and Sage and back over the High Bridge in stonkingly gorgeous Spring weather. So glad I managed it. This is such an amazing place to live.

And I took too many pictures. Many more than these.

18^th March

Grateful that thanks to Megabus I can get to Manchester twice this month.

Grateful for the love we share and for the silliness and the freedom too.

 19^th March

Grateful for our trip to the seaside.

For doughnuts, for double ice cream, for chips, for the freedom of riding on a Victorian carousel, and for more double ice cream.

The simple things can be the best.

Image: An awesomely cool person sitting on ambition

 20^th March

Grateful for this stupendously super friendship.

Grateful to be spending these days with someone so awesomely cool.

21^st March

Grateful for a really good day with Amanda , the last for a while. Seven months since we met.

Grateful for all the people you can learn about at The People's History museum, without whom all of our lives would be far less free.

And grateful for carer free tickets which meant our trip to the theatre last night only cost £4 each. Photo taken while waiting for the bus afterwards.

22^nd March

Grateful to be home again and with a few things to look forward to. Grateful that my time away was so good. I have quite a lot of problems but I really am very, very fortunate.

23^rd March

I guess it would be odd to not post this for today.

Twenty years ago, this happened in a church in Aberystwyth.

Twenty years on, we are both very different.

And though I have put her through so much - especially with my mental health but other things too - we are still here and she has not walked away.

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today ... I Got Married

It was twenty years ago today ...

I got married.

Most of the words below are taken from a long letter my mother wrote afterwards to my brother, who couldn't come to the wedding due to being on the other side of the world to me at the time.   I've changed my name from that in the letter to my current name, because I had a different name then - and a different gender too of course, otherwise we could not have got married at all.  And I've just left initials for other names.  Those who were there will know who we all were.

Image: St. Mike's Church, taken from the church website

That's where we were married, the church of St. Michael and All Angels, Aberystwyth, or St Mike's as it's been known for a long while.  At that time we both worshipped there, with hundreds of other people because it was the largest Anglican parish congregation in Wales.  I'm not sure they had ever had a wedding quite like ours.  Photos below were taken on my very cheap camera today from those in our official album - which was made up by B.

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... We were all in church at 6 o'clock for a rehearsal.  The Rev. Bell likes everything to run smoothly in his church.  Behind his back they all call him "Commander" Bell.  The musicians were setting themselves up and having a practice, while the ceremony was run through.  I asked Rev. Bell if he had ever done a wedding with a Best Woman before.  He replied that it had not occurred in 25 years!  "Well, I'm proud of you Clare," I retorted. ...

Yes, I had a best woman.  Turns out that I'm a woman too.  It's highly probable that St. Mikes has never married any other couple who turn out to both be women or men.  And unless things there have drastically changed in the last twenty years they still wouldn't want to marry a same sex or same gender couple.  In any case, it's nice to do things in a way that aren't average.

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... The following morning, I slipped down a few steps at the guesthouse, on the way to the bathroom and severely strained my left ankle.  I hobbled down to breakfast, and then B went out to find a chemist for a support bandage and some anti-bruising cream.  I spent the rest of the morning sitting looking at the sea, with my ankle raised. ...

... We went round to Clare's place, for we were having their things for going away in our car.  He was very calm.  It's not many bridegrooms, I think, who spend the night before the wedding with another woman; but then it was an obvious place for V to stay. ...

Yes, I spent the night before getting married with another woman.  And two weeks later I went to stay with her for a few days in Manchester.  Curiously, the closest bus stop to her home at the time is also the closest bus stop to the home of the good friend I've been staying with recently when visiting Manchester.  Twenty years on and at least some things haven't changed - I still go to Manchester and stay with another woman.

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... In the church car park we greeted the M relations and M and D; we were introduced to some more of B's family, and then we all went in the church.  Another difference about this wedding was that there was no "giving away."  At 3 o'clock Rev. Bell came out from the vestry, met Clare and they both walked up the aisle to the church door to greet B.  Then Clare and B walked back down the aisle together.  Our M preached a sermon and little C (the one from Dorking, who we all love) did one of the readings. ...

Yes, no giving away, on the grounds that my wife is her own woman.  She hadn't been owned by her dad.  She wasn't then owned by me afterwards.  So she couldn't be given by him to me.  People didn't allow me to do what I wanted.  I wanted, when the time came, to stand up, look as panicked to the world as I could and then leg it out of the church via the vestry and make it look like I'd done a runner, and then calmly wander round to the church door to walk in with B.  I thought that would be funny.  But I didn't get to do it.

Thanks to C for reading.  She wasn't named in the programme but filled in at the last minute.  One of our readers couldn't come due to burning herself badly that morning.  Another reader still came even though he ran someone over on the way to the service.  No serious injuries thankfully.  My mother was amused at while C read because I was at the front of the church with B, C, and V.  She almost thought of them as my three women.  And I can say in all innocence that I have shared a bed with all three of them.  The fact that C was reading Psalm 51 - King David repenting of adultery - is not relevant to this story.

