My pastor resigned...

My pastor, Fr. Mark, recently resigned due to what are being deemed “credible allegations of sexual harassment.”  He is undergoing what is being called “therapy.”

This past Thursday I received a bulk email sent to parishioners from the parish’s Director of Administration advising us of our pastor’s resignation and inviting parishioners to attend a Q&A session today.  Since I cannot attend, I sent my questions in an email this morning to the parish’s Director of Admin, the interim pastor, and my bishop.  I thought readers might want to see my questions so here is a copy of my note:

Dear Keith, Fr Gary, and Bp Earl,

Thank you for the information.

Keith, You might remember me as the person who donated the original artwork of “the Red Crucifixion” which used to hang in the St John center basement.

I cannot attend today’s meeting.  However, here are my questions.

The term being used is “sexual harassment” vs sexual assault. Their legal ramifications differ.  Has it been strictly sexual harassment which violates Michigan and federal civil rights laws as a form of discrimination, or did it also involve sexual assault which violates criminal law?

Regardless, what steps have been taken to hold Mark, St Thomas and the Lansing Diocese legally responsible for the sexual harassment?  What legal authorities have been contacted and involved?  Please describe the legal process and where we are within that process. 

How many people were sexually harassed by Mark?  

How recently did the harassment occur and over what length of time did it occur?

How many times did Mark harass each person?  Once? A few times? Dozens of times? Hundreds of times?

Were the people who were harassed male, female or some of each?  

Were the people harassed parishioners?  

What were the general age categories of those harassed: pre-school, pre-teen, teen, university/young adult, adult?

What was the nature of the harassment: unwanted touch, unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, exposure, providing a hostile environment such as subjecting employees/parishioners to sexual jokes, remarks, pictures or graphics, employment or advancement related threats or quid pro quo offers, etc...?

It has been said multiple times Mark is undergoing “therapy.” What exactly does that mean?

According to psychologists, regardless if the harassed are male or female, there are 4 common characteristics of sexual harassers. They typically have:

1) “The Dark Triad” consisting of a) narcissism (inflated view of self w lack of empathy combined w urgent need for approval), b) psychopathy (fearless dominance and aggressive impulsiveness) and c) Machiavellianism (so focused on own interests that person deceives, manipulates and exploits for own interests).

2) Moral disengagement- a cognitive process by which person justifies his own bad behavior and creates his own alternate reality where moral norms do not apply to him: a) portrays harassment as acceptable, b) uses euphemistic terminology, c) displaces responsibility such as blames culture, d) creates advantageous comparisons (at least it wasn’t...) to minimize infraction, e) shifts blame (“she was wearing....so should have expected....”)

3) employment in male dominated field

4) hostile attitude towards women

Some, if not all, of those psychological characteristics are inherent or prevalent in Catholic hierarchical culture.  How do you anticipate therapy for one individual will cure the Catholic hierarchy’s sexist culture?  Due to the church’s male hegemony and long standing male hegemonic praxis, this sexism often is considered “normal” by many in the church, especially the hierarchy.

I have experienced innumerable homilies that are sexist (sexual harassment) and countless individual conversations with priests that are sexist (sexual harassment).  I have received sexist lectures and penance in reconciliation...also sexual harassment. Canon law and doctrine include sexist notions and the priesthood itself is sexist.  How were you able to discern and distinguish Mark’s sexual harassment from the institutional sexual harassment endemic in Catholic culture?  

When I have complained about sexist words or actions, I have been brushed off and told how mistaken I was.  I am very curious to understand the unique situation here in which Catholic officials actually acknowledged sexual harassment occurred.

Know of my prayers for you and all involved.

I did not say this in my note but I will offer it here.  Due to the endemic  sexist culture within the Catholic hierarchy, I have difficulty suppressing a desire to speculate that the harassed must have been with a man, possibly a clergy member, for the person to have been taken seriously.  Sexist treatment of women often is "de riguer" with many Catholic hierarchy.

