#reconciling being gay and being catholic at the same time

[sofipitch]

There are now at least two theories in TLT that seem to exclude one another yet both are true. Both Harrow and Palamedes' theories about how lyctorhood is achieved are true. Both Harrow's theory that her weird experiences are due to her psychosis and Abigail's that it's bc she is super haunted by ghosts are also true. There may be others. I know Tazmuir is religious but seems to have a good deal of biology knowledge, which biologists are one of the least religious groups in science. I wonder if this is reflective of her experience as a religious person who is both queer and probably believes in evolution?

[lover-of-mine]

Morning! Things just keep happening.

Quick note on the 911 ‘unbiased’ news account. Before their username was 911UnbiasedFun it was 911Unserious. Now it is EddiePornstache for some reason? Whoever is running this is obviously fumbling. Talking about ‘even bad interaction helps me’ despite not being verified? And being at the same follower count for a while? Idk it is truly just another example of how strange and out of touch BTs are.

They are still believing in the ‘hiding Lou’ theories. Apparently now he is going to be hidden for months then have Lou-centric photoshoots/BTS/interviews/promo dropped all at once right before the premiere. And then he will not show up in 8x1 for the sole purpose of ‘keeping the audience on edge’ as if the GA remembers who he is lol. Alternatively they are hoping he will be hidden the entire time only to appear in most episodes of the season.

Apparently Buck wearing brown means that he is wearing Tommy’s clothes which means that he moved in with Tommy. Of all the insane leaps of logic…

Also finding parallels between Michael and Eddie is now inappropriate according to BTs. We are not allowed to hope for an arc of a man struggling to reconcile his queerness with his Catholic upbringing. Further if you are not a gay man you are not allowed to want Eddie to be gay. At ALL. Crazy.

In better news Maddie is now officially Maddie Han! In worse news the BTs are pretending to be happy about this while secretly complaining that the cast list did not get updated in other Lou-related ways. All roads lead back to that man apparently. I fear Lou being listed officially as a recurring character would not be enough for them. They need this to be the Tommy show or for Buck to be renamed as ‘Evan Kinard’ or something like that. They will only be truly happy when it is all about them.

Hello love 🩵

The 911unbiased lore keeps getting weirder lol. Again, I ask why would they be hiding Lou? I'm not even saying it's not possible, I want a reasonable explanation that's not "oh the buddie crazies will try to kill him" because all of us are expecting him to come back. Keep the audience on edge? Sure. I love that the jacket thing was proved wrong beyond a doubt because the shirt is grey lol. I wonder if they ever get tired of policing how people are allowed to experience fandom. There are very clear parallels between Eddie and Michael. And you have to be a specific type of queer to talk about another specific type of queer? So I'm taking Buck away from anyone who's not bisexual. This is so stupid.

Also Maddie is officially Maddie Han 🥰🥰🥰 war days of her being listed as Maddie Kendall are over. But they are still grabbing onto the idea that he's gonna somehow make lead this season? Seriously, dude, the hope of these people would be inspiring if it wasn't so deranged.

[karenandhenwilson]

Thoughts about Eddie's season 7 arc

We've all talked a lot about the scene were Buck comes out to Eddie. With good reason. It was an important scene for Buck and it was a great scene for any queer person watching how it can be to come out to a good friend and be just accepted.

But I think that we might have missed something important about Eddie because our focus was understandably on the second half of that conversation.

And that we missed something about his storyline in the second half of the season. Eddie says to Buck "You and Tommy have the right idea. Stay single!" (And yes, I know, the Eddie gay truthers have talked about the line, but I think they missed the point because they only have the goal to find proof for their headcanon in the analysis of any given scene. For the record, I'm firmly in the camp of headcanoning(!) Eddie on the demi end of the aro/ace spectrum.) He also mentions he would need to break up with Marisol a couple of sentences earlier.

I think aside from the whole Catholic aspect, it says a lot about Eddie's mindset regarding his relationship. Because it shows that he doesn't think much about how to work through his discomfort, how to reconcile with Marisol and truly start anew with their relationship, despite us seeing them say those words.

I think what we see in this scene of Eddie's thoughts is already an indication of what will happen later in the season. Despite just having asked Marisol to move in with him, he doesn't really hold tightly to the relationship. I think we see here, that part of Eddie is already out of that relationship even if he doesn't recognize that. Or maybe he does recognize it and that's the reason why he suddenly asked Marisol to move in with him. Because there was no indication of that before this episode--Marisol moving in with Eddie and Chris came completely out of the blue.

So, it's probably no wonder that Eddie didn't even hesitate when he told Kim that it was just him and Chris. I have already shared some thoughts about Eddie's quest to look for a woman in his life to fill a role that nearly everyone tells him he needs to fill here. I'm convinced that is the only reason he still held onto the relationship with Marisol at this point.

Overall, I think it's a brilliant piece of storytelling of how Eddie's storyline in the second half of the season was foreshadowed in the first half. There is not just this insight in his thoughts about his relationship with Marisol aside from his reaction to her being a nun in episode 5.

The whole foreshadowing started right in episode 1, when Chris struggles with Shannon's abandonment. (And I think the letter is bullshit. And it's especially bullshit to pretend that it just solved all of Chris' complicated feelings surrounding his mother.) For one, of course, there is Shannon's ghost showing up when Chris reads the letter which is in retrospect a big sign that there was more to come. But there is also Eddie's very raw desperation we see in those scenes.

It is really very clearly written over the whole first half of the season that something would come up about Shannon and Eddie would once more be caught up in his grief--that I believe he never truly worked through.

I shared my thoughts about this in a little post a couple of weeks ago, too, but I think it's worth repeating it: Grief isn't linear. It comes back to haunt you in unexpected ways even years after losing someone.

What we see of Eddie's grief this season isn't anything of what we have seen previously. Because it's brought back by his son growing up and reaching a time in his life where he starts questioning his childhood memories, and where he starts processing those memories differently. If Chris has to deal with everything he feels and thinks about his mother again, of course Eddie is confronted with all of it, too. Chris questioning his mother's actions means that Eddie has to face these exact same questions and that might give him another perspective, too.

So, as much as I hate the whole Kim part of this storyline, the more I think about it, the more I believe it's overall a very good story. One we'll see continued in season 8 (at least I'd be very surprised and disappointed if it's just forgotten as other storylines were in the past).

[washipink]

Rain by Jocelyn Samara D Year 1: 2010-2011

erSo I recently found out that 1 year ago, a comic that was INCREDIBLY important to me as a trans middle schooler who went to catholic school had wrapped up. This year, I’ve decided I’m going to read through and review Rain by Jocelyn Samara, 1 year of the comic’s run at a time. First up: Year 1, which covers Chapter 1 (The New Girl) through Chapter 6 (Fallen Angel). I’ll be summarizing the story and characters for those unfamiliar, so feel free to follow along.

There’s a LONG-ASS post under that read more. If you have any experience with the comic or enjoy the post, please talk about it with me. It’ll be a good time.

Year 1 Summary

The star of the show is Rain, a transgender 17 year old girl who moved in with her Aunt Fara after her mother’s death. It starts on the first day of her senior year of high school, the first time she’s ever tried to pass as female in front of... anyone???