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... The music was, of course, unconventional.  One song was sung to the music of La Bamba.  That, at least was a tune we were familiar with.  The others we sang heartily, taking our lead from the musicians in front of us and M and S standing behind us.  The musicians were great.  There were guitars and keyboards, a violin, a saxophone and some singers.  One unhappy little soul was Grandad, who put his book down at the beginning of the first hymn, knowing he couldn't cope. 

I'm normally a bit tearful and emotional at weddings, but was fine until we went into the vestry for the signing of the register.  It was at the moment when I get B a hug and kiss to greet the new Mrs. M that I shed a few tears ...

... The weather was very dull, but at least when the service was over it was not raining.  B ... (my dad) ... took the photos of the formal groups that ought to be taken at weddings, although I'm not sure if Clare and B thought it was all that important - perhaps it was just me.  Certainly, I found it was me that was organising people into these groups.  But then it was a very woman dominated event ...

... The reception was in a church hall about 5 minutes walk from the church, so most people walked.  I did not.  The friends had laid out a spread of, well the normal sort of things you would have at a buffet.  It must have been hard work, because there were 70 people at least.  We had wine to drink.  There were to be no formal speeches, but B's mother did just do the "thank you all for coming" bit and proposed a toast to the bride and groom ... see, I told you it was a woman dominated event.  I needn't have worried about people not being happy.  They all seemed to have enjoyed being involved in such a special wedding, that had been planned by the happy couple to be what was important to them ...

A cutting the cake photo.  The little girl is B's cousin.  It was her birthday.

Yes, we planned our wedding well, although to be honest I might still have stayed away had it not been my own wedding.  Big social gathering, having to smile lots, having far too many cameras pointed at me, having to put on the acceptable social show and be the centre of attention while doing it.  That's just not my thing but really the bride and groom are essential parts of a wedding!

We didn't want normality.  We wanted it to be as close to what we wanted as it could be, within the contexts of an Anglican church service.  So we borrowed the youth band from the local Methodist church - which included people we were at college with - and they played eleven happy songs for us that day, cut down from a list of seventeen.  My poor Grandad gave up early - the first song was one of our two traditional hymns.  Much of the rest of the service was a praise party!

Our preacher was my half uncle who was just starting out in full time church ministry then.  He's now a baptist minister in a growing church in Gloucestershire.  I don't know if he still tells as many jokes in sermons as he did then or whether he would still use the word "testicles" in a wedding sermon.  People still remember that.

We had a cheap wedding too.  We got married in Lent - so couldn't have filled the church with flowers even if we had wanted to.  One of B's friends made the cake and our limo to the reception and train station was her boyfriend's car.  My dad was the wedding photographer.  Our band played for free, just for the experience of playing at a wedding.  And friends from college did indeed work really hard and clubbed together with their cash and their time to give us a relaxed wedding reception to be proud of.

B's clothes came from a charity shop.  Mine didn't - I was the expensive one.  That suit lasted me until I came out as transgender in 2013 and acted as weddings, funerals and preaching suit.  When the time came I was massively grateful to get rid of it.  I gave the contents of my wardrobe to the West End Refugee Service in Newcastle and I'm sure it all got put to good use.  As my mother said, B and I walked into the church together for the service.  Equal partners from the start.

One regret is that I didn't take B's surname in 1996.  We had discussed the possibility and I don't really know why it didn't happen.  Obviously it can't have been that important at the time to us or we would have made it happen.  Of course, in 2013 it happened.  It seemed the right thing to do when I embraced myself as Clare and she embraced me too.  Quite inconvenient though.  I got B to change her surname.  And then got her to change it back again.  Talk about indecisiveness!  As regrets go, that's a nice small thing.

And here's my mother's description of how our married life began.  It kind of set the pattern for the next twenty years of things not going quite as planned and us muddling through it all:

... At just gone 7 o'clock we had to chivvy Clare and B to be going to station to catch their train.  Strangely, it was only Clare's relations who went to the station too, to send them off in style.  Mind you the journey wasn't all that they planned.  V also had to travel on that train (she had to get back to Manchester), but promised that she's sit in another carriage.  Unfortunately there were only 2 carriages and one had a large crowd of drunken yobbos in, and there was no way any of them would travel with that sort.  Then apparently the train was help up for over half an hour at Dovey Junction, and then when there train did get going there was no electricity and they were travelling without lights. ...

And then our hotel room at the Shrewsbury Hotel that night was dreadful.  The bathroom was so small that you had to sit sideways on the toilet.  The bedside table, instead of a Gideon's Bible, contained half a packet of condoms.  Yes, half a packet!  And the window looked out on a back alley the other side of which was a take away which didn't shut until 2 am and kept it's back kitchen door open.  People seemed to be vomiting in the alley for most of the night.  The breakfast the following morning was dire.  The "Full English Breakfast" when it eventually happened consisted of one sausage and a fried egg.  Thankfully they did move us for our second night there into their best room and that was much more comfortable.

It wasn't the most promising start and the first year of our marriage contained quite a few tough things.  But we survived that year.  And we've got through nineteen more years of marriage and a lot more hard things have happened and there have been big surprises that just keep coming.  We made it.  Twenty years.  Traditionally you should all give us some china today.  We have more than enough china so feel free to give us the modern suggested gift of platinum - but be assured that we don't need platinum either so would be selling your gift.  Because we're like that!

