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Home Politics

Cardinal McElroy on ‘radical inclusion’ for L.G.B.T. people, women and others within the Catholic Church

INBV News by INBV News
January 25, 2023
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Cardinal McElroy on ‘radical inclusion’ for L.G.B.T. people, women and others within the Catholic Church
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What paths is the church being called to absorb the approaching many years? While the synodal process already underway has just begun to disclose a few of these paths, the dialogues which have taken place discover a series of challenges that the people of God must face if we’re to reflect the identity of a church that’s rooted in the decision of Christ, the apostolic tradition and the Second Vatican Council.

A lot of these challenges arise from the fact that a church that is asking all men and women to seek out a house within the Catholic community comprises structures and cultures of exclusion that alienate all too many from the church or make their journey within the Catholic faith tremendously burdensome.

Reforming our own structures of exclusion would require an extended pilgrimage of sustained prayer, reflection, dialogue and motion—all of which should begin now.

It is necessary at this stage within the synodal process for the Catholic community in the USA to deepen our dialogue about these structures and cultures of exclusion for 2 reasons. The primary is to proceed to contribute to the universal discernment on these issues, recognizing that these same questions have surfaced in many countries of the world. The second reason is the popularity that because the call to synodality is a call to continuing conversion, reforming our own structures of exclusion would require an extended pilgrimage of sustained prayer, reflection, dialogue and motion—all of which should begin now.

Such a pilgrimage have to be infused with an overwhelming dedication to listen attentively to the Holy Spirit in a technique of discernment, not political motion. It must reflect the fact that we’re a part of a universal and hierarchical church that’s sure together on a journey of religion and communion. It should always point to the missionary nature of the church, which looks outward in hope. Our efforts must find direction and consolation within the Eucharist and the Word of God. And they have to reflect the understanding that in a church that seeks unity, renewal and reform are regularly gradual processes.

“Enlarge the Space of Your Tent,” the document issued last 12 months by the Holy See to capture the voices of men and girls from all over the world who’ve participated within the synodal process, concluded that “the vision of a church able to radical inclusion, shared belonging and deep hospitality in response to the teachings of Jesus is at the guts of the synodal process.” We must examine the contradictions in a church of inclusion and shared belonging which were identified by the voices of the people of God in our nation and discern in synodality a pathway for moving beyond them.

We must examine the contradictions in a church of inclusion and shared belonging and discern in synodality a pathway for moving beyond them.

Polarization Throughout the Lifetime of the Church

An increasingly strong contradiction to the vision of a church of inclusion and shared belonging lies in the expansion of polarization throughout the lifetime of the church in the USA and the structures of exclusion that it breeds. Within the words of “Enlarge the Space of Your Tent,” “the injuries of the church are intimately connected to those of the world.” Our political society has been poisoned by a tribalism that’s sapping our energy as a people and endangering our democracy. And that poison has entered destructively into the lifetime of the church.

This polarization is reflected within the schism so often present between the pro-life communities and justice-and-peace communities in our parishes and dioceses. It’s present in the false divide between “Pope Francis Catholics” and “St. John Paul II Catholics.” It’s present in the friction between Catholics who emphasize inclusion and others who perceive doctrinal infidelity in that inclusion. Even the Eucharist has been marred by this ideological polarization, in each the debates concerning the pre-conciliar liturgy and the conflicts over masking that roiled many parishes throughout the pandemic of the past several years.

As “Enlarge the Space of Your Tent” observes, we discover ourselves “trapped in conflict, such that our horizons shrink and we lose our sense of the entire, and fracture into sub-identities. It’s an experience of Babel, not Pentecost.”

Our political society has been poisoned by a tribalism that’s endangering our democracy. And that poison has entered destructively into the lifetime of the church.

A culture of synodality is essentially the most promising pathway available today to guide us out of this polarization in our church. Such a culture may also help to relativize these divisions and ideological prisms by emphasizing the decision of God to hunt initially the pathway that we’re being called to in unity and style. A synodal culture demands listening, a listening that seeks to not persuade but to grasp the experiences and values of others which have led them to this moment. A synodal culture of true encounter demands that we see in our sisters and brothers common pilgrims on the journey of life, not opponents. We must move from Babel to Pentecost.

Bringing the peripheries to the middle

“Closely related to the wound of polarization,” the U.S. report on the synod concludes, “is the wound of marginalization. Not only do those that experience this wound suffer, but their marginalization has turn out to be a source of scandal for others.” The continuing sin of racism in our society and our church has created prisons of exclusion which have endured for generations, especially amongst our African American and Native American communities.

Synod participants have testified eloquently to the sustained ways during which patterns of racism are embedded in ecclesial practices and culture. These same patterns infect the treatment of many ethnic and cultural communities throughout the lifetime of the church, leaving them stranded on the periphery of ecclesial life at critical moments. Piercingly, the church at times marginalizes victims of clergy sexual abuse in a series of destructive and enduring ways.

The poorest amongst us, the homeless, the undocumented, the incarcerated and refugees often are usually not invited with the identical energy and effectiveness as others into the fullness of church life and leadership. And the voice of the church is at times muted in advocating for his or her rights.