Based on some of the language used in the character bios, I should be very clear that this comic is from 2010 and written by a trans woman who is most likely older than most of my followers. There may be language used that you personally don’t agree with. I’m not a fan of being called transsexual myself, but there’s nothing wrong with saying it.

Anyway, the basic gist is that Rain passes EXCELLENTLY and attracts a lot of attention from her male classmates, much to her dismay.

But the men aren’t the only people with their eyes on Rain. Lesbian classmate, Maria and her fake boyfriend, Gavin make a bet of 5 United States Dollars out of who can talk to Rain first.

Here’s the rub: During Role, Gavin seems to recognize Rain’s last name. It’s the same as his childhood best friend, Ryan. Gavin and Maria then banter a little bit, jokingly saying “what if that IS Ryan? could ya believe that?”

Little do they know...

One thing about Rain is that its cast of characters is by no means infallible. Even characters that I came to love, like Maria, are kind of insensitive. Just about no one in this cast has ever MET a trans person in their lives prior to Rain. It’s very true to life in that way. You meet a lot of people that are ignorant or accidentally insensitive. And sometimes, they learn to stick up for you.

The realistic portrayal of how trans teens can be treated by other teens is one of my FAVORITE things about Rain.

Anyway, Gavin brings up Ryan Falherty to Rain, which causes her to panic and run away.

And Crash Directly into the fifth member of our main cast, RUDY!!!!

A rather gossipy gay boy that sees up Rain’s skirt and thinks she’s just a REALLY brave gay dude. He tells Gavin and Maria pretty much right away and Gavin does not take it well. The majority of Year 1 is spent on Gavin and Rain repairing their strained friendship after years apart from one another. That begins here, with Gavin confronting Rain about her identity.

Gavin’s super upset about the whole deal, but Maria and Rudy are some of Rain’s biggest shooters going forward. Even if they can ask a LOT of invasive questions.

If I’m being completely honest, there’s no MAJOR developments in Chapter 2. Fara gets a call from Rain’s older Sister about how their older Brother hasn’t talked to either of them in forever. This lays a few seeds for later events, but it is PRETTY unimportant for a while. There’s some really good emotional dialogue in it though.

In Chapter 3, Rudy’s meddling directly causes Rain and Gavin to reconcile. They have a discussion about how the reason she never told him was just that she was scared to lose her only friend.

MEANWHILE, in an attempt to make some actual friends, Fara reaches out to her neighbors and meets Ky(lie) and Heather Coven, a Gender Ambiguous Teen who goes to a different high school and her less approving older sister.

Kylie, also known as Ky, swaps gender presentations incredibly frequently, not really showing any bias for one or the other. So do not expect me to be consistent with their pronouns. Their gender is kinda messy. Almost like he’s some kind of... real person with a real life gender. Crazy.

Anyway, Fara invites them over and she and Heather get drunk, which means she can’t pick up Rain from the mall. Rain needs a place to sleep that night and Gavin invites her to stay with him.

This begins Chapter 4, in which Gavin and Rain realize that things may be different from when they were kids... but there’s a lot that hasn’t changed. Gavin remarks about how much more feminine Rain is than when she was a kid and how that’s WEIRD for him... but they end up playing a game from their childhood pretty much all night. It reminds them of all the good times and ignites within them the hope that they can have MORE good times going forward.

As an adult with friends I’ve had on-and-off relationships to, this speaks to me way more powerfully than ever before. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The next day, during her hangover, Fara sees Rain’s older brother on an ad for a dating website with his new fiance.

And on the way back to her apartment, Rain meets Ky for the first time. Neither one of them is aware that the other one has ANY kind of Gender going on and they won’t be for quite some time.

The chapter ends with Aunt Fara telling Rain about what happened with Aiken.

Chapter 5 is a simple one, Popular prep girl, Emily is giving out invitations to a Halloween party for her “perfect senior year”

Everyone but Rudy gets one, which causes Maria to give Emily a talking to. She assures Maria that he wasn’t intentionally excluded and it definitely wasn’t because he’s the only openly gay student in the whole school.

Oh, also a dude beats Rudy up for that exact reason, earning Maria’s fury later on. Rain invites Ky to come with the rest of them to the party.

Like I said, pretty simple chapter.

The last chapter of year 1 is Chapter 6: Fallen Angel.

Everyone is showing off their Halloween costumes before they leave for the party. Rudy’s reads as a bit insensitive to rain, as he goes as.... a high school girl.

We’ve all heard this one, right? young queer person that wants to toy with their gender expression uses a Halloween costume as an excuse? It can hit different watching your friend do this when you’re a stealth trans person and especially when you’re one as self-conscious as Rain.

When they reach the address for the party, they find out that Emily... has an older Boyfriend. Like, a WAY older boyfriend. Who lets all these literal teenaged children drink at a party in HIS HOUSE.

also he’s dressed as the devil in case you needed any more signals he was BAD NEWS.

This sounds like a good time for an aside: Fara is on a date with someone she met online. He works at a manga translator and offers to get Rain a meeting with her favorite mangaka.

Meanwhile, at the party, Chase seems to recognize Rain from somewhere. What could this mean?

Anyway, remember how I mentioned the underage drinking? Yeah, Rudy is HELLA drunk. And the results are not pretty.

The whole school sees this and is... BAFFLED. Because of course, Rudy is gay. how could he kiss a girl? Did he do it because he was dressed as a girl? Was it the alcohol? was RAIN Gay? Who knows?

The chapter ends on Rain riding home in tears.

Thus ends the first year of Rain.

Art

Ok, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. This art is... not too impressive. Every character looks like they jumped out of a How to Draw Manga book and Rain’s design is VERY 2010. Backgrounds are infrequent and many panels feature just 2 characters next to each other against a flat color.

But I think that’s okay. While the visual design of Rain is not immaculate, it’s certainly passable. Samara had a story to tell and she didn’t let her art hold her back. She just took pen to paper and let it go. As the comic goes along, you can tell she’s trying different things and experimenting with drawing a variety of poses. That said, the art style never really changes at all during the comic’s run.

Pure Unfiltered Story Opinions

Rain was one of the first real queer stories I’d gotten a chance to read. At the ripe, young age of 12, every word of it was unreal to me. A girl like me made REAL friends in spite of it all and got to be who she was. And now, reading it again, it really holds up.

Rain has a depiction of queer friendships that’s very true to a lot of peoples’ lived experience. Not everyone GETS each other, but they try. Sometimes, they ask a stupid-ass question. Sometimes, you get into fights. 

Also, sometimes people in your high school get prayed upon by creepy weirdos in their late 20s who think they can get easy tail from CHILDREN. (Trust, people. This gets addressed. This is NOT a fucking glorification and if anyone in the notes says it is, they’re blocked.)

I look forward to seeing where the comic goes from here and I hope you’re ready to take that journey with me.

[immortal-family]

re: your tags on the post about mia i would love to hear your thoughts on mia's family / the catholic symbolism in the movie!