Forcing people to accept the "gay lifestyle" and "Christianity"? No. We're not.

I am becoming angry.  I think that's a good thing.  It's only a matter of time before I break out into more practical social action.

I just saw a picture on facebook.  Somebody shared it from "The Tea Party" and anyone who knows me knows that me and the Tea Party don't see eye-to-eye.  I wonder who these two men are and if they know their image is being used in such a way.

And I screamed inside.  At the idiocy of that question - and at how many people would think it a good question, that their freedom is threatened by allowing gay people to marry.  Then again I saw a comment yesterday from someone - a very faithful Catholic - who didn't see that the laws in Uganda as an affront because, he said, homosexuality is an affront to nature.  Would he want LGBT people in America to be imprisoned for life I wonder?  Would he think it an affront to imprison me for life?

Bear in mind that I wrote a long response to someone earlier in the day defending theism and theists - that it isn't a belief in God that leads to idiocy but other things that arise in non-theistic situations too: exclusivism, defensiveness, fear, crowd psychology, the human need to belong, leaders not encouraging thought - and sometimes actively discouraging thought.  I was a strong theist for two decades and know so many marvellous people who are theists.  I'm not anti-theism or anti-Christianity and remain a Christian, albeit a non-theist.

None of what follows is an attack on theism - I have no problem at all with people believing in God and see how many good things this can bring.  Even if theism is an erroneous belief it brings great things to millions of people and inspires great deeds, great art and literature and great charity.


I wrote this.  In one rapid sprawl.  And haven't proof read it, checked it or altered it at all.  I can't post it on facebook - I lost the original post by pressing the wrong button. That may be a good thing.  If you get fed up with my ramblings there are links to a couple of better writers at the bottom of this post.

 

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 How stupid.  At best stupid.  At worst evil.

A) it's not a 'lifestyle'.

B) nobody is asking anyone to adopt a gay life - only to allow gay people to live their lives.

People are being asked to stop discriminating against gay people (like myself).  They're not being told to be gay.  People are being asked to accept us - not become us.  To stop hating us.  And they DO hate us, while claiming to 'hate the sin but love the sinner'.  I've been told my marriage is void, blasphemy and that I'm an abomination.  By Christians.  Throwing the Bible at me.  Many friends have had similar experiences.  All we ask is that we can be who we are - and that's rooted in love, compassion.

The current situation in many places, including much of the USA, is that people are forced to not be themselves and love who they love.  And the Catholic Church supports that situation.  "Who am I to judge?" falls on deaf ears when we've already been judged.

C) Who doesn't accept that Christians can be Christians?  Nobody is telling Christians to stop being Christians.

Except Christians keep living in fear - if we allow a gay couple to marry it will destroy civilisation, they'll turn and kill the church, they'll want to marry squirrels.  And all that crap.  Why are Christians taught to live in such fear?  Why do Christians fear human beings so much?  Are they really so faithless?  Do they not believe "if God is for me ...?"

If God is love and perfect love casts out all fear then it has to be said that an atheist gay couple can be MUCH closer to God than many Christians are.

Or does this picture imply that if the government allow gay people to live their lives it should force people to be Christian?

I hope not because that would be evil.  Very, very evil.

What I really hate is all this talk of "religious freedom" when what is meant is "we religious people want to force everyone else to live the way we want them to".  When I hear "religious freedom" coming from an American it is rare that religious freedom is meant.  What is almost always meant is bigotry, persecution, criminalising humans, and a lack of freedom - religious or otherwise - for others.

Hey, a church which I love I attend regularly is part of a denomination founded in the USA.  It teaches that gay marriage is fine.  Why shouldn't we have the "religious freedom" that people, including yourself, go on about?  Why do so many Christians think that religious freedom includes forcing your religion and the morality you draw from it onto everyone else?

So, legalise civil gay marriage.  Legalise it.  Any sex marriage.  Any gender marriage.

Because anything else destroys the concept of religious freedom.  And legalising it doesn't destroy your freedom to be in a church that teaches that it is evil.  That my marriage is evil.  That I am evil because of my gender (as Benedict XVI made abundantly clear).

Legalise it.  Because that's freedom.

Or don't you trust God to be able to cope with a society that is free?  Don't you trust God to "protect" the Catholic Church?

Your God should be big enough that you don't feel the need to piss, through your thoughts, words and deeds, on people for being gay and loving one another.

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If you want to go further read something else about threats to religious freedom, something written with much care and common sense, something which quickly and clearly cuts through much of the nonsense that people speak about the subject, I can recommend this post:

  

How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions by Rev. Emily C. Heath

Or take a read of this short article from an evangelical Christian website, written by Kristen Howerton on "the biblical definition of marriage and its relevance to marriage equality."  She doesn't judge any definition, opinion or interpretation but writes:

The relevance of your biblical beliefs on homosexuality in regards to marriage equality?

THEY AREN’T RELEVANT.

Case closed!