THE CATHOLIC LAITY

There’s a lot of evidence in this country that shows that American lay Catholics tend to be one of the more tolerant and socially liberal populations. As a practicing Catholic until it became impossible for me a year and a half ago, I always found actual Catholics, especially priests (every church I attended from Harvard’s to St Matthews in Washington had gay priests), to be extremely compassionate, tolerant and understanding of their gay fellow human beings. My own large Irish-Catholic family has been incredibly supportive; and I know of many, many others. Here’s a recent poll on Australian lay Catholics saying the same thing. Most Catholics put the ban on all gay relationships on the same plane as the ban on contraception – and, theologically, it’s rooted in the same idea that all sexual expression must be open to procreation. So they could live with it, however dumb. It dealt with acts, after all; it didn’t single out a group of people for discrimination and stigma. But the new proposed policy of banning all gay priests regardless of their celibacy or record or abilities is very different. Many Catholics were brought up, as I was, with a deep sense of the sin of bigotry, of prejudice, and of judging people for who they are rather than by what they do and how they live. I’d say this was one of the deepest lessons my devout mother and grandmother taught me. As a barely literate Irish-Catholic immigrant in Britain in the 1930s, my grandmother knew what prejudice was. And she knew her faith opposed it. Today, the hierarchy that represents that faith is actually practising it – proudly and in daylight. Western lay Catholics must rise up and demand their faith not be tarnished by this stain. This is not about homosexuality as such. It’s about the moral integrity of Catholicism itself.