* rolling up my sleeves * here I come

(I’m answering only one question now because the answer was longer than I expected lmao I will deal with the other tomorrow)

Catholic symbolism in the movie Il Padre d’Italia

This movie is drown in catholic symbolism, at a level that it cannot be "unconscious" but, in my opinion, is a very deliberate choice by the authors.

The most immediate thing that I noticed was how Mia and Paolo are a sort of allegory for the nativity, where Mia is a sort of "unholy" Mary and Paolo is St. Joseph.

Mia being Mary is underlined by her wearing a jacket with literally St. Mary embodied on it and being pregnant without a biological father for the children (sure, there must be a biological father somewhere, but he is basically non-existent). When Paolo speaks with Assunta, she even makes the joke “She would even tell you that she’s a virgin”.

When I first heard that Paolo wanted to be a carpenter, my first instinct was to say "wow, St Joseph much?" He literally is a man who is taking care of a child that he knows is not his.

It's a little stretchy, but also their travel can be seen as a parallel to Mary and Joseph journey, looking for a place for her to give birth.

These parallels are resumed in one of the final flashback which is also my favorite scene of the movie and makes me weep like a toddler when Mia says that the whole story of Mary and Jesus is "unnatural". Mia takes Paolo internalized homophobia and tries to unpack it, to dismantle it as a wall, brick by brick, in the same way she probably had to unlearn to hate herself for being pregnant of a random man without being married. And she herself declares to be “a miracle”. (We could open a whole chapter about how this movie plays with the mother/madonna/prostitute trope and subvert it by making Mia reclaim all three identities).

What I love about this use of the catholic symbolism is how it is reclaimed by the movie, by putting as protagonists two categories that have been persecuted by Catholicism: women (and in particular, free independent women) and gays.

Italy is a Catholic country. If you grow up here, religion is probably going to be a part of your upbringing, even if you don't come from a religious family. It is in the language, in the holidays, in the culture, in the architecture, in the traditions... And the two main characters have to live in this country, catholicism is part of who they are.

Paolo was literally raised by nuns and we see how important religion is for Mia's family (it cannot be a case that they arrive the day of the confirmation of Mia's niece, the movie wants us to see that religion is part of your life).

What the movie does is nearly sacrilegious, but at the same time it simply re-tells the story of the Gospel. This movie is saying "yes, we have been taught these things since we were kids, and you know what? Now we are interpreting it on our way."

I have so many queer friends who grew up in religious families and are themselves religious, and they often have to find “their own interpretation”, in order to reconcile their faith with their queer identity.

And in a certain way, that’s what the movie does. Instead of rejecting everything that is catholic and trying to delete the characters’ upbringing, it makes them subvert it and reclaim it.

And this subversion is also made by the fact that Mia has a girl, instead of a boy. Because sure, this story can be see as an allegory for the Holy Family, but they are their own story.

Without this, the movie wouldn’t be as powerful as it was, especially for people who grew up queer in christian and - specifically - catholic families. 

This is only my opinion, of course. I’d love to hear other people’s opinion, in particular from people who come from different backgrounds! 

[theanimalsarecalling]

When Ronan Lynch was first given voice in The Dream Thieves, I was excited. He is definitely the most interesting pov character.  By turns, he is poignant, funny and a total shit.  His dreaming is presented as a sort of cross between being a gifted child and having a chronic disease, both of which are isolating, and which both feed into the depression he regularly experiences.  He is an immensely relatable character. I think that's why so many readers take his pov at face value.

Chapter 12 in The Dream Thieves presents what, to me, is one of the most troubling scenes in the series. This is the chapter in which Ronan meets his brothers at church. Declan is obviously injured.  In chpt 2, Declan had just survived a terrible assault from the Gray Man.  As described, he had head injuries severe enough that I'm surprised Maggie didn't give him chronic migraines in addition to an incipient ulcer.  And Ronan's reaction to seeing this?

"Ronan's mood improved."

This nearly sank Ronan as a character for me.

This is his brother we are talking about. I know they don't have a particularly good relationship, and with the reveals in the Christmas story and TDT, we know it goes back farther than Niall's death or the will. But still.  Who gets happy seeing another person brutally beaten? 

Then the narrative switches to Declan's story that he was beaten up by burglars, which Ronan knows is a lie. Ronan briefly considers who could have beaten up his brother, who he knows to be a good fighter. But then he says to himself "It was like the truth was a disease Declan thought might kill him."

At this point in the story, we have been told that Declan is a liar, a calculating man-whore, who cheats on his girlfriends and trots out his brother's trauma to get laid, is bossy and controlling, and possibly homophobic and just a general asshole, all filtered through Ronan's pov. (In fairness, Declan's not perfect.  The lying, bossing and controlling are all true. He's also crabby.) But by bringing  up Declan's lying at this point, Ronan implies that Declan somehow deserved the beating because he's a general asshole.  But isn't this dangerously close to blaming the victim?

I eventually circled back around to liking Ronan.  He's still relatable.  He's also the victim of unusual circumstances, flawed parenting and his own poor choices. 

One of the central themes in The Dreamer Trilogy is coming to terms with your own self hatred.  Three of the principle characters hate themselves.  In Hennessey's and Declan's cases, this stems primarily from parental abuse and neglect.  In Ronan's case, it's a bit more complex.  I think Ronan's  is caused by three things:   

1.  The conflict between being a devout Catholic and gay man.  Personally, I think this is the least of it.  By the time you reach CDTH, he's pretty openly out, and seems to have made peace with it.  

2.  The gifted child / chronic illness thing.  These are circumstances beyond Ronan's control. And they are truly isolating for him.  The moment he realized he couldn't be with Adam at Harvard and he was stuck accepting that all of Adam's friends must think of him as a hopeless fuck-up, was truly heart wrenching. (And Declan's suggestion to Adam that he blame it all on Ronan, while practical, certainly showed some resentment on Declan's part).

3.  But the biggest reason is this. There was a very dangerous dynamic going on in the Lynch family.  Two children were favored, and one was isolated and excluded, made to work, and regularly placed in dangerous situations. Of course, Ronan only witnessed the first two.  But witnessing the abuse of a sibling can mess you up almost as much as the victim.  Ronan learned to think treating Declan this way was normal.  He accepted the narrative that Declan was somehow deficient and therefore deserved to be treated badly.  Even in CDTH, the way Ronan treats Declan is appalling.  

How do you reconcile this with the Ronan who fought Adam's father to protect him, who has such high ideals, who wants to be a hero?  Well, you can't.  In accepting the abuse Declan's received as normal and deserved, Ronan has been perpetuating it.  

For those of you who've read the other stuff I've written here, you've probably realized I keep circling back to the same place.

The biggest lie Ronan has been telling himself is that the way he treats Declan is normal and okay.  Until Ronan recognizes that he had been perpetuating his brother's abuse, and makes amends, he will never be true to his ideals, will never learn kindness, will never grow up and become a hero.  Eventually, this will affect his relationship with Adam, who has eyes and who is an abuse victim himself. 

So the only way forward is for Ronan to grow up, recognize his behavior and make amends by taking Declan's concerns seriously and treating him with kindness.