In a stroke of irony, within a day of receiving the note about my pastor’s resignation for sexual harassment, I received an email invitation from the Diocesan Director of Communications, inviting me to the diocese’s oh-so-sexist “Arise my Beloved” Catholic Women’s Conference.

I encourage people, as they are called, to engage with the hierarchy, asking the tough questions that need to be asked.

By the way, no word from my friend, the Papal Nuncio.

Peace

Poverty pimping....

The Mass I attended this Sunday ended as it typically does, with applause…a resounding, “Yay for us!”  It’s a big reason I actively avoid this parish. The homily and the announcements echoed the same message, “Yay us” whilst metaphorically pounding each other with hearty congratulatory, “good job” pats on the back. 

Allow me to elaborate on the “Yay us” messages…parenthetical statements are my commentary. 

The deacon gave the homily and described how he, his brother deacons and their (dutiful) wives (bowing to the church hierarchy’s sexist clergy hegemonic praxis) spent a day last September at an economically challenged parish in Flint, Michigan…(the city of famed poisoned water due to short-term cost-cutting decisions made by public officials, many of whom were supported by the Michigan Catholic Conference of Bishops and their pay-pray-and-obey followers).  He explained how this group of “humble servants” ministered to people in that neighborhood, “helping transform their lives” (seemingly oblivious to any connection between voting and lifestyle patterns as causes of poverty which transformed lives in a negative way.)

Are you envisioning his uni-directional arrow of “goodness” flowing from his “us” of deacons and their wives to his “them” of the economically challenged yet?  In case not, please allow me to continue.

He also described that while members of his “us” group took turns piously praying before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, a few women from his “them” group who “by the way they were dressed you could guess that they were ladies of the night” knelt at the altar too.  This he celebrated as some dramatic transformational “turn away from sin” moment.  (He seemed oblivious to his arrogant sinful judgement about these women simply based upon their attire and, even if he guessed their profession accurately, isolated them in sin without mentioning the sins of their male clients…thus overlooking his own sin of sexism as well….but…”yay us.”)

The group distributed backpacks filled with school supplies to about 900 children (many if not most of whom are more economically vulnerable since September due to additional bishop-supported politicians failing to approve the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding renewal.)

Again, completely oblivious to the direct connection between the church hierarchy’s support for political candidates whose policies often worsen poverty, he seemed very proud of the “us” group for “helping” the “them” group and boasted how the “us” group’s work was helping the “them” group “turn away from sin” (which somehow he seemed to equate with poverty).

Mass concluded with extolling all the “great work” done by Catholic Charities and he even had board members who were present at Mass stand, be recognized and congratulated with applause…”Yay us…”

The cadence of “Yay us” messages made retaining my breakfast difficult because here’s what I heard.  “Look at all those sinful poor people and ‘yay us’ because we let God use us to help those poor sinful people on the margins.  Aren’t we the best Christians?  We even got some ‘bad girls’ to kneel in piety…aren’t we awesome?”  I cannot celebrate small gestures sprinkled upon poor people because I wish poverty did not exist.  I mourn the causes of poverty and examine my role in them.  I abhor people turning other’s misfortune into their feel-good-about-myself opportunities.

In my head I thought, “What profound arrogance!  The people most in need of transformation seem to be those congratulating and promoting themselves.”  But doesn’t this type of double exploitation of the poor reflect much of U.S. Catholicism right now?  First such Catholics support candidates, policies and practices that cause poverty or exploit those living in it, and then they undertake feel-good-about-myself “ministry,” the positive impact of which dwarfs in comparison to the damage their lifestyle inflicts upon the poor.

The recessional hymn was, “Be Not Afraid,” so I decided to confront the deacon who delivered the “Yay us” messages.  I expressed my concerns about sexism, arrogance, self-promotion and the exploitation of the poor in both contributing to their poverty and using ministry to the poor as a feel-good activity.  I told him doing the latter is what we call “poverty pimping” in that poor people become an instrument for other people to feel good about themselves. 