Faced with such patterns of exclusion in our church and our world, we must take to heart the message of Pope Benedict talking to the people of Latin America on the injuries that marginalization inflicts: “the church must relive and turn out to be what Jesus was; the Good Samaritan who got here from afar, entered into human history, lifted us up and sought to heal us.”

Pope Benedict XVI: “The church must relive and turn out to be what Jesus was; the Good Samaritan who got here from afar, entered into human history, lifted us up and sought to heal us.”

One avenue for lifting us up and healing the patterns and structures of marginalization in our church and our world is to systematically bring the peripheries into the middle of life within the church. This implies attending to the marginalization of African Americans and Native Americans, victims of clergy sexual abuse, the undocumented and the poor, the homeless and the imprisoned, not as a secondary element of mission in every church community, but as a primary goal.

Bringing the peripheries to the middle means always endeavoring to support the disempowered as protagonists within the lifetime of the church. It means giving a privileged place within the priorities and budgets and energies of each ecclesial community to those that are most victimized and ignored. It means advocating forcefully against racism and economic exploitation. In brief, it means creating real solidarity inside our ecclesial communities and our world, as St. John Paul repeatedly urged us.

Women within the Lifetime of the Church

The synodal dialogues in every region of our world have given sustained attention to the structures and cultures that exclude or diminish women throughout the lifetime of the church. Participants have powerfully identified that girls represent each the vast majority of the church and a fair larger majority of those that contribute their time and abilities to the advancement of the church’s mission. The report of the Holy Land on its synodal dialogues captured this reality: “In a church where just about all decision-makers are men, there are few spaces where women could make their voices heard. Yet they’re the backbone of church communities.”

The synodal dialogues have reflected widespread support for changing these patterns of exclusion in the worldwide church, in addition to for altering structures, laws and customs that effectively limit the presence of the wealthy diversity of girls’s gifts within the lifetime of the Catholic community. There are calls for eliminating rules and arbitrary actions that preclude women from many roles of ministry, administration and pastoral leadership, in addition to for admitting women to the everlasting diaconate and ordaining women to the priesthood.

One productive pathway for the church’s response to those fruits of the synodal dialogues could be to adopt the stance that we should always admit, invite and actively engage women in every element of the lifetime of the church that shouldn’t be doctrinally precluded.

This implies, to start with, eliminating those barriers to women which were erected in any respect levels within the church’s life and ministry not due to law or theology, but due to custom, clericalism, bigotry or personal opposition.

Second, the decision for inclusion challenges the church to look at with care the juridical barriers to women’s leadership within the lifetime of the church. Pope Francis initiated reform on this area when he loosened the mandatory tie between episcopal identity and leadership roles within the Roman Curia, including directing major Roman departments. This re-examination must also include questions comparable to the legal limitations on laity in diocesan leadership, including tribunals, in addition to the character of jurisdiction in a parish, which presently prohibits any layperson from being the administrator of a parish community.

“In a church where just about all decision-makers are men, there are few spaces where women could make their voices heard. Yet they’re the backbone of church communities.”

The proposal to ordain women to the everlasting diaconate had widespread support in the worldwide dialogues. While there’s historical debate about precisely how women carried out a quasi-diaconal ministry within the lifetime of the early church, the theological examination of this issue tends to support the conclusion that the ordination of girls to the diaconate shouldn’t be doctrinally precluded. Thus, the church should move toward admitting women to the diaconate, not just for reasons of inclusion but because women everlasting deacons could provide critically necessary ministries, talents and perspectives. On the Synod on the Amazon in 2019, the bishops of the Amazon region in prayer and discernment overwhelmingly supported this pathway, stating that it could be an infinite grace for his or her local churches which might be so desperately wanting priests.

The query of the ordination of girls to the priesthood can be some of the difficult questions confronting the international synods in 2023 and 2024. The decision for the admission of girls to priestly orders as an act of justice and a service to the church was voiced in virtually every region of our world church. At the identical time, many men and women who participated within the synod favored reserving the priesthood for men in line with the motion of Christ and the history of the church.

It is probably going the synod will adopt this latter stance due to its rootedness within the theology and history of the church. Whichever position emerges from the synodal discernment on this query, the fact stays that the synodal dialogues have asked the church to maneuver in two contradictory directions on this query. Through the synodal process over the following two years, God could have to grace the church profoundly if we’re to seek out reconciliation amid this contradiction.

The query of the ordination of girls to the priesthood can be some of the difficult questions confronting the international synods in 2023 and 2024.

The Christological Paradox

The report of the synodal dialogues from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops points to an extra and distinct element of exclusion within the lifetime of the church: “Those that are marginalized because circumstances in their very own lives are experienced as impediments to full participation within the lifetime of the church.” These include those that are divorced and remarried with out a declaration of nullity from the church, members of the L.G.B.T. community and people who are civilly married but haven’t been married within the church.

These exclusions touch upon necessary teachings of the church concerning the Christian moral life, the commitments of marriage and the meaning of sexuality for the disciple. It is rather likely that discussions of all of those doctrinal questions will happen on the synodal meetings this fall and next 12 months in Rome.