[chirhos]

hi i hope this is okay to ask, but this is like the first lgbt inclusive christian blog i've seen and im trying to figure stuff out- how do you believe in god? i was raised christian but even as a kid it only felt like stories and i never connected with it. i've identified as atheist for years now, but i've been researching episcopal christianity & reform judaism because i see the connection/meaning others get from religion and wish i had that...but i don't know how.

Hi! This is absolutely okay to ask, and I'm so glad you came to me with this. Right after I post this answer, I'm going to go through my blog and reblog some other questions I've gotten that I think will be relevant to you - recommending other lgbt-affirming Christian blogs, talking about how I personally reconcile being a gay Christian, etc!

But now to get to your main question - I absolutely get where you're coming from. I can't speak about Judaism, as I was baptized and raised Presbyterian, but for most of my teenage years I went between atheist and agnostic. I remember being 16 or 17 and talking to a friend who was raised Baptist, and agreeing that although both of us went to church, neither of us really had "that thing" that would allow us to really, truly believe in God. I've since come back to Christianity, and he hasn't. This might make me a bit heretical, but I don't think he's a bad person for that. His path is different from mine, and that's alright.

My first year of college, I was talking to another friend who was raised Catholic but doesn't go to church anymore. He told me that he wanted to raise his children in the church, and even though he wasn't a practicing Catholic, he knew in his heart that he would come back to God one day. That really got me thinking - I felt the exact same way. What was I waiting for? I went to the used bookstore near my dorm and bought a Bible (I had left the one I got on Reformation Sunday 2008 at home), and it was far from a linear path, but here I am. I am also looking into the Episcopal church, it's interesting that you mention that haha!

I also struggled to connect with Bible stories as a kid. What has helped me in coming back to my faith is starting with the New Testament. My personal favorite is the Gospel of John, but I would recommend reading all of the Gospels, and the Book of Acts, before going back to the Old Testament. When I first re-read Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus after really taking my time on the Gospels, I was literally moved to tears. Seeing the parallels between Old and New Testament stories, how Jesus was prophesied thousands of years before He was born, how humanity has longed to be one with God, and seeing how God saved us through the enduring strength of His love for us never ceases to amaze me.

I also had to fully understand Jesus as a man. In all of His divinity, it's so easy for us to forget that he was fully man and fully God, and that is so important to His story.

But that's all so complicated and theological. For now, this is the best advice I can give you: that longing you feel for religion, for God? That is God longing for you, waiting to welcome you whenever you are ready for Him.

Please don't hesitate to ask any more questions you might have! You'll absolutely be in my prayers. Again, I can only speak to Christian religion, and I would recommend asking some Jewish blogs more about Judaism if you have specific questions about that! :)

[backwardscapsmh]

warning! this deals with themes of religious guilt (specifically of the catholic/christian variety), internalized homophobia, and self hatred so if that is triggering for you please do not read this. like/reblogs and constructive criticism are appreciated.

god must hate me by catie turner

Whiskey came to Samwell with a litany of memorized Our Father’s and half-hearted rattling offs of the rosary. He didn’t actually believe in the things he was saying, so why would it affect him? The stuffy pastor’s words raced through his head, not even stopping by his brain to be absorbed. He’s not religious, so the concept of God didn’t bother him, not in the slightest.

Except, sometimes, when it was late at night, he would think. He would remember Sunday School. Head flooded by memories of small squeaking chairs, the half-finished Jesus coloring pages, and the VeggieTales episodes. He remembers the lessons well, as much as he wishes he didn’t. They stick in his head, stuck like that adhesive residue you can never quite get off of book jackets. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.

I'll let them take accountability

For everything that's wrong with me

Early Sunday mornings spent learning how to fit the perfect mold this institution seemed to expect of him. He remembers being nine, hearing how many things will get you sent to hell. He doesn’t want to go to hell. It sounds scary, and from what he’s gleaned, it’s really hot down there. You can’t play hockey in a firey pit. It wasn’t until he grew up that he realized how much of that checklist of bad traits actually applied to him.

Can't hold myself responsible

So I blame the metaphysical

It’s hard to reconcile now: if God made everyone exactly how they should, why is the way that he is so wrong? He felt it back then especially. The shiny stain-glass saint judging him from their place of honor along the walls. He could feel the scorn of their stares, eyes blank as the painted pupils burned right to the center of his soul. How they knew all his secrets, he’ll never know.

If Jesus died for all our sins

He left one behind the body I'm in

Why does he feel like he’s always too much or too little for any situation? He’s too judgmental. He’s not always the most respectful. He probably cares too much about his looks, as much as he tells himself he doesn’t. And he’s…he’s that word that no one ever said, but implied anyways: gay.

Most days, he’s able to push it from his mind. He can ignore how he constantly feels like he’s being watched. How he can never truly relax within himself, always worried about saying the wrong thing, doing something bad. He always feels like he’s not enough, like he’s somehow letting someone important down because he can’t be perfect all the time.

Same hands that made the moon and the stars

Got carpal tunnel and forgot some parts

And on some really late nights, he wishes he were different. He wishes that he’d stop feeling that dark pit of worry and anxiety and fear about everything. Wishes he'd stop feeling like he’s missing a few crucial pieces. Instead of what he needed, God shackled him with these unnatural feelings, a one way ticket to ostracism.

I don't know what I believe

But it's easier to think

He made a mistake with me

And he knows God’s creation is perfect, but if that’s true, why is he the way that he is?

[diaryofadaringwitch]

Culturally Catholic (tw suicide, religious issues, homophobia)

This is a long one and really personal. I really don't need Catholics coming onto this post trying to invalidate my experiences or trying to bring me back to the church. I'm still processing and working through a lot of this so if you're planning to yell at me for supporting the church when I was a child, that's also really unproductive.

As I've mentioned multiple times before, I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church. I left the church for a lot of reasons. A large part of it was realizing that I was gay and that I would always feel unworthy and unaccepted. I couldn't reconcile my stance on supporting reproductive/abortion rights and I couldn't justify staying in an organization that deliberately covered up the abuse of children.

And now, again, the complete lack of remorse or justice from the church with the mass graves discovered at residential schools has me angry thinking about how much time and money and praise I gave to that church.

In some ways, it's really easy for me to say "Fuck the Catholic Church" because theological differences aside, the organization itself has continuously harmed people and continues to harm even their own members.

But I'm starting to understand that I cannot separate myself from my church so easily. I say "my church" because that's still how it feels. Not the religion, but the physical location, the community I was raised in.

Because I wasn't just Catholic, the church was my entire life. I was an altar server, a choir member, I volunteered at funerals, I taught religious education. For the first 18 years of my life, the majority of my friends, family, and mentors were part of that church community. Hell, if I'd stayed in the church, there's a strong possibility I would have become a nun. I can draw connections from my life in the church to my pagan faith. I loved being an altar server because I felt so much more connected when I could be up there aiding the rituals during Mass, instead of just observing. Paganism is that connection, that direct involvement between you and the Divine.

So I can't just let go of those habits, those memories, those emotions as easily as I can reject the organization that sponsored them.

I still love singing my favorite hymns. I still find comfort in familiar prayers, rituals, traditions. There's that disconnect, the understanding that I don't believe the theology in those prayers, but I cannot shake that sense of home. I moved around a lot growing up, but the church was always the same.

