I Simply Am, Part IV
Below is the last part of Andrew Sullivan's 1994 essay addressing some of the problems he faced as he attempted to reconcile his Catholic faith with his emerging self-awareness as a gay man. I have commented on other parts of this essay, but I think this last part needs no commentary, except that I'd like to briefly highlight two of Sullivan's observations:
First, a theology of sex must be evaluated in light of its effects. We cannot simply pontificate on the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality; instead, we must see how our theology plays out in the lives of our fellow Christians. Our experience may tell us that our theology should be reevaluated.
Second, we must realize that the gays and lesbians in our churches ARE our churches. Our lives are the life of the church. We are not an "issue", we are not a "conflict", we are a part of the life of the church.
Enjoy. Comments are appreciated.
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IV.
For many homosexual Catholics, life within the Church is a difficult endeavor. In my 20s, as I attempted to unite the possibilities of sexual longing and emotional commitment, I discovered what many heterosexuals and homosexuals had discovered before me: that it is a troubling and troublesome mission. There's a disingenuous tendency, when discussing both homosexual and heterosexual emotional life, to glamorize and idealize the entire venture. To posit the possibility of a loving union, after all, is not to guarantee its achievement. There is also a lamentable inclination to believe that all conflicts can finally be resolved; that the homosexual Catholic's struggle can be removed by a simple theological coup de main; that the conflict is somehow deeper than many other struggles in the Church - of women, say, or of the divorced. The truth is that pain, as Christ taught, is not a reason to question truth; it may indeed be a reason to embrace it.
But it must also be true that to dismiss the possibility of a loving union for homosexuals at all is to banish from the minds and hearts of countless gay men and women the idea that they, too, can find solace and love in one another - is to create the conditions for a human etiolation that no Christian community can contemplate without remorse. What finally convinced me of the wrongness of the Church's teachings was not that they were intellectually so confused, but that in the circumstances of my own life - and of the lives I discovered around me - they seemed so destructive of the possibilities of human love and self-realization. By crippling the potential for connection and growth, the Church's teachings created a dynamic that in practice led not to virtue but to pathology; by requiring the first lie in a human life, which would lead to an entire battery of others, they contorted human beings into caricatures of solitary eccentricity, frustrated bitterness, incapacitating anxiety - and helped perpetuate all the human wickedness and cruelty and insensitivity that such lives inevitably carry in their wake. These doctrines could not in practice do what they wanted to do: they could not both affirm human dignity and deny human love.
This truth is not an argument; it is merely an observation. But observations are at the heart not simply of the Church's traditional Thomist philosophy, but also of the phenomenological vision of the current pope. To observe these things, to affirm their truth, is not to oppose the Church, but to hope in it, to believe in it as a human institution that is yet the eternal vessel of God's love. It is to say that such lives as those of countless gay men and lesbians must ultimately affect the Church not because our lives are perfect, or without contradiction, or without sin, but because our lives are in some sense also the life of the Church.
I remember, in my own life, the sense of lung-filling exhilaration I felt as my sexuality began to be incorporated into my life, a sense that was not synonymous with recklessness or self-indulgence - although I was not immune from those things either - but a sense of being suffused at last with the possibility of being fully myself before those I loved and before God. I remember the hopefulness of parents regained and friendships restored in a life that, for all its vanities, was at least no longer premised on a lie covered over by a career. I remember the sense a few months ago in a pew in a cathedral, as I reiterated the same pre-Communion litany of prayers that I had spoken some twenty years earlier, that, for the first time, the love the Church had always taught that God held for me was tangible and redemptive. I had never felt it fully before; and, of course, like so many spiritual glimpses, I have rarely felt it since. But I do know that it was conditioned not on the possibility of purity, but on the possibility of honesty. That honesty is not something that can be bought or won in a moment. It is a process peculiarly prone to self-delusion and self-doubt. But it is one that, if it is to remain true to itself, the Church cannot resist forever.
First, a theology of sex must be evaluated in light of its effects. We cannot simply pontificate on the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality; instead, we must see how our theology plays out in the lives of our fellow Christians. Our experience may tell us that our theology should be reevaluated.
Second, we must realize that the gays and lesbians in our churches ARE our churches. Our lives are the life of the church. We are not an "issue", we are not a "conflict", we are a part of the life of the church.
Enjoy. Comments are appreciated.
--------------------------
IV.