However the exclusion of men and girls due to their marital status or their sexual orientation/activity is pre-eminently a pastoral query, not a doctrinal one. Given our teachings on sexuality and marriage, how should we treat remarried or L.G.B.T. men and girls within the lifetime of the church, especially regarding questions of the Eucharist?

“Enlarge the Space of Your Tent” cites a contribution from the Catholic Church of England and Wales, which provides a guidepost for responding to this pastoral dilemma: “The dream is of a church that more fully lives a Christological paradox: boldly proclaiming its authentic teaching while at the identical time offering a witness of radical inclusion and acceptance through its pastoral and discerning accompaniment.” In other words, the church is known as to proclaim the fullness of its teaching while offering a witness of sustained inclusion in its pastoral practice.

Because the synodal process begins to discern address the exclusion of divorced and remarried and L.G.B.T. Catholics, particularly on the difficulty of participation within the Eucharist, three dimensions of Catholic faith support a movement toward inclusion and shared belonging.

The primary is the image that Pope Francis has proposed to us of the church as a field hospital. The first pastoral imperative is to heal the wounded. And the powerful pastoral corollary is that we’re all wounded. It’s on this fundamental recognition of our faith that we discover the imperative to make our church considered one of accompaniment and inclusion, of affection and mercy. Pastoral practices which have the effect of excluding certain categories of individuals from full participation within the lifetime of the church are at odds with this pivotal notion that we’re all wounded and all equally in need of healing.

The effect of the tradition that every one sexual acts outside of marriage constitute objectively grave sin has been to focus the Christian moral life disproportionately upon sexual intercourse.

The second element of Catholic teaching that points to a pastoral practice of comprehensive inclusion is the reverence for conscience in Catholic faith. Men and girls searching for to be disciples of Jesus Christ struggle with enormous challenges in living out their faith, often under excruciating pressures and circumstances. While Catholic teaching must play a critical role in the choice making of believers, it’s conscience that has the privileged place. Categorical exclusions undermine that privilege precisely because they can not encompass the inner conversation between men and women and their God.

The third element of Catholic teaching that supports a pastoral stance of inclusion and shared belonging within the church is the counterpoised realities of human brokenness and divine grace that form the backdrop for any discussion of worthiness to receive the Eucharist. As Pope Francis stated in “Gaudete et Exultate,” “grace, precisely since it builds on nature, doesn’t make us superhuman abruptly…. Grace acts in history; ordinarily it takes hold of us and transforms us progressively” (No. 50).

Here lies the inspiration for Pope Francis’ exhortation “to see the Eucharist not as a prize for the proper, but as a source of healing for us all.” The Eucharist is a central element of God’s grace- filled transformation of all of the baptized. For that reason, the church must embrace a eucharistic theology that effectively invites all the baptized to the table of the Lord, fairly than a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist. Unworthiness can’t be the prism of accompaniment for disciples of the God of grace and mercy.

It should be objected that the church cannot accept such a notion of radical inclusion since the exclusion of divorced and remarried and L.G.B.T. individuals from the Eucharist flows from the moral tradition within the church that every one sexual sins are grave matter. Which means all sexual actions outside of marriage are so gravely evil that they constitute objectively an motion that may sever a believer’s relationship with God. This objection needs to be faced head on.

It’s a demonic mystery of the human soul why so many men and girls have a profound and visceral animus toward members of the L.G.B.T. communities.

The effect of the tradition that every one sexual acts outside of marriage constitute objectively grave sin has been to focus the Christian moral life disproportionately upon sexual intercourse. The center of Christian discipleship is a relationship with God the Father, Son and Spirit rooted within the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The church has a hierarchy of truths that flow from this fundamental kerygma. Sexual intercourse, while profound, doesn’t lie at the guts of this hierarchy. Yet in pastoral practice we’ve placed it on the very center of our structures of exclusion from the Eucharist. This could change.

It is necessary to notice that the synodal dialogues have given substantial attention to the exclusions of L.G.B.T. Catholics beyond the difficulty of the Eucharist. There have been widespread calls for greater inclusion of L.G.B.T. men and women within the lifetime of the church, and shame and outrage that heinous acts of exclusion still exist.

It’s a demonic mystery of the human soul why so many men and girls have a profound and visceral animus toward members of the L.G.B.T. communities. The church’s primary witness within the face of this bigotry have to be considered one of embrace fairly than distance or condemnation. The excellence between orientation and activity can’t be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace since it inevitably suggests dividing the L.G.B.T. community into those that refrain from sexual intercourse and people who don’t. Somewhat, the dignity of one and all as a toddler of God struggling on this world, and the loving outreach of God, have to be the guts, soul, face and substance of the church’s stance and pastoral motion.

The Italian synodal report stated “the church-home doesn’t have doors that close, but a fringe that continually widens.” We in the USA must seek a church whose doors don’t close and a fringe that continually widens if we’re to have any hope of attracting the following generation to life within the church, or of being faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We must enlarge our tent. And we must achieve this now.

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Tags: CardinalCatholicchurchinclusionL.G.B.TMcElroypeopleRadicalWomen
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