I am tired of hollow preaching pitying and denouncing others without climbing into their wounds to truly understand their situation.  I asked the deacon if he knew the major motivator for prostitutes to enter the business.  He acknowledged it was due to poverty, trying to feed themselves or their families.  I asked him if it is a sin to feed your family.  I asked him if the sin isn’t instead causing poverty that leaves prostitution as one of few options.  I asked him why he failed to mention the men who will pay women for sex but not to improve their economic situation so they don’t need to prostitute themselves.  He had no response other than that the church can’t solve politics.

I responded by paraphrasing a quote from the late Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.  When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” 

The deacon responded that the church cannot worry about or address the political situations causing poverty.  Really?  That’s interesting.  I seem to recall we just prayed for a small army of parishioners who went to D.C. for the “March for Life.”  I thought the Michigan and US Conference of Catholic Bishops both spent a shit-ton of money towards electing and lobbying politicians based upon policies the bishops support.  I thought the Michigan bishops were working on a project to get more Catholics to engage in the civic arena.  I thought the hierarchy has been braying about the politics of “religious liberty.”  Or does the sexist Catholic hierarchy only try to influence politics that regulate women’s bodies?  Are the hierarchy just another set of poverty pimps using the poor as a way to feel good about themselves when they toss some crumbs in their direction?

I also asked the deacon how he can be so arrogant as to judge a person’s profession simply based upon their clothes.  He had no response.  I regret I did not share with him that my observation is people like politicians and priests who regularly prostitute themselves by suspending their morals to accept money from various interests tend to dress in suits and chasubles…  Was that what these women were wearing causing him to suspect they were prostitutes?

The deacon expressed an interest to further discuss my concerns but based upon his comments I suspect it is because he would like either to justify himself or “save” me.  I got no sense that he was learning from me. If I find some spare time, perhaps I will meet him and learn his motivation.   In the meantime, I will send him a link to this article and ask him to read it and a few others.  However, I do not wish to be used for yet another of his “yay me” moments.

School and Speaking

Sometimes a blatant but elusive reality just smacks you in the face.  That happened to me in the past few weeks.

I had the honor of working with a Catholic school in Africa as it opened its school year in January.  I knew that many countries with developing economies lacked enough seats to accommodate all primary level students in secondary schools.  I also knew that placement in secondary schools is often based upon scoring well on the primary school leaving examination.  In some countries that score determines not only if you can attend secondary school but which secondary school.  The better you score, the better the school into which you are placed.  I also knew that more boys attend secondary school than girls due to many families opting to send sons rather than daughters to school if they can only afford school fees for one child.  All of that, I knew.

Here’s what hit me in the face last week.

The Catholic Church still has many minor seminaries in Africa.  These are secondary schools which offer extremely strong academic programs, often among the strongest in a country.  Though students who attend are not committed or required to attend major seminary where students actually pursue the priesthood, only boys are permitted to attend minor seminary.  Thus, intrinsically, there are fewer secondary school seats available to girls at the outset of the placement process. 

As the process works, high scoring male students get placed into all-male minor seminaries.  This leaves the non-seminary secondary schools as options for high scoring girls and boys.  However, if a boy who places into a minor seminary opts to not attend, he is usually given a seat in a top secondary school and his seat at the minor seminary goes to a lower scoring male.  Thus, the reduced number of secondary school seats available to girls is reduced even further. 

The Catholic hierarchy swears it does not discriminate against women and even goes so far as to believe it promotes women’s equality.  I, therefore, would like to issue this challenge to every bishop who has a minor seminary: Admit girls into your minor seminary.  If the minor seminary offers the strongest secondary education, that should not be exclusive to males.  If attendance at minor seminary carries no requirement to attend major seminary in pursuit of ordination, then there is no reason other than blatant sexism to bar girls from attending the top secondary schools in a diocese and developing country.

