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Whoever said, "May you live in interesting times" would have loved 2014.
Of course, all sorts of wonderful and awful (sometimes depending on your point of view) happened this year. This year has been so interesting that it's ending with Pope Francis demoting the highest-ranking American in the Vatican.
The Pope has removed Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke from his seat as the head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's supreme court. Now Father Burke is the chaplain of the Knights of Malta, a position that carries much less responsibility than the one from which he was just removed.
Now, it's not the first time a Pope has removed a cardinal from such a high perch, although the move doesn't happen very often. However, when a Pontiff removes a prelate from a high position in the Vatican, he usually assigns that priest to another post with a similar level of responsibility. It's very infrequent for the head of the church to demote someone of Burke's power in the way Pope Francis has done.
What makes this move really unusual, though, is the Pope's reason for it. Are you ready for this?: The Pope thought Cardinal Burke's stance on homosexuality was too hard-line. Even for a man who said "Who am I to judge?" when asked about gays, demoting a Cardinal for his views on the issue is at least a little surprising, if not a shock.
How conservative is Father Burke? Seven years ago, he denounced a Catholic charity for allowing pro-choice advocate Sheryl Crow from performing at a benefit concert. Needless to say, he also wasn't too happy with her advocacy of stem-cell research.
How ironic is it that the Pope is now showing more tolerance and even acceptance of LGBT people than so many anti-LGBT lawmakers and activists in--let alone the man who had been the highest-ranking Cardinal from--the United States?
These are interesting times, indeed!
"Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home."
So far, sounds good, doesn't it? The source of that quote might come as a bit of a surprise: a relatio from the Vatican.
Given that the current Pope has said things like "If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?", one could be forgiven for believing that the Roman Catholic church--in which I grew up--might become a more welcoming place for LGBT people.
What is commonly forgotten is that the Pope's quote was taken somewhat out of context: He was not talking about according loving same-sex couples or people who live by the gender of their spirit the same respect within the Roman Catholic church as cisgender heterosexual couples. Rather, he was responding to a question about gay priests who remain celibate. The relatio quoted at the beginning of this post was talking about the same issue, and other gay people who wish to serve the church while remaining celibate.
All of those conservative Catholic groups who fear their church is losing its grip on its "traditional" values have nothing to fear. As the National Catholic Reporter tells us, more actual and suspected LGBT people have been fired, not had their contracts renewed or simply were pushed out of their jobs in other ways, by Catholic institutions this year--with two and a half months to go--than in any year since 2008.
Moreover, five major American dioceses (Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus (OH), Honolulu and Oakland (CA)) have revised teacher contracts with "morality clauses" that ban teachers from supporting same-sex relationships in their personal or professional lives. I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect that such clauses could be interpreted to mean that a teacher could be fired for accepting a gay couple's invitation to dinner at their home.
Now, to be fair, I don't mean to denigrate individual Catholics. Many--including my mother and my closest friend--have shown me kindness when other people--including someone with a PhD in Gender Studies--didn't. Also, I have entered Roman Catholic church buildings and encountered people who greeted me warmly or simply didn't notice me.
However, for all of the good PR the current Pope is giving the Church, I don't expect that it will welcome LGBT people as equal members, let alone as priests or nuns, during my lifetime. That is the reason why, after realizing how much of a spiritual journey my gender transition was for me, I have joined an Episcopal congregation, where one of the priests asked me to teach Sunday school.
France has legalized same-sex marriage, the UK will do the same this summer, and Germany is awaiting a vote on the matter from the Bundestag. That leaves Italy as one of the few Western European countries where the matter is not at least under consideration. In fact, it's one of the few countries in the area that still doesn't even recognize same-sex civil unions.
Some Italian cities--including Milan, but not including Rome--have legalized such unions. But, as a recent Times article noted, the rights of gay couples end at their cities' limits.
Some people blame the Vatican for the situation I've described. However, as Same Love founder Alessandro Bentivegna noted, "Ireland is just as Catholic, yet they're 100 years ahead of here."
If anything, the Irish have been more Catholic than the Italians for at least a couple of centuries. As in Giulia in Alberto Moravia's The Conformist observes, "Ninety percent of the people who go to church today don't believe. The priests don't, either." Although the situation is changing, for many Italians, the Church is something like the Royal Family is to many British: They can't tell you, exactly, what it's for or about, but they cannot imagine life without it.
On the other hand, Ireland had, arguably, the most fervent believers in Europe. That, I believe, is a result of the British attempt to destroy their religion. For a long time, Irish would-be priests were trained in France by disciples of theologian Cornelius Jansen, who emphasized human sin, depravity, predestination and the need for divine grace. One result is that they preached through fiery sermons that could make even Jonathan Edwards blush.
One thing about fundamentalism--whether of the Christian, Islamic or Jewish variety--is that when people break away from it, their actions are more decisive and climatic than of those who simply drift away from more moderate churches. So, while Italian Catholics--even those in the countryside--aren't much more religious than their peers in France or other countries, they are also less likely to bread away from Catholicism altogether. That is why people attend church even when, as Giulia said, they don't believe in it.
This attitude about church extends to other areas of Italian life: People--especially politicians--cling to beliefs, rituals and traditions even after they have lost meaning. That, I believe, accounts for the lack of urgency among Italians concerning a number of social issues that are debated vigorously--and, sometimes, acted upon--in other countries.
A typical Italian attitude goes something like this: Yes, gay couples should have the right to marry and have al of the other rights heterosexual couples have. But they can go to Belgium or someplace else to get married. So why is it so important to legalize it here? Why is it such a big deal? If you can find a way to live your life the way you want to, why should you change anything? As an Italian professor once told me, "If the Bastille had been in Rome, it would still be standing."
Also, politics are very different in Italy. Here in the US, the far left and the far right are the most vocal in their views, and the latter is better able to transmit them because it is backed by some very wealthy individuals and corporations. On the other hand, the center-left and center-right not only dominate Italian politics; they are also the most vocal proponents of their points of view. And, those views, as often as not, are about preserving the status quo rather than making dramatic changes--as has happened in Ireland and Argentina--or in "returning" to some idealized version of what the "Founding Fathers" stood for, as we see in the US.
In other words, Italians don't have the sense that they have to "save" their country, as the American right has, or that there has to be a social revolution, as is occuring in Ireland, Spain and some Latin American countries. That may be the main reason why Italy may not legalize same-sex unions--let alone marriage--for a while.
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