For many homosexual Catholics, life within the Church is a difficult endeavor. In my 20s, as I attempted to unite the possibilities of sexual longing and emotional commitment, I discovered what many heterosexuals and homosexuals had discovered before me: that it is a troubling and troublesome mission. There's a disingenuous tendency, when discussing both homosexual and heterosexual emotional life, to glamorize and idealize the entire venture. To posit the possibility of a loving union, after all, is not to guarantee its achievement. There is also a lamentable inclination to believe that all conflicts can finally be resolved; that the homosexual Catholic's struggle can be removed by a simple theological coup de main; that the conflict is somehow deeper than many other struggles in the Church - of women, say, or of the divorced. The truth is that pain, as Christ taught, is not a reason to question truth; it may indeed be a reason to embrace it.
But it must also be true that to dismiss the possibility of a loving union for homosexuals at all is to banish from the minds and hearts of countless gay men and women the idea that they, too, can find solace and love in one another - is to create the conditions for a human etiolation that no Christian community can contemplate without remorse. What finally convinced me of the wrongness of the Church's teachings was not that they were intellectually so confused, but that in the circumstances of my own life - and of the lives I discovered around me - they seemed so destructive of the possibilities of human love and self-realization. By crippling the potential for connection and growth, the Church's teachings created a dynamic that in practice led not to virtue but to pathology; by requiring the first lie in a human life, which would lead to an entire battery of others, they contorted human beings into caricatures of solitary eccentricity, frustrated bitterness, incapacitating anxiety - and helped perpetuate all the human wickedness and cruelty and insensitivity that such lives inevitably carry in their wake. These doctrines could not in practice do what they wanted to do: they could not both affirm human dignity and deny human love.
This truth is not an argument; it is merely an observation. But observations are at the heart not simply of the Church's traditional Thomist philosophy, but also of the phenomenological vision of the current pope. To observe these things, to affirm their truth, is not to oppose the Church, but to hope in it, to believe in it as a human institution that is yet the eternal vessel of God's love. It is to say that such lives as those of countless gay men and lesbians must ultimately affect the Church not because our lives are perfect, or without contradiction, or without sin, but because our lives are in some sense also the life of the Church.
I remember, in my own life, the sense of lung-filling exhilaration I felt as my sexuality began to be incorporated into my life, a sense that was not synonymous with recklessness or self-indulgence - although I was not immune from those things either - but a sense of being suffused at last with the possibility of being fully myself before those I loved and before God. I remember the hopefulness of parents regained and friendships restored in a life that, for all its vanities, was at least no longer premised on a lie covered over by a career. I remember the sense a few months ago in a pew in a cathedral, as I reiterated the same pre-Communion litany of prayers that I had spoken some twenty years earlier, that, for the first time, the love the Church had always taught that God held for me was tangible and redemptive. I had never felt it fully before; and, of course, like so many spiritual glimpses, I have rarely felt it since. But I do know that it was conditioned not on the possibility of purity, but on the possibility of honesty. That honesty is not something that can be bought or won in a moment. It is a process peculiarly prone to self-delusion and self-doubt. But it is one that, if it is to remain true to itself, the Church cannot resist forever.
posted by GR at 12/29/2005 11:19:00 PM
2 Comments:
G.R.
What a nice ending to this essay by Sullivan. Very peaceful. I think I can relate now more than ever before to his need to be fully himself--sexually, spiritually, socially. I think as a CofC youth who managed to keep her virginity intact until marriage I did not really understand the importance of the integration of sexuality and spirituality (if that makes sense) until after marriage, and... sex. (my husband standing over my shoulder would like me to describe that further, but because you know us, I will spare you.)
not that my lack of understanding was in any way profound. or was (is)it any reason not to treat people with respect and equality.
i hope that you have found this peace in your own life. i hope that your own life is well, as you are not responding to my messages, phone or email.:)
maybe more thoughts later.
I particularly like Sullivan's point that in this part he is offering an observation rather than an argument. Like other hot-button issues, discussion in the mode of rational argument proceeds until the inevitable stalemate, not because people are necessarily prejudiced or stubborn or whatever, but because the issues themselves are complicated and there are "rational" arguments to be made on both sides. It just seems to me that resolution must come in some other mode of discourse--one which, as Sullivan suggests, takes seriously the testimony of those who have suffered a rift in their experience of themselves and of God, and what they have been told is appropriate, true, or salvific.
GR, I really enjoyed this essay by Sullivan and want to say thanks for presenting it here.
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