I think loss has a lot to do with it as well. My grandmother was so grounded in her faith and she loved to share it with me. A lot of my mentors who helped make me the person I am. One of my good friends who took his own life- I sang in the church choir at his funeral because that's what we'd always done together.

I was furious at his funeral, because they called it a "Celebration of New Life" and I refused to see any bright side to his suicide. He was 19. It felt like they were invalidating our grief in this life because they believed he was perfectly at peace in the next life. But I still sang. It was the only thing that brought me any comfort in that horrible moment.

I'm starting to understand that although I have fully let go of the theology, fully let go of the organization, I am still "culturally Catholic". I still have those emotional connections and it's possible that I always will. My entire childhood was spent in the shadow of that faith. Moving forward, I'm learning to recognize and separate how those memories felt from what they did and the lasting effects that they had. Positive and negative.

I had so much fun in my religious education classes, but within those same classes I learned the doctrine that would impact my self-image to the point that I believed myself to be perpetually unworthy of grace or forgiveness.

I enjoyed being an altar server and that connection gave me a greater understanding of what I was missing within my faith.

Teaching religious education was one of the most rewarding experiences ever. But by doing so I had to research and understand theology that I would eventually come to realize did not make sense to me and did not align with my values.

If I could close this kind of disconnected post, I would say that if you're in the same boat as I am, please be patient with yourself. I've been pagan for nearly six years, not even a third of the time I was Catholic. This kind of understanding and reflecting takes a lot of time and emotional energy. So be kind to yourself, especially your old self and definitely if you were a child. Of course you were in that faith, because it was all you ever knew.

For all those struggling with the remnants of their old faiths, and for all that have been impacted negatively by the Catholic church- I wish you peace and the brightest of blessings. -Kate

[reina-morada]

I really resonated with your recent post about how you came to Islam and I realized I had almost the exact same scenario. But I never fully committed due to Islam’s stance on the LGBT+ community, where being gay is fine but you must live celibately or force yourself into a straight marriage. How do you justify, that might be the wrong word but it’s the gist, supporting the community or if you are part of the community yourself? I ask as a curious gay man who loves the faith and ideas of Islam but is scared of the shame and humiliation I left the Catholic Church for to follow me into this new faith where I would face the same issues.

Salaam,

So, this is obviously something that has many many layers to it. People are different. Based upon culture, geographical location, tradition, language, religion and more mixed together- an individuals opinion of the LGBTQ community is different regardless of their religious context. There is no singular governing body of Islam, which has over a billion practitioners. The diversity cannot be understated. Muslims come in all shapes and forms, exactly as Christians do. While some Christians find "evidence" in the Bible to justify their homophobia, plenty of Christians find "evidence" in the Bible to love unconditionally and support their LGBTQ neighbors, children, and communities.

The same will be found in Islam, people who support based upon their upbringing/culture/location, and others who won't. Many Muslim countries have anti-LGBTQ laws or regulations, and the LGBTQ population is greatly persecuted in those places. There is significant fear from LGBTQ Muslims, even in the West, to engage in dialogue openly about their identities. While it may seem like being Muslim and queer are impossible to reconcile, they aren't at all mutually exclusive.

Unfortunately, there will always be people who have issue with the LGBTQ community. They can be Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, and so on. Ultimately, it's ones individual experiences (both of culture and religion) that determine their stances.

All that to say, I personally have no trouble reconciling them religiously. It is clear to me that Allah loves us, and asks us to love one another. I pay no attention to online discourse and I feel no need to justify my identity to anyone. My relationship is with Allah, and while I have obligations to my siblings in humanity, I won't engage in meaningless debate about my right to worship the one who created me. No one will stop me from praying salah, I'll never listen to anyone who tells me to take off hijab. It's my life, my relationship with Allah.

I have no doubt in my mind that his mercy encompasses all things without limit, and that this is also not one of those things we need his mercy for in the first place. Out of all of the Muslim friends I had in college, all save one knew I was bisexual, and no one took issue with it. At the time I was even in a relationship with a woman, whom they met and welcomed. I will also say that my environment matters a lot, as my city is significantly more liberal than most. I also think generation matters. Younger Muslims seem to care less than older ones, and that isn't surprising considering that seems to be the case in most religious traditions.

If your spirit is filled when you study and embrace Islam, listen to the call. Allah sees your efforts, even those others don't see. Also, the Prophet (saw) reportedly had non-binary members of his household called mukhannathun. While today many Muslim cultures would condemn them, there was no evidence the Prophet did anything but accept them openly. There is LGBTQ history within Islam and plenty of resources for modern LGTBQ Muslims. Here's some.

Booklet

Stances of Faiths on LGBTQ Issues: Islam - Sunni and Shi'a

MASGD

MPVUSA

PDF Resource with additional resources

May this help you, anon

[johnnyclash87]

So we watched the first episode of the fifth season of Queer Eye and with Pastor Noah who is an openly gay pastor at an Evengelical Lutheran Church in Philadelphia. Herself being an ELCA pastor and having lived and worked as a pastor in Philly for several years my wife actually knows Pastor Noah and several other pastors shown. So I thought it might be good to give some context and insight. For the record I myself am Catholic.

So the ELCA has gone through several changes over the years. At one point they would ordain openly LGBT persons but they couldn’t be in a same sex relationship. Then finally after some pushing and voting they changed it that you could be LGBT and in same sex relationship and ordained. However because the ELCA gives a lot of freedom and autonomy to individual churches they decide themselves who to take a a Pastor or not. What happens is you go through seminary and are ordained by the larger church authority, then you apply to an individual church for a pastoral position and they decide if they want to hire you after several lawyers of interviews and voting. So what has happened and still happens even though an openly LGBT person can be ordained they have a very hard time finding a church to work. While Fishtown in Philly is pretty progressive, there are several neighborhoods and churches where the odds of someone like Pastor Noah being hired (“called”’is the technical term) is very very slim. My wife knows several openly LGBT pastors and often they take a very long time to find a church. Sometimes it’s vague “well we just aren’t sure you have the gifts we need here...” sometimes it’s more like “we just aren’t sure we’re ready for that”. Or my favorite “if we hire a gay pastor some of our members will leave and we we’ll lose money”. So even among a relatively progressive Christian denomination it can be very hard for openly LGBT pastors.

There is a process to become a more “accepting and inclusive” church. The ELCA recognizes that throwing a rainbow flag on a church isn’t going to automatically mean every single LGBT person is going to feel welcome there or will be genuinely welcome. So what they have is a very long and extensive process to train people in churches to be genuinely open and accepting called “Reconciling in Christ”.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is while yes some Christian denominations are more progressive than others there’s still a lot of challenges.