Research shows that the poverty or prosperity of a nation, community or family follows the poverty or prosperity of its women*.  Thus, if you want to end poverty, educate your female children.  Pope Francis, if you truly advocate for the poor, please mandate that minor seminaries be open to both boys and girls so as to afford girls the same educational opportunities as boys.

*https://www.usaid.gov/girl/infographic-ripple-effect

https://www.usaid.gov/letgirlslearn/fact-sheet

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1869/usaid_lgl_poster_web-ready.pdf

On a separate note, I wanted to let readers know that I’ll be speaking at two events this February.  Some kind readers in California have invited me to visit and I have accepted their offers.  Below are the details.  You are most welcome to attend either event.  In both cases there is no charge but both groups accept free will donations.   I will be discussing my spiritual journey into this ministry of writing a questioning blog as well as how I approach putting my spirituality into action as a part of the church.  Hopefully it will be a time of spiritual reflection and growth for everyone involved.  However, as a caveat, I will be flying from Tokyo the night before the first session, so please offer allowances if I seem a bit jet-lagged.

Saturday, February 18, 2017 from 10:00 a.m. to noon – Palo Alto, CA

Location: Mitchell Park Community Center

3700 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, California 94303

Sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center of Palo Alto, www.thomasmerton.org

Sunday, February 19, 2017 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. - Sacramento, CA

Location:  St. Mark’s Methodist Church

2391 St. Mark’s Way, Sacramento, CA 95864

In the neighborhood behind Country Club Plaza.  We will meet in the Fireside Room.

Sponsored by Sacramento Call to Action 

I look forward to meeting some folks who invest time and thought into reading this blog.

The results are in...

Remember that brief 39 essay question survey the Vatican issued a few months back? You know… the one soliciting opinions about the church’s teachings on human sexuality and marriage to act as input to this October’s Synod on the Family.  Well, the Vatican has compiled and released its preliminary findings from the survey in a document called an instrumentum laboris.  Literally translated from Latin as…and we know the Vatican is all about literal Latin translations… granting us, O Lord, we pray, to hear about impoverished Jesus having an oblation in a gallant chalice held by his holy and venerable hands on a regular basis…  But, I digress.  Literally translated, instrumentum laboris means “instrument of labor”, basically a tool.

If you don’t want me to spoil your pleasure reading the 85 page report yourself, then stop reading now.  However, if you don’t want to invest numerous irretrievable hours of your life reading a report that could have been written without surveying a single person, you might prefer reading this summary instead.

When it was first issued, I wrote this about the survey in a November 2, 2013 blog article, “…do not place too much hope that the Vatican seeking your opinion means the Vatican will actually heed your advice.  It might again just inspire the Vatican to write another really long document in Latin explaining why you are wrong.”

It turns out that statement was prescient other than the Vatican crowd did disappoint by writing the original report in Italian rather than Latin.  Don’t despair.  We can still hope that some dreadfully long academic admonition in Latin emerges from the Synod itself.

To be fair, amidst the 85 pages of “We are right so how do we get these stubborn, misguided idiots to follow us…”, there were 2 entire sentences acknowledging the hierarchy’s lack of credibility as a moral authority since its culture enables criminal sexual abuse of children (paragraph 75).  And there was a half sentence which came dangerously close to acknowledging cultural sexism, “In some places characterized by a somewhat sexist cultural tradition, there exists a certain lack of respect towards women…”  (paragraph 55)

Don’t fret though.  The guys in Rome were not speaking of their own overt institutional sexist culture but the “somewhat” sexist secular culture in certain geographical regions only.  Vatican-originated sexism seems to be getting brasher as the idolized pope Francis recently boldly evaded Italian journalist Franca Giansoldati’s compelling questions about women by making sexist jokes.  For example, Giansoldati was trying to get Francis to be specific about these greater church roles for women he often touts by asking if Frank might appoint women to lead any Vatican departments.  Francis felt that serious question merited this response, “Well, priests often end up under the sway of their housekeepers.” 

