Homophobia in Catholic Communities.

There was an article on the Advocate website about a series of ads that are targeted at African American and Latino gay men.The stated goal of the ads is to address HIV awareness and homophobia in communities of color.

Now, for once, one of the comments actually had an interesting point. The comment was from someone identifed as Raul and went like this:

"Funny Bill, I don't recall anyone demanding we address homophobia in the white community every time we see something that portrays white people and homosexuality. In fact, when does anyone EVER use the phrase "homophobia within the white community"? The only reason you say that is because you see blacks and latinos in these articles and instantly your racist worldview kicks in. Anytime you see a dark face you have to easily connect it to "homophobia in the black and latino communities" and will never see past it. "

I would only differ with his comment on a very minor point of semantics. I would argue that white is so normative to the way issues are discussed that when we say the sentence, “battle homophobia” our default understanding is white communities, or among white folks. It is only when specific communities of color come under the microscope that we actually say “homophobia in the Black community” for example.

This lead to a thought: When homophobia and Catholicism is discussed it is always discussed within the framework of “homophobia and the Church.” The Church in this instance being the Meta Church of Popes, Bishops,f formal letters, etc. It is never discussed as “homophobia in the Catholic community” or the Micro Church.

I think it might be time to change that.

Now, this is just a short blog post, so I don’t have the time or resources to do a well-studied sociological thesis, but I do have the time to throw out a hypothesis. My hypothesis is this. When discussing homophobia in the Catholic Church, it is actually just as important to address the issue of homophobia in Catholic Communities as it is to discuss homophobia in Catholic teachings. This is important because there are differences in the ways Catholics live their lives to what the “church” teaches. This is really obvious when we look at poll numbers that show a slim majority of Catholics support gay rights. I would add here, that this doesn't indicate a wilful ignorance of Chruch teaching, nor does it indicate a spirit of rebellion. Faithful Catholics are answering these questions, people struggle with issues around sexuality, within the context of their faith communitiy. They are active participants in the growth of Catholic tradition, and I think this understanding is pretty implicit in the minds of most practicing Catholics.

The other presupposition I would bring into this is that Catholicism is cultural, at least among "cradle Catholics". It is possible for an individual LGBT person to join a church other than the Roman Catholic Church, but I think the individual is still going to interact with Roman Catholic culture in terms of their extended family, cultural attitudes, etc. I think this might be part of the reason for the conventional wisdom that Roman Catholics don’t change churches, they just stop going. One of the reasons so few people actually "leave the Church" is that the Church is so ingrained into all aspects of life that it is impossible to leave the Church without completely abandoning one's culture. This differs by community, but I think it might be a adequate rule of thumb.

One thing I have noticed in discussions on the question, “How can you remain Catholic if you’re a gay man?” is a certain degree of disconnect between what points the two sides are arguing. In the broadest possible terms, it seems that the folks who think its impossible to be gay and Catholic are arguing based on the writings and actions of bishops, popes and a increasingly decreasing number of theologians. They are arguing from the perspective of the Meta Church, which appears (and is) to be a monolithically homophobic entity.

On the reverse side, the gay men who are arguing from the position that it is possible to be gay and Catholic are focusing their arguments more on a micro level. They have particular experiences of acceptance from within their parishes, universities, religious orders, families. They are involved in a living sacramental life that is in tension with the messages and actions of the Meta Church. It is also possible to draw upon instances in Catholic tradition that are friendly to same gender love in different cultural contexts (writings of various saints, hagiography, LGBT exegesis).

For these reasons, I think we need to move away from arguing, “The Church is homophobic” and instead address the question as “homophobia in Catholic communities.” I think this will allow us to move away from a strict dichotomy on the question of how LGBT people interact with their church and understand their faith; I think it will also give a better understanding of how heterosexual Catholics understand these issues. Anecdotatally, this might be one reason why I see so many gay men at Latin mass, despite the fact that most of the material about the Latin Mass (from societies, etc) are wildly homophobic.

Most importantly, it is important to understanding how Church teaching and doctrine comes about how our understanding of that doctrine changes. Catholicism is not merely a centralized understanding of revelation. There are various relational understandings between devotions, popular Catholicism, theology and the Magesterium. Or, to put it briefly, Micro Catholicism does impact our understanding of Macro Catholicism (i.e., the dogma of the Immaculate Conception).