[coffeeteaitsallfine]

do i even have religious trauma if i didn’t grow up “religious”? because i grew up with a religious mother, aunt, and grandmother. like very religious though non-denominational. but my father was “““raised catholic””” and hated going to church so i never went growing up except when i stayed with my grandmother for the weekend. she made me go to sunday school and i’d sit and watch veggie tales (the only highlight) and listen to people talk about things in the bible who fully expected me to already just know these things. i’d have to flip through the pages to find where they were reading from and i’d never find it because I didn’t understand their gibberish why wouldn’t they just use page numbers!! but at the same time i’d read children’s bible stories and hear the same things from my grandmother so many times...but day to day i was so agnostic? but felt guilty for being that way. I hated praying and when my grandmother wanted to say grace i thought it was so cringy and it made me so uncomfortable yet i felt so guilty about this. it was somehow my fault for not being indoctrinated properly when no one actually tried that hard, but yet when i showed any disinterest towards religion or an ounce of doubt the GUILT tripping and judgement i’d receive was unreal.

Still while all my relatives were religious it wasn’t an everyday conversation so I mostly just associated religion and god with nice thoughts and stories and never overthought being sinful. until i eventually realized at some point that some religious people were bigoted and then waayyyyy too late i realized that my Family members were like this too and that forced me to reconcile everything i’d ever known. i just didn’t and don’t fully comprehend how someone could be so secretly evil and judgmental when they were teaching the opposite. they were just pretending to be tolerant. my aunt had lots of gay friends! but since gay people “weren’t around” it was ok to say it’s not their fault they just have demons who are making them this way (single worst day of my life maybe? i shut down emotionally so idk). i had friends my freshman yr of college who were super catholic and so nice and gracious but i realized a year late how much i policed myself around them and pretended to be someone i wasn’t while also naively trusting them to be nice nonjudgmental people! (they weren’t)

i was sold a lie that on a certain level i still believe/want to believe but i CANNOT think about it. the thought of being left behind in the revelation terrified me so much as a kid i can’t give it up 100% but also i DO NOT trust anything a religion wants to teach me because all i’ve ever known and believed about seemingly good people was actually hypocrisy and hate and lies. i DON’T have the kind of religious trauma that would make me hate myself to any extreme though i do know what the shame is. I feel it from both sides, believing and not, there’s so much dissonance but mostly there’s so much interpersonal distrust. what do i even go from there

[sincerelyreidburke]

So if the crickets are all catholic, does that mean they all have that fun Catholic guilt? As a queer spanish Catholic, I’ve found the myself and most of my friends who are queer and raised Catholic (whether they’re still practicing or not) have it especially strongly in stuff like sex and intimacy. Do any of the crickets especially struggle with that more than others? I just want so much more queer Catholic content now, you don’t even know

Y’all: ask me about cricket Catholic content

Me, vibrating at a high frequency: I am a normal amount of excited about this topic!!!!!

Anon, thank you so much for this question— yes, let’s absolutely talk about this. General content warning for discussion of sex, but not explicit stuff, just talking about the concept.

(Here’s the OG cricket religion post if you guys are interested!)

I think they definitely each have Catholic guilt, but I think it manifests a little differently for each of them. Let’s start with Touille. Obviously, sex and relationships aren’t a thing for him (ace gang), but I feel like he really tries not to do anything his family wouldn’t approve of, especially Mémé, who, as we have discussed, is very religious. The thing is he’s still a frat boy, so he drinks and parties and does that kind of stuff..... buuuuut he’s of age to do all that at home, so he really doesn’t feel all that guilty about it. Touille’s guilt comes in when he judges people and talks shit, which, you may be surprised to know, he does frequently. He’s not an asshole. He just has opinions. Passive-aggressive French-Canadian opinions. That’s the name of my new punk band.

Anyway. Next!

Rhodey is a very interesting case, because sex and relationships are very much a part of his life, as are a lot of other practices that don’t necessarily align with the conservative Catholic tradition his family kind of adheres to. As far as the Shaley family goes, I don’t think Rhodey would get in a ton of trouble for something like, say, sex outside of marriage, for example. Brenda Shaley might not be totally pleased with that, but she’d also acknowledge that as a college student and young adult, her son can take responsibility for and control of his own choices.

Anyway, there’s that. Same goes for drinking and partying. The queer thing is where Rhodey knows that he’d run into slippery territory with his family.

Why am I talking so much about family in this post? Because family and spirituality are, I think, really intricately linked, especially in the case of being raised Catholic. Anyway, back to Rhodey. The thing about Rhodey is that, as I said in that original post, he really doesn’t believe in Catholicism or even necessarily in Christianity when it comes to his own personal faith system. If anything, Rhodey just believes in the universe and good energy and taking care of the world around him. I called it “hipster spirituality” in the last post.

But. Rhodey’s lack of adherence to the Catholic tradition he was raised in doesn’t mean that the Catholic guilt goes away. And that’s where the fun comes in! :D

Rhodey has an active sex life (at least, when he’s not thirsting after people who literally cannot be attracted to him) (which, as we’ve talked about, is often) (but he still does hook up a lot). Rhodey is also very queer, and very unafraid and unapologetic about that fact. He participates in activism, and he tries very hard to perpetuate queer-inclusive sex positivity. All these things are things he’s proud of and open about (at least when he’s not around his family).

And the problem is that parenthetical right there. Because Rhodey knows that his family would be judgmental about so much of what he believes in. He knows it doesn’t line up with their religion, and he also spent 18 years of his life having said religion sort of drilled into him (and never in an outwardly hostile way or with intent of harm; that’s just how it was in his home). The result is this really complicated relationship with sex and queerness that, for the most part, stays under wraps for Rhodey. He doesn’t talk about that, because it is buried deep down inside of him and he doesn’t let it affect the way he makes his decisions.

But is it there? Yeah. You betcha.

And now Nando! I’ve said several times, but I will say again, that Nando is out to his family by the time he starts college (except Tio, his papa’s twin brother, but if you want, we can talk about Tio some other time because that’s a really interesting discussion to have). He’s comfortable in his own skin and he’s the simplest definition of ‘openly gay’. As I said last time we talked about cricket spirituality, Nando is also very religious.

Nando’s brand of queer Catholicism is the one that’s most interesting to me, because Nando has very much reconciled his queerness with his faith. He knows what some Christians think about queerness, and he disagrees with their prejudices, deeming them ill-placed and from a place of inauthentic Christianity.

Does Nando have Catholic guilt? Yeah, absolutely, but not about being gay. Maybe about sex...... but that’s because it’s premarital, not because it’s with another man. He knows that Mama Hernandez would absolutely kick his ass if she knew he were sleeping in his boyfriend’s dorm so much (and engaging in other unorthodox activities with him), because she may be unwavering in her love for her son as he is, but she’s also a hardass. Sharing a bed??? Before you’re married?!? Not under my roof, Sebastián.

Anyway, there’s that. And I think Nando also gets feeling guilty when he skips Mass, which, at college, he does a lot. Both for roadie reasons and also just because he’s a busy college student. He prays a lot to make up for it, but for him it’s not the same. He’s also big on partying, and recreational drinking, but asks forgiveness for having a good time.😂😂😂

So not only does Nando have Catholic guilt, but he also has hardass Mexican mom guilt. Double whammy. Wait, also, while we’re on this topic, Nando runs so quickly from anything even vaguely related to demons, spiritism, and other practices Mama Hernandez says belong to the devil.😂😂 He’s so superstitious it’s hilarious.

Quinn: I would sell my soul to the devil to be able to belt like Idina Menzel.

