And a wonderfully articulate man of faith. His bio reads as follows:
Novelist Gregory Maguire is a prominent figure in the world of children’s literature. Best known as a fantasy writer, Maguire, forty-nine, has written more than a dozen books for children. He also writes for adults. A musical adaptation of his adult novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West opens this month on Broadway, with lyrics and music by Steven Schwartz (Godspell), and Joel Grey as the Wizard.
A Catholic faith and vision suffuses Maguire’s work, and is explicit in novels and stories such as Missing Sisters and “Chatterbox.” … A practicing Catholic, Maguire is also a gay father of three.
In an interview with the Catholic magazine, Commonweal, Maguire responds to the latest decrees from the Vatican, decrees describing his committed relationship as “evil” and the love he has for his adopted, minority children as the equivalent of “violence”:
I must share with my children my faith, its dramatic promise and possibilities, its murky history and contradictions, the guidance it can lend, and the challenges it must pose. Andy and I will tell them – when they’re old enough – about the courage it took to adopt them in this climate, about the heartache the church from above can sometimes provoke, and the help that the church from below sometimes can provide. We will choose not to whitewash the complications, and will hope the children see us as brave and devout, not craven and hypocritical. That is what I wish for my children: not to be indoctrinated, but to question, and perhaps to be persuaded to value the gospel message as I do.
Then he puts his finger on it:
I sometimes feel the Vatican says of the fringe members of the church: “The Church: Love It or Leave It.” I stay in the church because I must, because it is the mystical body of Christ; it is the most palpable metaphor or nexus in which my frail human spirit and frailer body can know itself to be at home. In the church, when I take Communion, I am joined by my dead father, by my dead mother, by the unremembered relatives who passed their faith along through the centuries. I am joined by the children of my children, by everyone who cherishes the gospel of love, and who strives, however inconsistently, to put others before one’s self.
And I deal with the pain, in part, by continuing to be a Catholic as an act of defiance as well as an act of faith (and are they different things, even?).
Alas, the full interview isn’t available online, but it was a real blessing for me to read. As it happened, I was walking past a church last Saturday in Manhattan, and couldn’t stop myself from attending mass. The support and solidarity of men like Maguire and so many others brought me back inside a church after a long absence. When I read words like these, I simply know that our struggle is one that we have no choice but to bear witness to. Yes, defiance can also be a part of faith.
The Dish 