Help me understand, Francis.  What message were you trying to convey about women and why did you think evoking the image of a stereotype rooted in both sexism and clericalism would convey it?

Anyway, here’s a summary of the report.  Brace yourself for the insightful void of insight:

1. Unmarried, childless, clerical men, often lacking healthy intimate relationships, who like to parade in bejeweled gowns, know more about relationships, marriage, and child rearing than people who are actually married or have children.
2. Said men are right, were right and will always be right.
3. If you disagree with the hierarchy, you must be ignorant, stubborn or misguided and will be labeled “lost” even if you have a better grasp of the gospel messages than hierarchical leaders and consider them lost.  Please see item (2).
4. Any information you provided through the survey was just to help them help you by “enlightening” you about your sinful ignorance in more “loving” and effective ways.  See item (2).
5. If people have difficulty accepting what the hierarchy teaches, it must either be a problem of how the hierarchy expresses its teachings or how you receive it because the teachings themselves are, did I mention this yet….”right.”  See item (2).
6. Gender studies that unmask the hierarchy’s sexism and misogyny are evil due to them inspiring people to question item (2).
7. Information and facts are your enemy unless they are filtered through Vatican approved spin-doctors.  They cause you to realize when the hierarchy is wrong and again, please see item (2).
8. If anything inspires you to question item (2), it is evil.
9. By studying science and nature, people have figured out that the hierarchy’s invented “natural law” notion is, much like this term, qui fabricati (fabricated..made up).  Since this is confounding the hierarchy’s ability to confound nature, rather than correct themselves…because please see item (2) above…they might need to consider inventing a new slogan.
10. Life situations that do not align with the hierarchy’s romanticized, academic, theological musings must be miserable because if they aren’t, it might lead to contradicting the immovable premises set forth in item (2) above.
11. Model your marriage after the Holy Family….you know, the family that procreated without having sex.
12. If the hierarchy feels you are unworthy to receive communion because of your marital and/or sexual practices, you need to just accept that they do this for your own good and overlook the hypocrisy of the sexual escapades and/or crimes of the men consecrating the hosts and ordaining the men who consecrate the hosts.
13. Despite the gospel indicating Jesus came for the sinner, the hierarchy perpetuates the notion that communion is only for the worthy, and hierarchical leaders will, of course, define who is worthy…please see item (2). 

I offer this as food for thought.  The morning my mom died I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and she responded, “I want…I want…oh, what is that thing called…I WANT THE CHILD THAT IS MEDICINE!!!”  That woman could barely breathe or think clearly but she about blew my hair back barking with fierce certainty that she wanted the Eucharist…the child that is medicine.

Gentlemen of Rome, please take note from my dying mother.   Communion is medicine for the misbehaving (that is all of us) not a treat for the well-behaved.  Who then that desires communion should be denied it?

By the way, I’m not surprised by the report; I could have written it last November before the first response was submitted.  I would call it a vastate labore (wasted effort) rather than instrumentum laboris (instrument of labor).

As I mentioned in my previous blog article, the hierarchy thinks it is married to the church (the people of God).  With this example of the hierarchy’s unhealthy marital relationship “dialogue” practices…asking questions for the sole purpose of gaining ammunition to prove your spouse is wrong…should the hierarchy  perhaps gaze in the mirror or at theology and Canon Law more than at T.V.s, newspapers, the internet, gender studies, secular governments, science or smartphones when pondering the underlying causes of strained interpersonal relationships? 

Marriage isn’t about who is right and who is wrong.  It is not a True/False quiz.  It is about learning, sharing, bending and being together in love.  My dear brothers in the hierarchy, as long as you set yourself above and apart, how can you be credible examples of or proponents for marital love?