Nando: (Extremely alarmed.) !!!!!!!!!!!! Baby!!!!! Don’t say that!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quinn: (Sipping his tea, unbothered.) Why? I would.

Nando, under his breath: Dios te salve, Maria, llena eres de gracia—

Thank you, anon, for the question; this stuff is so specific but I absolutely love elaborating on it. Ask away if you want to hear more about anything or have any other questions/things to say!!!

[jqws]

“ The concept of perversion, as distinct from perverse acts, led to the concept of sexual identity (or its close kin, sexual orientation). Each distinguishes between identity and sex, between the person and the act, status and conduct. The doctors had inadvertently made it possible for their former patients to claim that being gay is not necessarily about sex. Homosexuals could argue that any judgement about their worth as person, irrespective of their actions, was irrational prejudice. In so doing, they could challenge the stigma of identity, without in the least challenging the shame of sexual acts.”

-  From “The Trouble with Normal Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life” by Michael Warner

“…so the queer must insist on disturbing, on queering, social organisations as such – on disturbing, therefore, and on queering ourselves and our investment in such organisation. For queerness can never define an identity, it can only ever disturb one. And so, when I argue, as I aim to do here, that the burden of queerness is to be located less in the assertion of an oppositional political identity than in opposition to politics as the governing fantasy of realizing, in an always indefinite future….”

- From “No Future Queer Theory and the Death Drive” by Lee Edelman

From a series of clandestinely captured photos in several male-only sex clubs in Poznan back in November.  I distinctly remember having conversations about how surprising it was to me that these spaces could exist and be reconciled within such conservative and homophobic politics. Over the course of my time in Poland, many local municipalities in (comprising around a third of the country) declared themselves “LGBT-Free Zones.” Only months before I arrived, in July of last year, the city of Bialystok held its first pride march which descended into violence when around 4,000 far right hooligans came to the march and, just last week, the Polish President Andrzej Duda, currently campaigning for re-election, denounced “LGBT ideology” as being a greater threat to the country than communism.

It is the heavy influence of the Catholic Church that weighs on so much of this Polish government’s policies and concerns for the rupturing of the “family unit” and the protection of the child (the ultimate figure of innocence) that lies at the heart of it moralising over non-reproductive sexual practices.  It can only be viewed as deeply insulting to those who already eschew traditional family models to hear this narrative that negates their very existence. One can only theorise that this moralising paternalism over “perversion” and the protection of the child is really just a manifestation of the guilt of failure to prevent pervasive child sex abuse from within the Church.

These spaces photographed here offer a respite from state sexual repression and from state involvement into the sexual lives of individuals and also bear a similar context to the project I carried out last year relating to cruising locations across Dublin (a project motivated by the narrative of straight relationality and the misguided capitulation to marriage as an endpoint to queer liberation.) I now attach a similarity to that project and these images in that they both represent contexts that reject stigmatic and moralising forces attached to sexual practices and behaviours.

But it would be missguided to assume that these spaces are necessarily utopian. Indeed many of the same damaging power dynamics related to gender are easily replicated within these spaces. It is perhaps the abjection of the effeminate within male only spaces that remains the most visceral of examples I encountered. For these spaces to be truly utopian, they would require existence within a context free from heteronormative, colonialist histories, but the catch is that, if that were the case, then these spaces wouldn’t need to exist in the first place. 

From the abundance of those frequenting both the locations of my paste ups last year as well as those frequenting these sex clubs, I can only infer what a politically futile exercise it is for the state to interfere with the private lives of its citizens and how desire is largely incorrigible with a “straight” politics - something that largely stems from the unattainability of straightness itself, something that writer, Andrea Long Chu wrote about here (http://cakeboymag.com/posts/andrea-long-chu-interview ). The violence experienced by those who deviate from state and socially sanctioned sexual “norms” only highlights the violent means that these norms rely upon to be upheld, exposing their precarity. The stigmatisation of non-reproductive sex practices and those who practice them will never deter people from engaging in them, but instead simply endangers, isolates and exposes those who engage in them to a greater degree of physical and mental health risks.

[arcticdementor]

Douthat has a good piece this morning about how there are times when conspiracy theorists are actually closer to the truth than their critics.

…

In early 2002, shortly after the Boston trial of Father Geoghan blew open the Catholic sex scandal nationwide, I received a tip from a priest that Cardinal Ted McCarrick of DC had a history of sexually abusing seminarians. The priest said a group of prominent lay Catholics who knew this about him flew to Rome at their own expense, trying to prevent McCarrick from being named as Washington archbishop, which would have made him a cardinal. They met with an unnamed Vatican official to tell them what they knew about McCarrick, but it made no difference. McCarrick got his red hat.

The priest gave me the names of two men who had been on that trip, both of them well-known in their professions. I called the first one, who said yes, he had been on that trip, but didn’t want to talk about it. The second one told me that “if that were true, I wouldn’t tell you about it for the same reason Noah’s sons covered their father in his drunkenness.” Translation: yes, it’s true, but I’m not going to talk about it to protect the Church.

I didn’t know what to do next. But then I was called into my editor’s office. He wanted to know what I was working on (I hadn’t told anybody, because I hadn’t made any progress on the story). He told me that he had received a phone call from a very well known public conservative (I’m not going to name him here) who identified himself as a friend of Cardinal McCarrick, and said that the cardinal was aware that Rod Dreher was going to report a story that was true, but not criminal, and that would be very embarrassing to the cardinal. The caller asked my editor to kill the story.

I was stunned. How did McCarrick find out? I told my editor what I was working on, and he simply asked me to keep him informed. Back at my desk, I called the priest who tipped me off. “McCarrick knows,” I said. I asked him how that was possible. I had told no one else. I’m quite sure that neither of the two potential sources I called tipped him off, because it would not have been in their interest. So how did he know?

The priest was shocked. “The only person I told,” he said, “was my spiritual director, Father Benedict Groeschel.”

…

This was a useful lesson to learn, both as a journalist and, well, as a life lesson in how the world works. It happened over and over and over again as I wrote about the scandal. A progressive Catholic journalist and I once shared war stories about covering the scandal, and agreed that the ideological convictions of both the Catholic Right and the Catholic Left prevented people from identifying malefactors who happened to share their ideology. Beyond that, most Catholics simply could not grasp the idea that the institutional Church was in fact honeycombed with networks of perverts. I interviewed a seminarian who told me that his own parents considered him to be a liar when he told them about the homosexual decadence at his former seminary. They found it easier to believe that their son was a lying fantasist than to believe that his seminary was a gay whorehouse.

…

I hardly need to go into detail here about what we discovered over the ensuing years about the networked corruption in the Church. For me, one of the great lessons is that in any institution, corrupt men will take advantage of it, especially if they can work beneath a canopy of presumed innocence. It can happen in a police force. It can happen in the military. This is not just a church thing, not by any means.

Some conspiratorial types like to believe that the media knew all about McCarrick, but refused to report it. That’s not really true. Yes, the stories about McCarrick’s abuse of seminarians were known to some other journalists, but nobody could nail them down. There’s a good reason we have libel laws, and professional journalistic ethics. It’s a very big deal to claim that a man — especially a cardinal — is sexually abusing others. Strong claims like that — claims that could destroy a man’s life — require strong evidence. Off-the-record stories, and the absence of documentation, are not enough. It could have been the case that McCarrick was the target of a conspiracy of liars determined to take him down. Not only would it be morally wrong to accuse McCarrick publicly on the basis of what amounts to hearsay, but any individual or publication that did so could be sued for libel, and could conceivably be destroyed. The only way McCarrick was ever going to be outed is through court documents, and through on the record interviews with victims and others in a position to know what he did. I was dying to tell the truth about McCarrick, but I could not do so without more solid information.

But what to make of this story that follows?

…

The Times had this story six years earlier, but didn’t publish it. Why not? There are people who assume that the media would never, ever sit on a story that could make the Catholic Church look bad. I am convinced that’s exactly what the Times did in 2012, even though it had hard evidence that McCarrick was guilty. In truth, I have no idea why the Times suppressed the story its own freelancer had, but I’m telling you, do not ever assume that the ideological orientation of a media outlet can reliably predict what they’re willing to report, and refuse to report. Loyalties are complex.

…

These days, it is impossible to find a clear line between realism and cynicism, between a valid critical disposition and sheer paranoia. If we ever do get the true, reasonably complete story behind McCarrick’s rise, it will likely expose the nexus of power, sex, and money in the Catholic hierarchy, with unpredictable results. Similarly, if we ever get the true, reasonably complete story of who Jeffrey Epstein was and how he did what he did, we are likely going to see the nexus of power, sex, and money among the international elites, with unpredictable results.

The world is not ordered as we wish it were. It’s not even disordered as we wish it were. I’m thinking this morning of something a faithful Catholic layman told me in the spring of 2002, about the abuse scandal. He was a close friend of Cardinal Bernard Law, and active in the Archdiocese of Boston. This man — a very intelligent, morally upright gentleman — had direct knowledge of widespread homosexual corruption in the seminary at the time. He told me that he informed his dear friend the cardinal about all of it … and that the cardinal had done nothing. I asked the man how he reconciled his love and respect for the cardinal with the fact that Law had allowed this kind of corruption to flourish unaddressed.

The man sat across from me, unable to speak. The cognitive dissonance left him paralyzed. He could not accept that the world was ordered in such a way that his dear friend the cardinal could be guilty of such gross negligence. I used to be pretty naive, the kind of person who believed that good men (like my interlocutor) almost always wanted to know the truth, and to fight for justice. What I couldn’t have truly grasped until that extraordinary conversation was how the mind will protect itself from having to face something intolerable. That man was not asked to believe a conspiracy theory; he was asked to put two and two together — facts that he did not dispute. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He literally could not summon the will to face the terrible truth about his friend the cardinal, and the truth about the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

What’s so frightening to me today, thinking about that, is how every one of us is susceptible to that same paralysis.

[morepopcornplease]

Revoice! a Side B Conference Reflection

I wasn’t exactly sure what to write here, or even if I *would* write about my thoughts on Revoice.

But @monstrousgourmandizingcats asked, and, well, I can’t say no...

How was it?

You know, I’m not usually one for conferences with big worship sections where we stand and sing and such. (It actually made me realize that Catholics are, like, the Brits of the Christian world.... meaning, we are stoic and we do NOT do ~feelings~ in our worship.)

BUT, there’s still something undeniably powerful about being surrounded by 600+ queer Christians who are committed to their faith, taking our collective pain and suffering and offering it all up to God through song.

What did you do?

Attended excellent workshops and hugged people and had a LOT of good food and beer. I’m now Facebook friends with a Cistercian monk and LOADS more Side B’ers!! Also (and I cannot BELIEVE this happened) I met someone who had ALSO memorized Frozen in 25 languages?? and we sang it for some folks??? so. you know. that was a personal highlight  😍 😍 😍

What were the workshops?

You can find a full list here. The ones I attended were:

Leaders Track

Everything Belongs

Non-Traditional Families ARE Biblical Families

Queer Culture

Mission & Sexuality

Ecstacy in Celibacy

Are they available to watch?

Some, but not all, were recorded. You should be able to check out these talks as soon as they’re uploaded to the Revoice YouTube page (and you can check out last year’s talks, too!!)

Any words of wisdom you picked up??

PLENTY!

“Authentic celibacy--whether lay, ordained, or vowed--is oriented toward social and community life. To be a ‘spiritual father’ or ‘spiritual mother’--perhaps as a member of the clergy or religious, but also as a godparent, or an adoptive relative, or a catechist or teacher, or simply as a mentor and friend--is an esteemed vocation, something essential for a healthy and flourishing Christian community... celibacy is a communal practice.”

Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Love is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive.

God Himself was the first missionary.

Genesis implicitly directs us to go and create culture. It is therefore not enough for us to critique culture, or reject culture. We must create culture, and that is part of our missions as Christians, and can give us purpose as Side B’ers.

Queer culture has many parts that parallel the first Christians:

“Coming out” parallels our “Declaration of Faith.”

Being rejected by our blood-tied family calls queer people to form a different family based on ties other than blood, rather like how Christians are called to be spiritual brothers and sisters to one another.

We must Include, Listen, Protect, and Invest in people.

Celibacy offers chances to give radical hospitality, more prayer time, and the ability to feel the absence of satiation from the world, making you more open to rely on Christ.

The broken places are exactly where we are most likely to see Jesus.

How can gay Christians be family / minister to the Church?

minister to widows, orphans, mothers, the lonely.

respite care for foster families, become foster / adoptive parents.

Family = Intentional Purpose + Connection.

We must be FAMILY to the queer community, and to our fellow believers.

As missionaries, we are “Reconciled Reconcilers,” that is, we are reconciled to Christ, and we must reconcile with others.

Of queer populations, roughly 79% grew up in the Church.

Of that percentage, 51% left the Church.

Of that percentage, 91% left not because of theology, but because of mistreatment.

The Church can impose celibacy as a “punishment” and then turn right around and say it’s “beautiful” in the same breath.

“Such were some of you” can be used as a weapon in the style of Prosperity Gospel, because it implies orientation change. This is a form of spiritual abuse.

We do NOT have to pass through heterosexuality to get to Heaven.

The Church has a responsibility towards those in poverty. So, too, does it have a responsibility towards those in celibacy.

Celibacy =/= loneliness

“You can belong to God alone, without being alone in your belonging.”

“You cannot love God more by loving others less.”

A Martin Luther quote, which, granted, he wrote it after nailing his 95 theses, but it nonetheless spoke to my Catholic self:

“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”

We did not come to comfort the well-off. We came to challenge each other to be better Christians.

Christianity is costly.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2

How can I attend Revoice next year?

Revoice always takes place in St Louis, MO (it seems to be a Side B hotbed?) and has taken place during June these past two years of it’s existence (for, well, obvious Pride Month timeliness reasons XD)

While Revoice does offer scholarships, I have an additional idea of helping the Side B’ers here on tumblr attend.

So please, if you are Side B and are interested in attending Revoice next year, HIT! ME! UP!! Let’s make this happen. I understand the logistics are different for everyone, but I’d very much like for folks here to have a better chance to attend.

Much love and prayers to you all.